The Pogues drummer Andrew Ranken dies aged 72 as band pays tribute to ‘a true friend and brother’

Pogues drummer Andrew Ranken dies at 72; The bandmates are remembered today as “a true friend and brother”.

The drummer performed with the band between 1983 and 1996, and returned between 2001 and 2014.

He was featured on some of their most successful and acclaimed albums, including the single Fairytale Of New York and the album Rum, Sodomy And The Lash.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the Pogues said: ‘It is with deep sadness that we announce the death of Andrew Ranken, drummer, founding member and heartthrob of The Pogues.

‘Andrew, thank you for everything, for your friendship, for your intelligence, for your generous spirit and of course for the music, you are a true friend and brother forever.

‘Our thoughts and love are with his family at this sad and difficult time.’

Known by the pseudonym ‘The Clobberer’, Londoner Ranken not only played drums but also provided harmonica and vocals for the Pogues.

Other pieces he played included the Pogues’ rendition of The Irish Rover, which also featured Dirty Old Town and The Dubliners.

Pictured from left to right are the Pogues Philip Chevron, Andrew Ranken, Shane MacGowan and James Fearnley at the Brixton Academy in London in December 2010.

Praising online posts from fans included the comment: ‘He was such a musical force and from what I’ve read he was quite an upstanding man’, while another fan wrote: ‘The world is running out of Pogues and it’s so sad. RIP.’

And writer Siobhan MacGowan, sister of former Pogues frontman Shane MacGowan, shared on X: ‘Andrew was such an important part of the story. A band of brothers and an incredibly talented and unique drummer. ‘May he rest in peace.’

Shane MacGowan died aged 65 in November 2023 after suffering viral encephalitis, a life-threatening condition that causes brain swelling, and being in and out of Dublin’s St Vincent’s Hospital for months.

MacGowan, who performed a duet with the late Kirsty MacColl in the 1987 Christmas classic Fairytale Of New York, was known in his heyday in the 1980s for his hard-partying lifestyle, slurred speech, missing teeth and onstage meltdowns.

Ranken released his own charity single in 2013 in aid of St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney, east London.

The track Take Me Down To St Joe featured Ranken on lead vocals, backed by rhythm and blues band Mysterious Wheels, as well as guests singer Nikki Akinjinmi and trumpeter Dan Gale-Hayes.

Speaking of the release at the time, Ranken described how he suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and attended a rehabilitation course at nearby Homerton Hospital.

A nurse from St Joseph’s also attended that day, and Ranken and her group offered the song to help raise money and awareness for services at the hospice.

Andrew Ranken was photographed playing drums for the Pogues at a concert in Reading in 1985.

The Pogues are pictured in the 1980s; Ranken is left of center in the front row

Tributes to Andrew Ranken were shared on X, including from the Pogues and Siobhan MacGowan, sister of the band’s former frontman Shane MacGowan.

Ranken has also played with other bands such as hKippers and Municipal Waterboard, alongside EastEnders star Paul Bradley, who plays Nigel Bates in the BBC soap.

The changing Pogues lineup has included Ranken, MacGowan, Spider Stacy, Jem Finer, James Fearnley, Terry Woods, Darryl Hunt and other musicians over the years.

MacGowan became involved in the burgeoning punk movement in 1970s England and occasionally played in a band called Millwall Chainsaws with future bandmates Stacy and Finer after MacGowan and Stacy met in the toilet at a Ramones concert in 1977.

Fearnley, a guitarist in MacGowan’s band The Nips, joined the trio, and thanks to Stacy’s name suggestion, the band Pogue Mahone was formed.

The new band gave its first concert in 1982. The band reached their critical peak with 1985’s Rum, Sodomy And The Lash, and their commercial peak three years later with If I Should Fall From Grace With God.

The Pogues fired MacGowan in 1991 due to his increasingly untrustworthy behavior.

Following the Pogues’ disbandment in 1996, the three remaining long-term members – Stacy, Ranken, and Hunt – played together briefly as The Vendettas.

MacGowan formed his own band, The Popes, and has toured extensively before. He appeared again with The Pogues in 2001 and continued to tour with the band for several years, although no new music was recorded.

The band’s lead guitarist, Philip Chevron (second from left), died in 2013, aged 56, after a battle with cancer.

The Pogues received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Meteor Irish Music Awards in 2006 – pictured left to right: Darryl Hunt, Spider Stacy, Terry Woods and Andrew Ranken

Shane MacGowan was seen singing with the Pogues again at the Rock In Idro event in Bologna, Italy, in May 2014, with Andrew Ranken on drums and Darryl Hunt on guitar.

Guitarist Philip Chevron, who joined the band in 1984, died in 2013 at the age of 56 after a battle with cancer.

He was treated for head and neck cancer in 2007 and was later given a clean bill of health.

The following year, he toured the United States with The Pogues and managed to sing his own song, Thousands Are Sailing, at each show.

In May 2013, it was announced that the cancer had returned and was ‘terminal’ after he was told that surgery on the tumor carried too much risk.

His last public appearance was at the Olympia Theater for a fundraiser in August of the same year.

Another notable member of the band was Caitlin O’Riordan, who played bass guitar and provided background vocals for the Pogues from 1983 to 1986.

In 1982, he was invited by MacGowan to join his newly formed band, Pogue Mahone, and appeared on the band’s first two albums, Red Roses for Me and Rum Sodomy And The Lash, before leaving in 1986.

In 1983, O’Riordan became the singer of Darryl Hunt’s jazz band Pride of the Cross. O’Riordan became romantically involved with Elvis Costello in 1985 while he was producing the Pogues’ album. They divorced in 2002.

Pogues drummer Andrew Ranken, who has died at the age of 72, is seen performing at Terminal 5 in New York City on March 17, 2011.

Fairytale Of New York was written as a duet for O’Riordan and MacGowan, but the band eventually recorded it with MacColl, who died at the age of 41 after being struck by a speedboat off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico, in December 2000.

MacColl’s ex-husband and father of her two sons, Steve Lilywhite, said on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy last December that he believed there had been a ‘cover-up’.

He claimed the tragedy could be traced directly to billionaire Guillermo González Nova, who was once one of Mexico’s richest men and owned a 31ft speedboat.

González Nova was on board and the only person licensed to operate it.

The Mexican supermarket tycoon, a billionaire who died in 2009, was accused of paying deckhand José Cen Yam, then 26, to be the ‘fall man’ in the crash.

There were allegations that Cen Yam later drunkenly told friends that he took the blame with the promise of cash and a house in Cozumel, where his boss had a vacation home.

Cen Yam avoided jail for premeditated murder by paying a $90 (£61) fine despite being held responsible for Kirsty’s death.

Mr Lillywhite said ‘nobody believed’ he was driving the boat and that Guillermo González Nova had organized a cover-up plan to avoid facing an expensive lawsuit from Kirsty’s grieving family.

The Pogues’ Shane MacGowan performs with Kirsty MacColl in 1987, the year they first released the Christmas classic Fairytale Of New York.

He said: ‘They said a little boy was driving but nobody believes it.

‘I guess they didn’t want to make a huge case because he was one of the richest men in Mexico.’

Cen Yam, who was tracked down by the Mail On Sunday newspaper last December, insisted he was the one driving the boat.

González insisted that Nova’s family ‘never pressured me to confess to anything I didn’t do.’

He said: ‘No, it was me. ‘I’ve always told the truth about this.’

Asked whether Nova was actually at the helm, Gonzalez shook his head and said: ‘Absolutely not.’

When asked, she added through tears: ‘I’m not ashamed of it. It was an accident. ‘I don’t think it’s my fault.’