Steve Priest
February 23, 1948 – June 4, 2020
The Sweet’s last surviving co-founding member has died of an as-yet unrevealed cause. Steve Priest – once warned by David Bowie: “You know you really are putting much too much make-up on?” – was the band’s king of pantomime high camp. The Middlesexborn bassist, who once appeared on Top Of The Pops wearing a sequinned jumpsuit featuring the words ‘fuck you’ on its reverse, was always on the lookout for an opportunity to offend. When the show’s producer tried to make Priest remove said garment, he flatly refused. On the Christmas 1973 edition of TOTP Priest dressed as “a gay Nazi”, daubed in layers of make-up and sporting an SS tunic, complete with swastika armband and a Hitler moustache.
Every rock fan of a certain age remembers at least one of Sweet’s spots on TOTP. Paul Gray, bassist with The Damned and UFO, still recalls his father entering the room during that Christmas performance: “He stood there bristling for a long moment, before uttering the immortal words: ‘They’re nothing but a bunch of bloody savages with banjos!’ and leaving the room in a huff.”
Sweet were in the midst of a joyous run of Mike Chapman/Nicky Chinn-written bubblegum Top 10 UK hit singles that included Little Willy, Wig-Wam Bam, Blockbuster!, Hellraiser, The Ballroom Blitz and Teenage Rampage, but their notoriety would haunt them after the band decided to move on from working with the Chinn/ Chapman team and write their own material and pursue a much heavier direction. The 1975 singles Fox On The Run and Action declared a new spirit of independence, but it would be three more year before Love Is Like Oxygen became their next, and final, UK Top 10 hit.
The band always felt slightly embittered that rivals went on to profit from their trademark vocal harmonies; the graffiti-covered back cover of their 1976 LP Give Us A Wink bore the words: “Queen are a bunch of winkers”.
Following the departure of frontman Brian Connolly in 1979 to start a solo career, Sweet continued as a trio, with guitarist Andy Scott and Priest sharing lead vocals. This was less of a departure than it might sound, as it was Priest who added those much-loved vocal interludes to many of their classic smash hits, such as the celebrated cry of “We just haven’t got a clue, what to do!” in Blockbuster!
However, after three further albums sank without trace, largely due to the apparent disinterest of the group’s label, the writing was on the wall. By this point Priest had relocated to California, having married the band’s US publicist.
Since the death of Connolly in 1997, which of course curtailed his own version of the group, two rival line-ups of Sweet have co-existed. One was based in England and fronted by Scott, while Priest returned with his own incarnation in 2008.
Priest had been in poor health for some time. His passing means that only Scott remains from the band’s best-loved four-piece line-up, drummer Mick Tucker having succumbed to cancer in 2002.
“[And] then there was one,” guitarist Scott said in a statement. “Steve was the best bass player I ever played with. The noise we made as a band was so powerful. From that moment in the summer of 1970 when we set off on our Musical Odyssey the world opened up and the rollercoaster ride started. Rest in peace, brother.”
Among the many musicians who grew up listening to Sweet, Megadeth bassist David Ellefson said Priest’s contribution to music was “without parallel”, adding that 1974’s Desolation Boulevard “still holds up as one of rock’s greatest albums from that period”.
“Sweet were the antithesis to Queen and so many other great bands they inspired,” stated Jeff Scott Soto. Heart’s Nancy Wilson said Priest was “a brave glamrocker and man”. Dee Snider of Twisted Sister said: “As you might imagine, I am definitely a Sweet fan.”