Bad Lieutenant

Biography

Formed in 2007 by guitarist Bernard Sumner, Bad Lieutenant – indeed named after Abel Ferrara’s 1992 film starring Harvey Keitel – featured guitarist Phil Cunningham and vocalist Jake Evans. Never Cry Another Tear, the debut album from Bad Lieutenant, rings with familiar joys – playing of beautifully observed minimalism and a voice of wonderfully understated north-western England soul. Bad Lieutenant is built on this sainted musical heritage – centring on Sumner’s voice and guitar and also with Stephen Morris drumming on some tracks. The album also features Phil Cunningham, a man familiar from the Britpop band Marion and the most recent incarnation of New Order. Bad Lieutenant’s blend of youth and experience, of local roots and musical futurism, is perhaps reflected in their favoured rehearsal location – at Morris’s hilltop farm where a full-size BBC Dalek (from the classic British TV series “Doctor Who”) sits in the corner of the rehearsal room