Former BAD COMPANY Singer BRIAN HOWE Dead At 66

BLABBERMOUTH.NET

According to TMZ, former BAD COMPANY singer Brian Howe has died at the age of 66. Howe passed away Wednesday (May 6) at his home in Florida after suffering cardiac arrest. He had a history of heart issues, having previously had a heart attack in 2017. The singer was reportedly involved in a road traffic accident in Florida at the end of April, in which he suffered broken ribs. Just six days before his death, he updated a fan who asked about his recovery after the accident. Asked how he was feeling, Brian wrote on Facebook: "Horrible. Broken ribs are NO fun." Howe fronted BAD COMPANY between 1986 and 1994 and provided vocals on hit albums including 1988's "Dangerous Age" and 1990's "Holy Water". The English-born singer, who previously worked with Ted Nugent, was openly bitter that his contribution to the band's legacy was not recognized, telling Rock Candy magazine in 2018: "It's as if my time with BAD COMPANY has been airbrushed out of history. Those guys live in a cocoon where it's permanently 1974 and they've purposefully removed anything I ever had to do with them." Howe was involved in albums that sold over a million copies and yet felt he never received the credit he deserves for his contribution to the seminal band. "I know how much work I put into making those albums work," he said. "And how little help I received from [guitarist] Mick [Ralphs] and [drummer] Simon [Kirke]. It was a dreadful situation to be in." Howe left BAD COMPANY after recording four albums, and believed the band "haven't released anything worthwhile since. And certainly nothing that's sold as well as the albums I was involved in. Those records gave BAD COMPANY a new lease of life." But Howe reserved his harshest words for Paul Rodgers, the man he replaced in BAD COMPANY. "I don't like him as a person," he said. "And if he's such a brilliant artist and if he's really regarded as the only person ever to have sung with BAD COMPANY, then why haven't they recorded anything new in the last 10 years?"