On Saturday, November 7, 2026, Richard Lloyd lost his battle with cholangiocarcinoma, a form of bile duct cancer. He had been diagnosed earlier this year in March. Lloyd is best known as a founding member and guitarist for the foundational punk rock band, Television. They were a band at the center of the punk rock movement in New York City in the mid-to-late 90s. Television pioneered art punk, standing out among the other punk acts from “The Big Apple” at the time.
Their 1977 debut album, Marquee Moon, has been widely acclaimed for decades, inspiring countless artists. Following their sophomore release, Adventure, they disbanded in 1978. In 1991, the band briefly reunited and released a self-titled album in 1992. Following this, the band called it quits once again until another reunion a decade later in 2001.
Lloyd’s guitar work allowed their other guitarist, Tom Verlaine, to front the group as the singer as well. Lloyd also played solos, splitting the lead guitar role in half, but his role was mainly to hold down the rhythmic side of the band. Additionally, he greatly contributed to the arrangement of their tracks. To this, he claimed in his final interview that he didn’t receive the credit he deserved.
Lloyd’s FInal Interview
In December 2025, Richard Lloyd was interviewed for the final time. Andrew Daly of Guitar World conducted the final interview. Lloyd detailed how he learned guitar from someone who was learning directly from Jimi Hendrix. At one point, his friend put him on the phone with Hendrix himself to prove this to be true. He also took Lloyd to a Jimi Hendrix concert around the same time. Additionally, he discussed joining John Lee Hooker on stage, learning a thing or two in the moment ahead of his own career.
On the band’s debut album, Lloyd claims he contributed more than he received credit for. On the album’s opening track “See No Evil”, Lloyd stated, “Tom was fooling around with octaves, and I came up with the rest. There have been debates on that – I didn’t get a penny for the songwriting, nor the other ones that I was responsible for. A real drag, because publishing is where you can actually make a living.”
When asked to elaborate, Lloyd said, “Tom went by the argument that everything is the melody and the lyrics, and that there was nothing deserving of credit for what he called ‘the arrangement.’ I debated that. For instance, with “Guiding Light”, I wrote the part that runs through the whole song. That was the final straw. I said, ‘You’ll either give me credit for this, or you can come up with something else because I won’t play it if you don’t give me credit.’ I got half credit on that. I fought him over “See No Evil” and “Friction”, but he went behind our backs – you’d find out he put it under his own name.”
Lloyd expressed that despite this, he kept Television as his main priority throughout his career. Even at times when working with Verlaine would “drive him nuts”, he’d drop his solo efforts for any reunion with the band.
Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images
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