Peer Johnny Marr from the Smiths said: "Really my generation was all about a guy called John McGeoch, from Siouxsie and the Banshees". Musician and producer Steve Albini praised McGeoch for his guitar playing with Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees, qualifying as "great choral swells, great scratches and buzzes, great dissonant noise and great squealy death noise. What a guy" and further commenting: "anybody can make notes. There's no trick. What is a trick and a good one is to make a guitar do things that don't sound like a guitar at all. The point here is stretching the boundaries". Peer John Frusciante praised him for his work with Magazine and Siouxsie and the Banshees as someone "who played in more textural ways" and who made "interesting music". Frusciante "bought an SG, because I’m a big fan of John McGeoch from Siouxsie and the Banshees and Magazine. When I’d play along with his records using a Strat, the parts sounded too thin and weak for the simple power of his playing. In learning the SG, I had to teach myself to bend in a brand-new way and use new muscles to do vibrato". Peer Ed O'Brien of Radiohead bought a Yamaha SG saying "it’s so great to play... been playing some of my favourite Siouxsie and the Banshees riffs on it. John McGeoch was the guitarist at the time of my favourite Banshees albums... the man responsible for some of the greatest riffs ever .. Spellbound, Christine, Happy House to name a few. [...] his riffs are so elegant and once you learn how to play them there is almost a zen like quality to the sound and movement of your hands. it reminds me of the beauty in Johnny Marr’s playing".