The Easybeats' Gordon "Snowy" Fleet Passes Away, Aged 79

Gordon “Snowy” Fleet, the co-founder and drummer of iconic Australian band The Easybeats, has passed away, as confirmed in social media reports by close friends and The Easybeats fan groups, including Australian rock bands 1960s and 1970s and Stevie: The Life and Music of Stevie Wright and the Easybeats. He was 79 years old.

No cause of death has been revealed. The band hasn’t yet made a statement about the sad news.

Snowy co-founded The Easybeats along with Stevie Wright, George Young, Harry Vanda, and Dick Diamonde in Sydney in late 1964. Vanda is the only surviving member of the band after Stevie Wright passed away in 2015, George Young in 2017, and Dick Diamonde in 2024.

Best known for their 1966 hit Friday On My Mind, The Easybeats became one of the most popular and successful bands to come out of the country.

After the band’s May 1967 Australian tour, Snowy left the band, as he was unhappy about spending so much time on the road, away from his wife and young children. Tony Cahill replaced Snowy after the band held extensive auditions to find a new drummer.

In November 1986, the band's original line-up reunited for an Australian tour. While the reunion only lasted a short time, Wright went on to reform the Stevie Wright Band and relaunched his touring career, playing across Australia between 1986 and 1988.

Vanda and Young returned to Young’s brothers Malcolm and Angus to produce the 1988 AC/DC album, Blow Up Your Video.

After leaving the band, Snowy became a successful builder in Perth and then ran a rehearsal studio in Jandakot, Western Australia.

In 2005, Snowy joined his former bandmates Stevie Wright and Harry Vanda as The Easybeats were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

You can find some tributes to Snowy Fleet below.