“We are incredibly sad. Our Darryl passed away in London yesterday afternoon,” read a statement shared across the Pogues’ social media channels. A cause of death was not mentioned in the mourning note. Shane McGowan, lead singer and former mastermind of the Irish band, wrote on his own account that Hunt was “a really nice guy, great friend and a great bass player. We all miss him.”
The London-based punk rockers played loosely in the early 1980s in the pubs of the large Irish community around Earls Court. The declared goal was to put the great heritage of Gaelic folk music in a contemporary guise. Tin Whistle and Pogo should go together from now on.
Under the aegis of frontman McGowan, their first album “Red Roses For Me” was released in 1984. The music magazine spoke of the “Green Island Revival” at the time. In 1985 the successful LP “Rum, Sodomy & The Lash” was released. A year later, Darryl Hunt joined the large formation, which, as is well known, rarely left a good drop of alcohol. McGowan revealed in the Julian Temple biopic that he started drinking when he was preschool, back then in the Irish countryside.
Darryl Hunt was less in the limelight and stayed with The Pogues until the band’s disintegration after the album Pogue Mahone. After their final dissolution in 1996, Hunt worked as a DJ behind the mixing desk throughout Europe.
He formed the band The Vendettas with his Pogues partner Spider Stacy. Also at the reunion of The Pogues was on stage with the old fellows. In 2009 he released their second album, Surrounded By Mountains, with the band project Bish.
Darryl Hunt was 72 years old.
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