Vale Mi-Sex’s Kevin Stanton

Kevin Stanton, founding guitarist and songwriter with Mi-Sex has died at the age of 61 in his sleep.

He had long suffered from cervical spondylosis, affecting his spine and neck, which saw him take breaks from the band as toting a heavy guitar onstage and leaping about only worsened the condition.

Last year he had surgery for a bowed neck, on his back to fix his titanium insert, and to fix a nerve that would allow his left hand and arm to function again.

By the end of his life, he needed the aid of a frame for mobility. He had just returned from a trip to France to confer with surgeons.

“He brought the dark, dark edge to Mi-Sex that we all loved and were intensely intrigued by,” the band’s keyboard player Murray Burns posted.

A heavy metal fan, Stanton also delivered the harder-edged guitar and sensibility to the band’s euro-synth sounds.

Mi-Sex came together in New Zealand in early 1978 when Stanton, Burns, bassist Don Martin and Richard Hodgkinson – all of whom played in EMI-signed Fragments of Time – teamed up with singer Steve Gilpin.

It was Stanton who suggested their name from the Ultravox track My Sex.

By August 1978, Mi-Sex had moved to Sydney where they were signed to CBS Records (now Sony Music Entertainment). They rise arose when rock music was inspired by MTV to be theatrical and colourful, with Euro visuals. Mi-Sex plugged into the time with futuristic-sounding hits (co-written by Stanton) likeComputer Games, People and Space Race, and high-charting albums as Graffiti Games and Space Race.

Computer Games, which was #1 in Australia, also opened the international market for them after it went Top 10 in Austria, Canada, France, Italy, South Africa and West Germany. They followed it up with a number of international tours.

In 1988, the band went into a hiatus while Stanton moved to London to work with Fairlight and produce movie soundtracks.

They reunited in 2011 for a Christchurch earthquake appeal (Stanton was too ill to participate) and last year released an album without him.

In his post, Murray Burns said, “Only last Sunday we chatted, arranging times together in the not too distant future, hoping for a new chapter in our creative partnership.

“Kevin really opened up the door to songwriting for me. He was my teacher in so many ways and gave me the confidence to explore my music and believe in my ideas.”

Stanton is survived by his wife Aleta, and children Nyran, Georgia, Miki, Benjamin and Lenore.

Original singer Steve Gilpin died on January 6, 1992, in Southport Hospital after a car crash.