FIGUREHEAD, UNOFFICIAL SPOKESMAN OF HELLS ANGELS

Sonny Barger, the figurehead of the Hells Angels motorcycle club, has died. He was 83.

Barger’s death was announced on his Facebook page late Wednesday.

“If you are reading this message, you’ll know that I’m gone. I’ve asked that this note be posted immediately after my passing,” a posting said. “I’ve lived a long and good life filled with adventure. And I’ve had the privilege to be part of an amazing club.”

The post said that “I passed peacefully after a brief battle with cancer.”

Barger’s former attorney, Fritz Clapp, told The Associated Press that Barger had liver cancer and died Wednesday night at home in Livermore. Barger composed the post placed on the Facebook page managed by Barger’s wife, Zorana, he said.

Ralph “Sonny” Barger was a founding member of the Oakland chapter of the Hells Angels in 1957 and was present at its most infamous moment — the 1969 Rolling Stones concert at Altamont Speedway during which bikers hired as security staff fatally stabbed a concertgoer who pulled a gun on one of their members.

The Hells Angels were typically depicted by the media as the dark fringe of the 1960s counterculture, embracing freedom, drugs and rock music, but also crime and violence.

But Barger, the unofficial spokesman for the Hells Angels, downplayed their outlaw reputation.

“They say we’re organized crime, but if you took every Hells Angel on the face of the Earth and got rid of them you wouldn’t drop the crime rate in the world one-tenth of one percent,” he said in a 2000 interview for Heads magazine. “We’re a little drop in the bucket. There’s more cops committing crimes than Hells Angels.”

Barger’s own arrest record included charges ranging from drunken driving to attempted murder. He served 13 years in various prisons, according to news reports.

Barger capitalized on his notoriety. He wrote three books about his life and philosophy, including a best-selling autobiography, “Hell’s Angel.”

A chapter title in one of his books was “Nothing states your position more clearly than a punch in the face.” He also wrote two novels.

He served as the main character in Hunter Thompson’s 1966 expose “Hell’s Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.”

“He’s smart and he’s crafty and he has a kind of wild animal cunning. He was clearly the most competent person around,” Thompson wrote.