Fred schneider gay

It must have been horrific.” Pierson still remembers the call from Strickland saying Ricky was in the hospital; he died within a week, on Oct. 12, 1985, at age 32, from AIDS-related cancer.

“It was just devastating to all of us, especially Cindy and Keith,” says Pierson. Borrowing the Wilsons’ parents’ station wagon, the band would drive up from Athens to New York to play Max’s Kansas City, then eventually CBGB and Mudd Club (where their performance inaugurated the venue’s opening in 1978), among acts like Talking Heads, Blondie, Patti Smith Group and The Ramones.

Catch an early clip of the band performing the song, above.

It's one of the most well-known songs in popular culture. (In fact, people often mistook the two women for drag queens.) And at a time when an overwhelmingly straight, male punk scene ruled, The B-52s’ knowingly kooky aesthetic, along with their hilariously surreal lyrics in songs like “Quiche Lorraine,” read as queer to those with the eyes to see it.

When I first heard them in the early 1980s, I was a teenager struggling to accept my own sexuality, and they were a beacon.

The weird, wild tune includes a nonsensical run of imagined marine creatures at a beach party, but the band performs it with stunning, raw emotion. “Now I don’t even look at the audience,” he says with a laugh. His creativity remains central to his identity.

Advocacy

As an openly gay musician, Fred has long supported LGBTQ+ rights, equality, and visibility.

Writing

He has written books and poetry, showcasing his humor and eccentric personality.

Home Life

Fred reportedly enjoys a peaceful life, splitting his time between locations such as New York and Florida.

At the time, the message that LGBTQ kids like me took from them felt urgent and necessary: Weird is good — and it’s where the party’s at.

Four of the band’s five original members did, in fact, identify as LGBTQ: Ricky, Schneider and Strickland as gay men, and Pierson, who was involved with a man until the early 2000s, is now married to a woman.

Vocalist Kate Pierson appeared on R.E.M.'s “Shiny Happy People” and Iggy Pop's song “Candy.” She released her first solo album last year (inadvertently attracting criticism from the trans community for her single “Mister Sister”). Though over the next few years rap and dance artists started to address the virus in their lyrics, the rock world largely ignored it.

But as they got to work on fourth album Bouncing Off the Satellites, Warner Bros. “We just couldn’t handle it,” says Pierson. But Ricky had only confided to Strickland about his AIDS diagnosis.

It was a time when, as Schneider explains, people with AIDS were ashamed to mention it even among friends. He’s less thrilled by the trappings of touring now — arduous air travel, omnipresent iPhones in the crowd.

Released in April 1978, it wouldn’t peak on the Hot 100 until mid-1980 (at No. 56), but it instantly launched the band from house-party standby to college-radio staple. Born on July 1, 1951, in Newark, New Jersey, Fred Schneider moved to Athens, Georgia, where he eventually co-founded The B-52’s alongside Cindy Wilson, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland, and Ricky Wilson.

The band emerged in the late 1970s with a sound like no other—quirky, energetic, and defiantly weird.

All this stuff started coming out, conjuring up our time in Athens.”

With the help of producers Nile Rodgers and Don Was, the band released Cosmic Thing in 1990. “We all went through the devastating time of the AIDS crisis and I think that galvanized us to be more activists—AIDS activists … I think aside from being gay, one of the things the B-52s wanted to accomplish was for people to embrace their difference and encourage people to be who they are and accept themselves.”

It's tough to pick the best of the band's catalog of punky, dancey surf-rock, but we've compiled five of our favorite tunes from The B-52s below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnU3WoQZHJE
The B-52s' first single to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 was “Rock Lobster,” which peaked at 56.

In May — a decade after their last studio album, Funplex, reached No. 11 on the Billboard 200, and nearly 30 years since their biggest Billboard Hot 100 hits, “Love Shack” and “Roam” (both went to No. 3) — the band launched an extensive North American tour to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

The B-52s formed in 1976, with Wilson’s older brother, guitarist/principal songwriter Ricky (who died in 1985), and his best friend, drummer-guitarist Keith Strickland (who retired from touring with the band in 2012).

“Back then, it was called GRID [Gay-Related Immune Deficiency].