McGeoch has been cited as a major influence by numerous guitarists.
Johnny Marr from
the Smiths said: "When I was in my teens, there weren't many new guitar players who were interesting and of their time.[...] John McGeoch. [His work] was really innovative guitar music which was pretty hard to find back then. To a young guitar player like myself, those early Banshees singles were just class".
Simon Goddard wrote that McGeoch was a "significant inspiration" on Marr. Marr also stated: "The music he made with the Banshees … the word imperial was made for that music". The Radiohead guitarist
Ed O'Brien also cited him as a "big influence", and one of the "great guitarists [who] weren't lead guitarists". He said that McGeoch was "responsible for some of the greatest riffs ever ... 'Spellbound', 'Christine', 'Happy House'... His riffs are so elegant and once you learn how to play them there is almost a zen like quality to the sound and movement of your hands. It reminds me of the beauty in Johnny Marr's playing." For Radiohead's 2003 single "
There There", their producer,
Nigel Godrich, encouraged Greenwood to play like McGeoch in Siouxsie and the Banshees.
Dave Navarro of
Jane's Addiction said that he "always loved all the different guitarists that have been in Siouxsie and the Banshees".
John Frusciante of
Red Hot Chili Peppers named McGeoch in his primary influences: "[McGeoch] is such a guitarist I aspire to be. He has a new brilliant idea for each song. I usually play on the stuff he does on Magazine's albums and Siouxsie & the Banshees's like
Juju." Frusciante praised him as a musician "who played in more textural ways" and who made "interesting music". Frusciante "bought an
SG, because I'm a big fan of John McGeoch from Siouxsie and the Banshees and Magazine. When I'd play along with his records using a Strat, the parts sounded too thin and weak for the simple power of his playing. In learning the SG, I had to teach myself to bend in a brand-new way and use new muscles to do vibrato."
The Edge of
U2 cited McGeoch as an influence and chose the Siouxsie and the Banshees song "Christine" for a compilation made for
Mojo. Interviewed in March 1987, the Edge said his "background is much more
Tom Verlaine and John McGeoch".
Robert Smith of
the Cure praised McGeoch's guitar part on "Head Cut", including it in his five favourite guitar tracks: "This is really harsh funk in a weird way – clever choppy chords."
Roddy Frame of
Aztec Camera praised McGeoch saying, "he chose very simple lines over anything bombastic,... the song came first and he tried to complement that". In a playlist,
William Reid of
the Jesus and Mary Chain selected two of McGeoch's songs, "Spellbound" by the Banshees and "Definitive Gaze" by Magazine.
Steve Albini of
Big Black praised McGeoch for his guitar playing with Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees, qualifying as "great choral swells, great scratches and buzzes, great dissonant noise and great squealy death noise. What a guy" and further commenting: "anybody can make notes. There's no trick. What is a trick and a good one is to make a guitar do things that don't sound like a guitar at all. The point here is stretching the boundaries". Albini also stated: "He was an innovator with the pure sound of his guitar... I admire the economy of his playing. He made very precise choices that were usually beautifully simple".
Mark Arm of
Mudhoney "loved [McGeoch's] work with Magazine and Siouxsie And The Banshees". Arm praised McGeoch's musical approach, saying: "He's got a very unique style... He's a very original thinker and not an 'overplayer' – the little bits where he does a solo are really innovative and super-cool... Space is key, a secret ingredient for musicians which shouldn't be a secret. Knowing when to step back – John had that ability".
Guided by Voices's guitarist
Doug Gillard said that "McGeoch... was a big influence."
Terry Bickers of
the House of Love cited him as one of his favourite musicians.
James Dean Bradfield of the
Manic Street Preachers said that McGeoch was "slightly avant-garde. He was a genius". Bradfield added that McGeoch's guitar-playing makes "you realize you were listening to a new version of rock and roll". Andy Cairns of
Therapy? said that the guitar playing of McGeogh on the Banshees'
Juju "is so inspiring".
Stuart Braithwaite of
Mogwai qualified McGeoch as "the best post-punk guitarist", saying, "he played like no-one else, totally distinct and with unyielding imagination. I hear his influence everywhere to this day", and dubbed him "a total legend". In 2008, the BBC aired an hour-long radio documentary on McGeoch's life and work, titled
Spellbound: The John McGeoch Story. In April 2022,
The Light Pours Out of Me, an authorised biography of McGeoch by Rory Sullivan-Burke, was released by
Omnibus Press. It features interviews with guitarists Greenwood, Marr, Frusciante and singers Siouxsie and Devoto. ==Personal life==