Former UFO bassist Pete Way passed away yesterday at the age of 69 after sustaining "life-threatening injuries" in an accident two months ago. Way played with UFO from 1969 to 1982, briefly in 1988-1989 and once again from 1991 to 2008. He was also known as a founding member of Waysted and Fastway, and played with the Michael Schenker Group and Ozzy Osbourne as well. Rush and UFO often toured together back in the 1970s and Geddy Lee took to Instagram to share his remembrances of the iconic bass player:
Sad to read today about the passing of Pete Way ...
I have so many fond and hilarious memories of touring with Pete and UFO back in the 80's ...
A true rock and roll character ...always "takin' the piss" as they would say in his homeland ...
I once asked him about his bass sound and he said, "Well, Glee.. it's uh...3/4 good, and 1/4 ..not very nice!"
A funny, energetic, sweet man and a great rock bassist ...
R.I.P. Pway
A couple of years ago Way released his memoir A Fast Ride Out of Here: Confessions of Rock's Most Dangerous Man and Geddy Lee was interviewed for the book. The following quote from Lee appears on the back cover:
Pete Way was a force of nature. Most people actually need to be sober at some point in the day, but he didn't seem to require that. At one gig we were backstage listening to UFO play and the bass just disappeared - of course he'd fallen off the stage
Redditor petdance posted an extended excerpt from the book where Pete talks about touring with Rush, and Geddy adds his own memories of touring with UFO. Here's a sampling from Geddy's comments:
... Whenever Pete's name comes up between the three of us today we all smile. He was a lot of fun to be around, but also very sweet. He truly was a wouldn't-hurt-a-fly kind of guy and dedicated to his music. And he was very rock and roll. I was on our tour bus one time and listening to the new Bill Bruford solo album, which had just then come out. There was a great bass player on that record named named Jeff Berlin, and it was pretty complex sort of jazz-rock. Pete came stumbling around the bus and was just appalled at the sound of it. He sat down beside me and said, as if in profound pain, "Glee", which he used to call me, "don't listen to this, it isn't rock and roll." You know, Pete's a rocker at heart and he's remained true to that from the music that he's played to the way he's lived his life. ...
