Richard Lloyd of the band Television has passed away in his Tennessee home at the age of 75, according to The New York Times.
Lloyd suffered from bile duct cancer and was diagnosed with the disease in March of 2026. According to his GoFundMe, he suffered from a tumor that was near one of his major blood vessels. Doctors were unable to remove it.
Sean Seymour, a friend of Lloyd’s, organized the GoFundMe. He wrote: “Since his diagnosis, Richard has been through an extraordinary amount. He has been in the ICU seven times, dealing with serious complications including sepsis twice, as well as complications involving his liver and kidneys. And through all of this, he’s fighting.”
Richard Lloyd Was an Integral Part of the Groundbreaking Art Punk Outfit Television
The band Television, which Lloyd played guitar for alongside Tom Verlaine, Billy Ficca, and Fred Smith in the group’s most well-known lineup. The group’s album Marquee Moon, which came out in 1977, was highly praised and well known in the punk world. In 1978, Verlaine and Lloyd chose to pursue solo careers.
Lloyd’s first solo record following Television’s disbandment was Alchemy, out in 1979. He continued to work as a guitarist and as a session musician for the likes of Matthew Sweet, Stephan Eicher, John Doe of the band X, and others. He continued his solo career through the late 2010s. The last of his solo works was the 2018 record The Countdown.
In 2023, Verlaine passed away at the age of 73. The frontman of Television, in addition to Lloyd, was highlighted as being an “immeasurable influence” on Steve Wynn of the Dream Syndicate.
“He was my guitar hero at a time when I needed one most,” Wynn said in a statement, per Variety. “I spent the entire year of 1981 practicing daily to Marquee Moon. Tom Verlaine’s soloing (and Richard Lloyd‘s as well, of course) showed me you could be a virtuoso and dangerous at the same time, more Coltrane or Ornette than the arena rockers of the day.”
Lloyd leaves behind his wife, Sheila O’Keefe, whom he married in 2015. In his memoir Everything Is Combustible: Television, CBGB’s And Five Decades Of Rock And Roll, Lloyd also mentioned having a son named Dylan.
Photo by Chris McKay/Getty Images
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