Murder by Death

Murder by Death

Murder by Death is an American rock and indie group from Bloomington, United States, active since 2000. The band is associated with indie rock, death country, alt.country and alternative rock, and its sound also includes instrumentals and gothic elements.

The group forms in Bloomington, Indiana, in 2000 under the name Little Joe Gould. Its early lineup consists of Adam Turla on guitar, Sarah Balliet on cello, Alexander Schrodt on percussion, Vincent Edwards on keyboards and Matt Armstrong on bass. The name later changes to Murder by Death, taken from the 1976 Robert Moore film of the same name.

Balliet remains one of the two founding members in the band’s later lineup, alongside Turla, and her cello is a constant feature of the group’s music. The band also uses electric cello in live performances. Its style often centres on dark themes, with recurring references to whiskey, the Devil and Western imagery.

The group releases its first studio album, Like the Exorcist, but More Breakdancing, in 2002, followed by seven more studio albums. Its second album, Who Will Survive, and What Will Be Left of Them?, is a concept record about the Devil waging war on a small village in Mexico. The 2012 album Bitter Drink, Bitter Moon reaches number 76 on the Billboard 200, which is its highest-charting release.

Before the name change, the band self-releases the Little Joe Gould EP in 2001 and contributes “I’m Afraid of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” to the TEAM AV compilation Foreign Nationals in early 2002. One of its early live appearances is at The Red Herring in Urbana, Illinois, where a show with DMS leads to further booking help through TEAM AV. Around the same period, the band meets Geoff Rickly of Thursday, who introduces it to Alex Saavedra of Eyeball Records.