Born in Washington DC on November 1, 1951, Andrew Douglas Paley grew up in Crescent City, New York, and learned to play drums before the family moved to Boston. He began playing in the band Catfish Black with Jerry Harrison (future Talking Heads) and Ernie Brooks, before joining The Rising Storm in the late 1960s and The Sidewinders, where he became lead singer alongside guitarist Billy Squier. The group, which played at Max's Kansas City club in New York, released an album produced by Lenny Kaye in 1972. In 1975, he teamed up with his brother Jonathan Paley and other musicians to form The Paley Brothers, who released a single power pop album of the same name for Sire Records in 1978. At the same time, he performed with Elliott Murphy and briefly joined Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, where he played guitar, keyboards and drums. He returned to the group between 1984 and 1986, after creating The Beatles Costello (1978) and joining his brother in The Notes with Erik Lindgren (1979), then in Nervous Eaters, where he played keyboards on the first album of the same name released in 1980. After another short-lived experience with The Marshalls (1980-1981), he was back for a single in 1983, in the Between Meals project with Jad Fair, Lindgren and Maureen Tucker (The Velvet Underground). Andy Paley then turned to songwriting and studio work. He collaborated with k.d. Lang, Elton John, Brenda Lee, Little Richard and became producer for The Real Kids, his idol Brian Wilson on his first solo album in 1988, Chris Isaak, John Wesley Harding, NRBQ, Richad X. Heyman, The Mighty Lemon Drops, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Foremen, Jonathan Richman and Paleface. He has also composed and/or produced soundtracks for the films Dick Tracy (1990), Traveller (1997) and A Walk on the Moon (1999) and World's Greatest Dad (2009), as well as for the cartoons The Ren & Stimpy Show and SpongeBob SquarePants, for which he sometimes provides the voice with Tom Kenny. He also formed The Andy Paley Orchestra for The Thrilling Adventure Hour theater troupe. Stricken with throat cancer, Andy Paley died in Colchester, Vermont, on November 20, 2024 at the age of 73.