The Boomtown Rats’ co founder Garry Roberts has died aged 72, the band have confirmed.
The band led by singer Bob Geldof, announced this news via a statement with “great grief”. They also extended their sympathies to Roberts’ family and friends.
Roberts co founded the band alongside Bob Geldof, which went on to achieve huge success from 1977 onwards.
It was reported that Garry Roberts played an integral part in the band changing their name from the Nightlife Things. Roberts reportedly threatened to quit the band unless their changed it.
The band members eventually settled on the Boomtown Rats, after Geldof read a phrase in US protest singer Woody Guthrie’s autobiography ‘Bound For Glory’.
“Safe travels Gaz”
The Boomtown Rats confirmed the sad news regarding Roberts’ death via this statement shared via their social media platforms.
“The remaining members of the band, Pete, Bob, Simon, Darren and Al extend their deepest sympathy to his family and friends”, they said.
The band continued, “On a clear Spring evening in 1975, in a pub in Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin, Garry became THE founding member of what turned out to be a great rock’n’roll band, driven largely by that sound of his, a storm of massive considered noise that punched out from his overtaxed amplifiers; and which animated not just the rest of the group but audiences he played to around the world”.
“For fans he was The Legend – and he was. For us he was Gazzer, the guy who summed up the sense of who The Rats are”.
“We have known Garry since we were children and so we feel strangely adrift without him tonight. “Safe travels Gaz”.
“Thanks for everything mate”, they concluded. “Bob Geldof, Pete Briquette, Simon Crowe with Darren Beale and Alan Dunne”.
