
Pavement share statement following the death of original drummer Gary Young
Earlier today, news broke that Gary Young, Pavement’s original drummer, has died aged 70. The news was confirmed by his wife, Geri Bernstein Young.
Young also appeared on Pavement's 1992 debut album, Slanted And Enchanted, and his last release as a member was the 1992 EP Watery, Domestic, before he was eventually replaced by Steve West. In 1999, Young came back to produce two Major Leagues EP tracks, and he reunited with the band to play two shows in 2010.
An official statement from the band reads: "Garrit Allan Robertson Young put Pavement on the map. He recorded all of our records from the Slay Tracks 7″ through to the Watery, Domestic EP. He did it all in his garage, a studio called Louder Than You Think. Stephen and Spiral knew him from the Stockton punk rock scene and got his phone number from the yellow pages. He made all of their early songs happen as tried to grasp their youthful mayhem and, make sense of it all. That, he did.
He was made to play drums in rock and roll bands. He came from the “Keith Moon school of drummers.” It’s an unofficial school. But, Gary graduated from it with honors."
"Without Gary, many people would not have noticed us," the statement continued. "In all of the best ways, he was a freak show. He was magnetic. He was magical. He was dangerous. We could think of him as an uncle, an older brother that none of us had. But he was a rare breed called Gary aka The Rotting Man."
Earlier this year, a documentary on his life called Louder Than You Think premiered at SXSW.
No cause of death has been revealed.
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