Ric Parnell, the British rock drummer who performed the unlucky Mick Shrimpton in This Is Spinal Tap, and later toured with the band, as effectively performed drums on hits similar to Toni Basil’s “Mickey,” has died. He was 70.
Actor and comic Harry Shearer, who performed Spinal Faucet bass participant Derek Smalls, introduced the information on Sunday, tweeting: “Ric Parnell, our drummer in This Is Spinal Tap, handed away at this time. Nobody ever rocked tougher.”
No explanation for demise or additional particulars got.
Parnell, together with Shearer, Michael McKean, Christopher Visitor, and David Kaff had been a part of the fictional Brit-rock supergroup Spinal Faucet, the topic of the 1984 Rob Reiner mockumentary which charted the band’s decline and makes an attempt to relaunch themselves in America. Outdoors his work with the Faucet, Parnell was a revered session drummer and was a member of British prog-rock band Atomic Rooster and Italian rock band the Tritons.
Born in London in 1951, Parnell was the son of English jazz drummer and musical director Jack Parnell, who was the bandleader on The Muppet Present all through its whole 5 season tv run from 1976 to 1981. Parnell, like his father and two brothers, performed the drums and made a profession in music. Within the early Seventies, he performed for numerous bands to blend success together with Horse, Atomic Rooster, Nova, and Stars.
Parnell joined the English progressive band Atomic Rooster in 1970, changing Carl Palmer who had left to affix Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. He performed on the data Made in England (1972) and Good ‘n’ Greasy (1973). He left Atomic Rooster in 1974, after which performed in numerous bands together with the Anglo-Italian rock teams Tritons and Nova.
For a lot of the late ’70s and early ’80s, Parnell was a session drummer and performed on Michael Des Barres’ 1980 album I’m Solely Human and Toni Basil’s 1981 album Phrase of Mouth. Parnell notably the drums on Basil’s new wave hit single “Mickey,” that reached primarily on the Billboard Scorching 100 for one week and quantity two within the U.Okay. singles chart.
On Twitter, Des Barres wrote that Parnell was “a flawless drummer in any style.” “Some musicians are taking part in a task,” Des Barres mentioned. “Others are rock‘n’roll. Ric Parnell was the latter. The true factor. Misplaced and located in a rhythm that was jarring and delightful. His coronary heart nonetheless beats.”
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In 1984, Parnell scored his first movie function in This Is Spinal Faucet, taking part in Mick Shrimpton, the doomed drummer in a fictional rock band Spinal Faucet, that featured McKean as singer David St. Hubbins, Visitor as lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel, Shearer as bass participant Derek Smalls and Kaff as keyboard participant Viv Savage.
Within the movie, Shrimpton is the most recent in an extended line of Spinal Faucet drummers who had all met with grisly or weird deaths and accidents, a destiny which might befall Shrimpton who spontaneously combusts onstage whereas performing in Japan.
After This Is Spinal Faucet, the band would go on to conduct an actual world tour with Parnell on drums. His look was defined away by the very fact he was Mick’s twin brother Ric Shrimpton who had joined the band after the previous’s demise. Parnell featured on the 1984 Spinal Faucet album that coincided with the mockumentary and later performed on their 1992 album Break Just like the Wind.
Later in life, Parnell lived in Montana, the place he hosted a radio present titled Spontaneous Combustion.
