The Absence
Memoirs of a Banshee Drummer
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Remove from wishlist failed.
Please try again later
Adding to library failed
Please try again
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
LIMITED TIME OFFER
Get 3 months for £0.99/mo
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.
The Absence
Narrated by:
Budgie
Buy Now for £12.99
-
Narrated by:
-
Budgie
-
By:
-
Budgie
About this listen
But before he was Budgie, Peter Clarke was a boy growing up in working class St Helens in the 1960s. The loss of his mum at a young age created the absence that haunts the pages of this book. As a teenager disenchanted with art school in Liverpool, Peter became Budgie and befriended the likes of Jayne Casey, Pete Burns and other luminaries of the legendary Eric's Club before taking off for London and the big city heat of punk. Budgie's unique technique and musical sensitivity endeared him to the all-female group The Slits, who asked him to play on their debut album Cut. Subsequent touring with former members of the Sex Pistols and others from the post punk aristocracy firmly established Budgie's reputation for innovation.
But the beating heart of this at times painfully honest account of a life often sabotaged is, of course, his long-term position as Siouxsie and the Banshees' drummer and co-writer alongside his ex-wife Siouxsie Sioux. Their creative partnership produced some of the most seductive and celebrated pop music of the decade. Eventually, their personal relationship started to fall apart, with inevitable consequences for both bands. The Absence is bravely unflinching in its dissection of how and why this happened, and powerfully moving in its account of the angels that emerged to heal both these wounds and those of a mother's lost love. A man and musician whose creativity and singular style came to define the goth-pop 1980s, Budgie's life is both fabulously glamorous and a cautionary tale. For the first time the story of the era's most exalted and mysterious bands has been told by one who survived inside the belly of the beast.©2025 Peter Clarke (P)2025 Orion Publishing Group Limited
Listeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
A look inside the heart of a drum god and a behind-the-scenes exposé of one of the most iconic bands in music history (TERRI NUNN)
Given how devoted Budgie was to obliterating himself, and given that the people surrounding him were either unwilling or unable to communicate, it seems miraculous that his memoir exists at all, still more miraculous that the writing is so present, so lucid, and so tender. We feel exactly what it was like to be caught up in the stomach-lurching post punk whirlwind of the late 70s/early 80s. His mother's devastating early death became a kind of engine for his life, propelling him forwards into creativity and exhibitionism even as it held him back emotionally. Lyrical, affectionate and often painfully raw, The Absence is the literary equivalent of what Budgie does behind the drums - the one place, as he says, where he 'can't fake it'. Nothing is faked in this vivid hymn to vulnerability, damage and excess, and the haunting, unforgettable music that came flowing out of it (RUPERT THOMSON)
The Absence lays bare the burden of overcoming guilt, shame, loneliness and the search for validation through art and music - the salves to the universal wounds. Beautifully written, brutally honest, a travelogue of self discovery by one of the most unique artists still reaching new levels of musical experimentation (LYDIA LUNCH)
Having had the blessing of sharing a stage with Budgie, I was immediately struck by both his power and precision and simultaneously his nuanced, sensitive artistry of what he didn't do in the spaces in between beats: in the absence. Budgie's writing is similar to his musical magic. He writes with a gentle fearlessness, honesty and deep awareness. This book is an exploration of the mystery of the absence, for that's where the magic happens (LITTLE ANNIE)
At the heart of The Absence is Budgie's decades-long romance with Siouxsie Sioux, which is both dazzlingly extraordinary and heartbreakingly familiar. Their relationship, burnished by fierce musical talent and harmonious collaboration, is also saddled with complex band politics and savaged by addictions fed by the seductive glare of success . . . but even during their most shocking excesses, it's a compassionate, relatable love story of a boy who lost his mother meeting a girl who lost her father, pursuing the optimistic hope of finding unconditional, uncomplicated love (MIKI BERENYI)
This book is so brutally sad at times its a hard listen. But i have just listened to whole thing in one day as you just have to hear how situations pan out. Its journey of despair and you realise that all is not what it seems. If this were all just a story it would still make a great book.
I stood as a roadie packing the previous bands gear away while the Banshees played there last gig mentioned in this book. All the crews stopped what they were doing to just watch Budgie drum. He was laughing at his kit and doing this crazy wonderful work. It was like watching an angel beat its wings.
If you read this Peter, i just wanted to say you come across as a really decent man. Good luck to you sir.
Exhausting but wonderful memoir.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
The story of a real lost boy
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I hope he has now found happiness and I’m going to miss hearing his voice.
Fascinating memoir
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
fascinating insight
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.