Steve Priest of The Sweet passed away on Thursday, after being in declining health for some time. He was 72.
Priest was the bassist for the British glam rock band, whose hits ranged from 1972's "Little Willy" to "Love Is Like Oxygen" in 1978. Priest moved to California in the 1980s. Following the death of original frontman Brian Connolly, he led one of the two authorized versions of the band. U.K.-based Andy Scott had the other.
Scott posted on the The Sweet's Facebook page, "Though his health was failing I never envisaged this moment. Never. My thoughts are with his family." Tabbing him as "the best bass player I ever played with," Andy recalls, "The noise we made as a band was so powerful. From that moment in the summer of 1970 when we set off on our musical odyssey the world opened up and the roller-coaster ride started!"
From 2018 interview, the late Steve Priest talked about the evolution of The Sweet: "Well, we reinvented ourselves twice. We were an ordinary cover band doing our... some of our own stuff before [producers] Chinn and Chapman came along. When Chinn and Chapman came along, we started using their songs. It didn't last very long. People would think that glam lasted for 10 years. It didn't; it lasted 18 months. When... then... we all decided to just get back to normal and just be a rock and roll band."