Mick Moore 6 June 1959 – 5 December 2024

Mick Moore died of pneumonia in Leicester Hospital on 5 December, after being admitted for a number of health issues.

A talented bassist and songwriter best known for his work with Avenger and Blitzkrieg, Mick was born in Leicester and was playing in a local band called Axe Victim when his bandmate Ian Jones left to join Blitzkrieg, taking with him a song they’d written called ‘Bitch’. “I’ll be honest,” he said last year, “the way that song originated was Jonesy basically screwed up playing ‘Hocus Pocus’, but he screwed it up to such an extent that you could get away with it, you know? It sounded alright...” With input from Blitzkrieg guitarist Jim Sieroto and lyrics by vocalist Brian Ross a new song ‘Blitzkrieg’ – and a legend – was born. Mick also then joined the band between the recording of their ‘Buried Alive’ b/w ‘Blitzkrieg’ 7” in February 1981 and its release on Neat Records in May.

Avenger - the 'Blood Sports' line-up (left to right: Les Cheetham, Ian Swift, Gary Young and Mick). Pic by Pete Cronin, courtesy of Neat archives

When Blitzkrieg split at the end of the year Mick moved to London to look for a new band. With nothing really happening he moved to Newcastle to join Brian in Unter Den Linden, and within a short time this sowed the seeds of Avenger.

After an appearance on Neat Records’ ‘One Take No Dubs’ 12” single with ‘Hot ‘N’ Heavy Express’ and the ‘Too Wild To Tame’ 45 – a song Mick had originally written as the follow-up Blitzkrieg single – Brian moved on to Satan, while Mick helmed Avenger for two albums – 1984’s ‘Blood Sports’ and the following year’s ‘Killer Elite’. In the meantime, in December 1984, Mick played bass on Brian Ross’s Blitzkrieg album ‘A Time Of Changes’. Originally conceived as a studio project, the album soon gave way to a full band, and Mick was the bassist at their first gig at The Royal Standard in Walthamstow on 3 May 1985.

The two Micks - Procter and Moore - at Blitzkrieg's 3 May 1985 show (pic:John Tucker)

Avenger’s second LP ‘Killer Elite’ featured American guitarist Greg Reiter, and through him the band set up a US club tour in the early months of 1986, although this hit the buffers when frontman Ian Swift broke his leg onstage. Mick wasn’t such a fan of the band’s more hard-edged approached, favouring the more harmonic approach of the likes of Dokken and Y&T, and once Avenger eventually made it back to the UK they split up on their return.

Avenger make the cover of Lead Weight

Although Mick wasn’t short of ideas and worked with a number of other musicians he wasn’t to record again. Returning to Leicester he dabbled in management with Masque and was also involved in a short-lived rehearsal studio. In 2005 he reformed Avenger, playing a slot at the Headbangers Open Air festival in Germany and opening for Y&T on their UK tour, before retiring from music, spending later years nursing his second wife Kelly through her terminal cancer.

Back in 1984, after Malcolm Dome had given ‘Blood Sports’ a drubbing in Kerrang! (an unfair review for which he later apologised) I wrote to the band address printed on the album sleeve, just to say how much I enjoyed the LP. What followed was a forty-year friendship which engendered some great times, numerous discussions, and incidents possibly too bizarre to believe. Aside from our enduring friendship I interviewed him a number of times for various articles and releases over the years, and was proud to be a part of ‘Steel On Steel’, a 3CD set released by Dissonance in January 2024, which features pretty much everything Mick recorded with Avenger, as well as a live show from the US tour: a fitting tribute to his talents both as a musician and a composer.

Our last get-together, on Mick's 65th birthday

Mick is survived by his partner Francesca, and Danielle and Kieran, his children from his first marriage.

John Tucker, December 2024