Electronic music pioneer and co-founder of the legendary German band Kraftwerk Florian Schneider has reportedly passed away at the age of 73 after a battle with cancer.
The news was confirmed by his bandmate Ralf Hütter, who revealed that Schneider died a week ago and had a private burial. “Kraftwerk co-founder and electro pioneer Ralf Hütter has sent us the very sad news that his friend and companion over many decades. Florian Schneider has passed away from a short cancer disease just a few days after his 73rd birthday,” the band said in a statement.
In 1970, Schneider and Hütter founded their Kling Klang studio in Düsseldorf and started Kraftwerk. They released a trio of albums — 1970’s Kraftwerk, 1971’s Kraftwerk 2 and 1973’s Ralf und Florian — before releasing their landmark record Autobahn in 1974.
After a hugely influential run with Kraftwerk (which also earned the group a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2014), Schneider left the band in 2008 and maintained a relatively low profile in the years that followed. In 2015, he released a new track called “Stop Plastic Pollution” with producer Dan Lacksman to raise awareness about pollution, saying that the song was inspired by “taking a swim in the ocean at the coasts of Ghana, watching fishermen catch nothing but plastic garbage in their nets.”
Kraftwerk was nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, though they ultimately were not selected for induction into the class of 2020.
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