DAMO SUZUKI
Can frontman and free spirit
(1950–2024)
S
ITTING outside
a Munich café in May 1970, Holger Czukay was immediately taken by the sight of Damo Suzuki, wandering along the street while chanting. Czukay turned to drummer Jaki Liebezeit, his Can bandmate, convinced they’d found their new singer. Suzuki accepted the duo’s invitation to join them onstage that night at the Blow Up club, where the itinerant Japanese busker duly improvised his vocals on the spot. This approach would come to define Suzuki’s time with Can, a period that spanned their most celebrated works: Tago Mago (1971), Ege Bamyasi (1972) and Future Days (1973). These albums were marked by his abstract, freeform lyrics that were often impenetrable. He called it “the language of the Stone Age”.