Gordon Moakes grew up in the suburbia known as Milton Keynes. The Moakes’ were not a particularly musical family, but the young Gordy was first drawn to the art in the guise of his school’s band. Unfortunately, he was rejected from playing the trumpet because he still had his first set of teeth! This dream was soon buried, and Gordon continued with his studies unfazed. However, the bug bit again during his teenage years in the form of an iconic voice on the radio: John Peel. Gordy’s older brother owned a bass guitar, so Gordy took advantage of this to teach himself some music. Though left-handed, he chose the standard right-handed style of playing.
By university, Gordy was composing his own songs. He attempted to assemble a band without much success, and so he pursued his degree in creative arts at Bath Spa University, His aim was to become a music journalist, and he dabbled in writing for ‘zines, namely “Conform or Die”. He also designed websites. Oddly enough, both skills would serve him well after he discovered an advert placed in the NME by Kele Okereke and Russell Lissack. Boredom and intrigue drove Gordon to look into the proposition even though he was living quite far away at the time.
He made the trip from Reading to Chingford to meet Kele and Russell, two young men with guitars. Gordon played his best for them. Russell demonstrated a baseline he had written for a song. The part was surprisingly complex but Gordy played the baseline perfectly back to him. Though Kele and Russell had tried out many bass players, Gordy was the first to be able to come close to replicating the part. Although he lived a far distance away, Gordon was selected to be in Bloc Party. This was around 2001.
For quite sometime, Gordon maintained the Bloc Party website and shared his social discourse. In 2005 he was considered the unofficial spokesman for the band and was the band member most frequently interred by the press (around the time).
Gordon stuck with Bloc Party until 2013 contributing to 4 studio albums. However he had another band called Young Legionnaire which included YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO’s Paul Mullen.
Young Legionnaire made 2 EPs and 2 albums from 2010-16. While not officially broken up they are not currently working on any music.
After that Gordy formed a band called Drug Life in Austin, Texas where he lived for a few years. They released the EP The Corporate Body in 2019.
Currently Gordon has just launched a new band called THE NONE. They have yet to release any music but have a couple of gigs coming up in February of 2024.