Mark Stewart, co-founder and singer of the UK post-punk act The Pop Group, has died at the age of 62.
As a teeanger, Stewart formed The Pop Group alongside guitarist John Waddington, bassist Simon Underwood, guitarist/saxophonist Gareth Sager, and drummer Bruce Smith. Rising from the ashes of punk rock’s first wave, The Pop Group pushed the genre into a far more diverse direction by embracing an explosive fusion of punk, dub, free jazz, and funk. They released two albums — 1979’s Y and 1980’s For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? — before splitting in 1981.
Three decades later, Stewart, Sager, and Smith gave The Pop Group new life. After reforming for a UK tour in 2015, the trio hit the studio with producer Paul Epworth for their first album in 35 years, Citizen Zombie. They then embarked on a more extensive reunion tour that spanned much of 2016 and 2017.
The Pop Group’s music inspired a generation of musicians, including Nine Inch Nails, Sonic Youth, Primal Scream, and Nick Cave, who, after attending their concert, described it as “one of those moments where you just feel the cogs of your mind shift and your life is kind of irreversibly changed forever.”
Over the years, Stewart also put out a number of solo records and collaborated with the likes of Trent Reznor, Massive Attack, Tricky, Richard Hell, and The Bug. His most recent project, VS, was released in 2022.