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Grant Hart, Hüsker Dü Drummer And Songwriter, Is Dead At 56

Hart, who wrote songs like "Turn on the News" for the influential Minneapolis band and went on to become a fixture of the city after the band's dissolution, battled cancer publicly for many years.
Grant Hart (center) with Greg Norton (left) and Bob Mould of H?sker D? in 1987, one year before the band's dissolution. / Paul Natkin / Getty Images

Grant Hart, a drummer and songwriter best-known as a member of Minneapolis' widely influential punk trio Hüsker Dü, died Wednesday night at 9:02 p.m. at the University of Minnesota Medical Center of complications from liver cancer and hepatitis, his wife, Brigid McGough, confirmed to NPR. He was 56 years old.

The seed of Hüsker Dü — named after a phonetic game its members played with the Talking Heads song, Hart closed the store after Mould mentioned he played guitar: "I'm gonna close the store and I wanna go see you play right now."

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