A statement from the
London pub rock group described Masters’s passing as ‘sudden’ and a ‘huge shock to the band and family’
Barrie Masters, frontman of
British pub rock band Eddie and the Hot Rods, has died aged 63. A statement posted to the group’s social media suggested that Masters’s passing was unexpected, describing the “sudden news” as a “huge shock to the band and family”.
Masters was a founding member of the band, which formed on Canvey Island in 1975. A year later, the Sex Pistols would play their first London show in support of the pub rock group, smashing the latter’s equipment. “Afterwards, I gave [John Lydon] a little slap and told him, you don’t do that to another band’s gear,” Masters recounted in a fanzine interview. That summer, the group began their commercial rise, with a single and album both named Teenage Depression finding chart success.