Australian music fans are mourning the death of The Angels’ bass player Chris Bailey, who passed away this morning (April 4) at 12:30am after a battle with cancer.
Chris Bailey, Photo By Ros O'Gorman
John Brewster, guitarist and founding member of the band with Chris spoke with Noise11 and issued the following statement today. “It is a very sad day for us,” John said. “We have lost a great friend in Chris Bailey and a great friend to a lot of people. We are doing a concert in Adelaide on the 17th of April at the Thebarton Theatre. I made all the calls and not one person hesitated. All the guys from Cold Chisel will play. Jimmy is going to sing a couple of Angels’ songs. Mossy and Don Walker are going to get up with the Brewster Brothers and The Angels. James Reyne is coming over. Wilbur Wilde will compere. Gangajang will be there. It will be the celebration of a wonderful guy. We are obviously very sad today. He had been battling this damn thing for the last nine months or so and it’s been a hard road for him”.
John also confirmed that work had begun on the next album for The Angels and Chris will be very much a part of it. “We just loved the experience of making the ‘Taking It To The Streets’ album so much that we decided to jump back into the studio and go again,” he said. “We only had a few loose ideas for songs and ended up recording 16 songs. Chris came and joined us for three of those days and I think he played on eight of the new songs. My gut feeling is that he will probably be on about 50% of the next album. I’d like to recommend to the band that we dedicate the next album to Chris’ memory. He is a wonderful guy and an amazing musician and will be sorely missed”.
The Chris Bailey tribute concert will be held on April 17 at the Thebarton Theatre in Adelaide.
Earlier story: R.I.P. Chris Bailey of The Angels
