1979–1987: The Gun Club and the Cramps In August 1979 Powers became acquainted with
Jeffrey Lee Pierce while waiting in line for a
Pere Ubu show; during that initial meeting Pierce talked Powers into starting a new band with him. As Powers had no interest in singing, Pierce taught him to play guitar using
open tuning, and they formed
the Gun Club (settling on the name after one show as "Creeping Ritual"). In late 1980, not long after the new band had started gigging, Powers was asked to join
the Cramps (then newly relocated to Los Angeles), resulting in his departure from the Gun Club prior to the recording of their debut album
Fire of Love. It was upon joining the Cramps that the "Kid Congo Powers" moniker came into being, synthesized from the label copy of a
Santería candle by frontman
Lux Interior to give the new member his "Cramps name". Though Powers had wanted to incorporate his real first name Brian into the new stage name, the Cramps nixed the idea to avoid any associations with founding guitarist
Bryan Gregory, who Powers was replacing. touring Australia with them the following year,
1986–1996: Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the Gun Club reunion, Congo Norvell Powers joined Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds in
Berlin, Germany, September 1986 initially as a short-term replacement for
Hugo Race. Powers ultimately recorded and toured with the Bad Seeds for four years. During April 1990 Powers amicably left the Bad Seeds to rejoin The Gun Club, which he had reconvened with Jeffrey Lee Pierce in 1989. Powers was active with the Gun Club until their 1996 dissolution, and Pierce died in 1996. Parallel to his final stint in the Gun Club, Powers formed
Congo Norvell with vocalist Sally Norvell. The band explored a fusion of cabaret and rock styles from 1993 to 1998, and released three full-length albums.
1997–2009: The Pink Monkey Birds and Dracula Boots For his next project, The Pink Monkey Birds, Powers initially collaborated with New York City guitarist Jack Martin, Then, in 2009, Powers recruited Kiki Solis on bass, Ron Miller on drums, and Jesse Roberts on guitar and keyboards. The band moved to In The Red Records and released the much acclaimed debut studio album,
Dracula Boots, which was called a "return to form."
Dracula Boots was coproduced by Jason Ward and recorded in a former high school gymnasium in Harveyville, Kansas, which is now an artists' retreat called "The Harveyville Project."
Dracula Boots consists of numerous genres, including southern soul, 60s Chicano rock, and psychedelic imagery. British magazine
N.M.E. wrote: "In short, on
Dracula Boots Kid Congo Powers has once again found the juicy jugular of soul-fired, funked-up rock'n'roll. You'd be foolish not to take a bite."
2010–present: Gorilla Rose In 2011, Kid Congo and The Pink Monkey Birds released their second album,
Gorilla Rose, which was also on the In The Red Records label.
Eamon Carr of
The Dublin Evening Herald said of
Gorilla Rose, "Having a working band is paying off.
Gorilla Rose elevates seedy go-go weirdness to the level of high art." Powers returned to Australia for the first time in 25 years—when he toured with Cave's Bad Seeds project—at the end of January 2015. The band played at
Melbourne's "Summersalt Festival" and the
Sydney Festival. has been an evolving unit since their earliest albums, and as of 2016 the touring members are bassist Kiki Solis, drummer Ron Miller, and guitarist Mark Cisneros (Des Demonas, Hammered Hulls,
Make Up). Kid Congo Powers was profiled by
Vogue in late April 2016 while promoting his band's fourth album. In the interview, he was noted for his iconic sense of punk style and he mentions the aesthetic importance of tying the look of the band to match the music. For me, the whole art of being a band—and I do think it's an art—is to create a whole world, a whole language, that is every aspect.
The Gun Club, we kind of made it up as we went along, but what I learned from
The Cramps and
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds is that they created a whole uncompromising world, and it's all kind of sprung out of that. You want to communicate with people, and I think through all aesthetics—artwork, the look, and music—you get to keep your world, and you get to let people enter your world and live in your world with you. == Personal life ==