Former Pavement drummer Gary Young has died. A representative of the band confirmed this to online magazine Pitchfork on Wednesday (August 17). He lived to be 70 and played with Pavement from the band’s early days through their 1992 album Watery, Domestic.
Gary Young, whose real name was Garrit Allan Robertson Young, was born on May 3, 1953 in Mamaroneck, New York. From 1989 he played drums with Pavement until he was replaced by Steve West in 1993. He was previously part of the band The Fall Of Christianity.
“In the beginning they didn’t have a drummer, so I invited myself to play drums and next thing I was in the band,” Young recalled to Vice in 2015. “When I first heard it, I didn’t understand it. I told my friends in New York that I had just made this weird record and I don’t really know how to describe it. Three or four years later I realized that we had really done something special.”
Young drummed with Pavement up until their 1992 album Watery, Domestic. He also produced two songs on Pavement’s 1999 EP Major Leagues and joined the band on several dates of their 2010 reunion tour.
In a message shared on Twitter, the band’s frontman Stephen Malkmus recalled Young’s drumming for the band as a “one take and hit record.” In a joint tribute to Pavement, Young was dubbed a “fearless fireball.” “We all loved him and it was life changing to have an amazing weapon to make music with.”
After Pavement, Young also released a series of albums under the Gary Young’s Hospital moniker and released the 2016 EP Malfunction. In 2023, the documentary Louder Than You Think, documenting Young’s life and career, premiered at South by Southwest (SXSW).