Founding BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE Drummer ROBIN 'ROBBIE' BACHMAN Dead At 69

Robin "Robbie" Bachman, founding drummer of BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE, has died at the age of 69.

The news of Robbie's death was broken by his brother and former bandmate, Randy Bachman.

"Another sad departure," Randy wrote on social media on Thursday (January 12). "The pounding beat behind BTO, my little brother Robbie has joined Mum, Dad and brother Gary on the other side. Maybe Jeff Beck needs a drummer! He was an integral cog in our rock 'n' roll machine and we rocked the world together."

BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE became a musical phenomenon with extraordinary global success. At the pinnacle of their career, the band's distinctive brand of stripped-down, blue collar, meat 'n' potatoes rock headlined some of the biggest arenas in the world — from New York's Madison Square Garden and London's Hammersmith Odeon, to Hamburg's Congress Centrum and the Falkoner Centret in Copenhagen.

Over the course of a four-year run, BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE sold in excess of 30 million records, earning a staggering 120 platinum, gold and silver discs, and notching up hits in more than 20 countries. The band reached No. 1 on Billboard's singles chart ("You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet") and album chart ("Not Fragile"),as well as scoring another handful of hits including "Taking Care Of Business", "Hey You", "My Wheels Won't Turn" and "Looking Out For #1".

BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE's 1974 lineup of Randy, Robbie, vocalist Fred Turner and guitarist Blair Thornton was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall Of Fame in 2014.

Nine years ago, Robbie told the Toronto Star about BACHMAN-TURNER OVERDRIVE's success: "We didn't tell anybody they were wrong or anything was bad or don't do this. It was basically, have a good time, fun music. Just coming out of the '70s with the Vietnam War and all the political things going on — in Canada with Trudeau, and Richard Nixon and stuff like that — we just basically had enough of that stuff."