Drummer Andy Anderson, best known as the drummer for Iggy Pop and the Cure, died Tuesday at the age of 68.
One week after the drummer announced his terminal cancer via Facebook, the musician passed away, with Cure founding member Lol Tolhurst breaking the news on Twitter.
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“Andy Anderson was a true gentleman and a great musician with a wicked sense of humor which he kept until the end, a testament to his beautiful spirit on the last journey. We are blessed to have known him,” Tolhurst wrote Tuesday.
It’s with a heavy heart, I have to report the passing of a Cure brother.
— Lol Tolhurst (@LolTolhurst) February 26, 2019
Andy Anderson was A true gentleman and a great musician with a wicked sense of humor which he kept until the end, a testament to his beautiful spirit on the last journey. We are blessed to have known him.
Anderson joined the Cure in 1983 after Tolhurst switched to keys, and later worked with a number of major artists, including Iggy Pop, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, the Sex Pistols’ Glen Mattlock, Edwin Collins, Peter Gabriel and Isaac Hayes, according to Billboard.
Anderson revealed his diagnosis last week on Facebook, writing: “Hi guy’s, I am and I have Terminal 4 Cancer, and their is no way of returning back from that, it’s totally covering the inside of my body, and I’m totally fine and aware of my situation. I’ve gone for a no resuscitation, with that, I have a next of kin, in place and there is no way I would want them to be looking me as a vegetable, if I were to survived a resuscitation, because it may well involve the possibility of sustaining cracked ribs and Brain Damage, and I would hate to lay that on anyone. Chemotherapy and Radiotherapy will be discussed over the next few days, hopefully I’ll be able to get back to get to you in the next few days about the outcome.”
“No Boo, Hooing, here, just be positive, for me it’s just another life experience and hurdle, that one has to make yet another choice in life,” he added.
“Be cool, I most definitely am and positive about the situation , well that’s it for now, good folk, and thank you all for the well wishes I love them all, and are held very, very close to my heart dearly, and will stay with me for ever, any way, stay well yourselves and chat soon.”
Anderson’s first contributions to the Cure included two cuts off the band’s 1983 singles collection, Japanse Whispers, “Speak My Language” and “The Love Cats” which became the Cure’s first top 10 hit in the U.K., Rolling Stone writes.
Anderson also helped Robert Smith and Tolhurst record the 1984 hit, “The Top.”
The drummer was born in the West Ham neighborhood of London in January 1952. He got his start as a musician teaming up wit members of Hawkwind in their side projects.
More recently, Anderson was working as a solo artist working under the pseudonym AAMuzik on a series of standalone tracks.
