Andrew Ranken

Andrew Ranken (13 November 1953 – 10 February 2026) was an English drummer. He played with several bands including the Pogues, with whom he played from 1983 until their second breakup in 2014.

Life and career

Ranken was born on 13 November 1953 in the Ladbroke Grove area of London. He spent his early childhood listening to his parents' jazz records before moving to Abbots Langley when he was five and Heathfield in East Sussex a year later. He attended Priory School, Lewes, where he was in the same year as Pete Thomas and Wreckless Eric, and was inspired by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. He became a musician after an older cousin gave him a guitar he had tired of trying to learn and became a drummer after being given a pair of bongos. Aged 14, he joined a blues rock band, Joshua Bagmat, which was led by Stephen Warbeck, featured Thomas, and disbanded when the members left school. Ranken subsequently worked with Warbeck and Paul Bradley as part of The hKippers.

After leaving school, Ranken moved to London to spend a year at the Central School of Art and Design, where he formed the band Lola Cobra with three members of the sculpture department including Lene Lovich and her boyfriend Les Chappell. After losing interest in the course, he dropped out and sold his drumkit to fund a series of travels with the intention of writing a book of writings and drawings; first to a squat in Amsterdam, which he left after it was ransacked, followed by a tent in a campsite in suburban Holland, where he spent several weeks while working in a peanut factory.