Peter Louis Vincent de Freitas (2 August 1961 – 14 June 1989) was an English musician and producer. He was the drummer in
Echo & the Bunnymen, and performed on their first five albums.
De Freitas was born in
Port of Spain
Port of Spain ( Spanish: ''Puerto España''), officially the City of Port of Spain (also stylized Port-of-Spain), is the capital of Trinidad and Tobago and the third largest municipality, after Chaguanas and San Fernando. The city has a munic ...
, Trinidad and Tobago, and educated by the
Benedictines at
Downside School
Downside School is a co-educational Catholic independent boarding and day school in the English public school tradition for pupils aged 11 to 18. It is located between Bath, Frome, Wells and Bruton, and is attached to Downside Abbey.
Original ...
in
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
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, south-west England. His father, Denis, was a copyright lawyer. He joined the Bunnymen in 1979, replacing a drum machine. Bunnymen's singer
Ian McCulloch related that they told him "to get stuck into the toms.
Budgie the Banshees">Siouxsie_and_the_Banshees.html" ;"title="rom Siouxsie and the Banshees">the Bansheeswas the only other drummer doing that stuff at the time and Pete loved his drumming".
He funded, produced and played drums under the name Louis Vincent on the first single of The Wild Swans (band)">the Wild Swans
The Wild Swans ( Danish: ''De vilde svaner'') is a literary fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen about a princess who rescues her 11 brothers from a spell cast by an evil queen. The tale was first published on 2 October 1838 in Andersen's ...
, "The Revolutionary Spirit", in 1982, for the Zoo Records label.
In 1985, de Freitas temporarily left the band. He spent several months drinking in New Orleans, while attempting to form a new group, the Sex Gods. By 1987, he returned to the Bunnymen to record their fifth album, though only as a part-time member. He was married in the same year and his daughter Lucie Marie was born in 1988.
De Freitas died in a motorcycle accident in 1989 at the
, on his way to Liverpool from London. He was riding a 900cc
in Longdon Green, Staffordshire when he collided with a motor vehicle at approximately 16:00. His ashes are buried in
. His brother Frank is the bass player of
.