The musician, who played with Devo for a decade, had been battling cancer.
Alan Myers, the third and most prominent drummer of the band Devo, has died, according to a tweet by drummer and current Devo member Josh Freese. Myers had been battling cancer.
"Alan Myers was a drummer of incomparable talent, a human metronome that drove the herky jerky percolation of Devo," band co-founder Gerald Casale told Billboard, confirming the news. "He was an irreplacable component of the Devo sound. It was a joy playing with him for 9 years. I begged him not to quit in 1986."
Myers joined Devo in 1976 and left a decade later. He can be heard on the New Wave band’s biggest hit, 1980’s “Whip It,” which reached No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Myers also appears in the song’s iconic video, joining his bandmates in black, sleeveless turtlenecks, and their trademark headgear, where he is shown playing a set of Synare 3 drum synthesizers.