Robbie Bachman, the drummer of Bachman-Turner Overdrive, dies aged 69
Robbie Bachman, the founding drummer of the 1970s rock group Bachman-Turner Overdrive, has died at 69. Bachman’s older brother Randy Bachman, who fronted and played guitar for the band, announced the sad news on his official Twitter account yesterday.
“Another sad departure,” he posted. “The pounding beat behind BTO, my little brother Robbie has joined Mum, Dad & brother Gary on the other side. Maybe Jeff Beck needs a drummer! He was an integral cog in our rock ‘n’ roll machine, and we rocked the world together.”
The Bachman brothers grew up together in Winnipeg, Canada, and began jamming to rock music from a young age. The older of the pair, Randy, gave Robbie his first role as drummer, joining him and bassist Fred Turner in the band Brave Belt in 1971. Another Bachman, Tim, joined Brave Belt a year later as a secondary guitarist.
After two unsuccessful albums, Brave Beltwere dropped by their label, but the tenacious group managed to find new representation. With the suggestion from their new management, the band renamed themselves Bachman–Turner Overdrive.
With the same origins lineup, Bachman–Turner Overdrive released their self-titled debut in 1973. The debut under the new handle still failed to garner much in the way of commercial attention, but thankfully, the label stuck with the group for a second LP. Bachman–Turner Overdrive II featured their first top 40 single, ‘Let It Ride,’ peaking at number 23 on the Billboard Hot 100. But it was the album’s second single, ‘Takin’ Care of Business’, that would see them through to global stardom, reaching 12th place on the Hot 100.
In 1974, BTO supplanted previous successes with their third album, Not Fragile, which reached number one in America. The single ‘You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet’ became the group’s biggest chart-topping hit and prophesied subsequent success over the next couple of years.
“We didn’t tell anybody they were wrong or anything was bad or don’t do this. It was basically, have a good time, fun music,” Robbie recalled, looking back at his group’s success in a 2014 interview with the Toronto Star. “Just coming out of the ’70s with the Vietnam War and all the political things going on — in Canada with Trudeau, and Richard Nixon and stuff like that — we just basically had enough of that stuff.”
Sadly, BTO’s flame was short-lived, and by the late 1970s, their influence began to wane. The members began to bicker over conflicted creative direction, leading to Randy’s departure in 1977.
The group continued with replacement singer Jim Clench for a run of underwhelming releases over the late 1970s before their dissolution in 1980. In 1983, Randy returned as the band regrouped for a second wind, but sadly, Robbie wasn’t on board after business and trademark disagreements.
The drummer eventually returned to BTO in 1988, remaining with the group until they disbanded once again in 2005. Randy and Turner revived BTO in 2009 without Robbie, but fortunately, in 2014, he resolved his differences to reunite the classic lineup as they were inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.
Watch the band’s induction below.
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