Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds pianist, organist and backing vocalist Conway Savage has passed away at the age of 58, according to a statement posted on the band’s website.

Savage, who joined the band after 1990’s The Good Son and played with them for nearly three decades, underwent surgery last year to remove a brain tumor and had to miss the band’s tour in support of 2016’s Skeleton Tree. A representative for the band confirmed to Pitchfork that he died as a result of that tumor.

The full statement on the band’s websiore read: Our beloved Conway passed away on Sunday evening. A member of Bad Seeds for nearly thirty years, Conway was the anarchic thread that ran through the band’s live performances. He was much loved by everyone, band members and fans alike. Irascible, funny, terrifying, sentimental, warm-hearted, gentle, acerbic, honest, genuine – he was all of these things and quite literally “had the gift of a golden voice,” high and sweet and drenched in soul. On a drunken night, at four in the morning, in a hotel bar in Cologne, Conway sat at the piano and sang Streets of Laredo to us, in his sweet, melancholy style and stopped the world for a moment. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Goodbye Conway, there isn’t a dry eye in the house. Love, Nick and the Bad Seeds.

source: billboard.com