OTTAWA - KENNY MacLean, the bassist for the 1980s new wave band Platinum Blonde, exalted for its synthesised sounds and big hair, has died, local media said on Tuesday.

MacLean, 52, was reportedly found on Monday by his sister, collapsed in the bathroom of his Toronto recording studio, holding a toothbrush with the tap running.

He had just released his third solo album Completely, since the band broke up in 1991.

'This is devastating,' Mark Holmes, former Platinum Blonde lead singer, who appeared onstage at a Toronto club with his former band mate on Friday to help promote MacLean's new album, told the Toronto Star.

'He was incredibly happy,' he said. 'Everything was going well for him.

'Kenny and I even got together on the stage and sang three songs from old times. It was one of the happiest nights. It was kind of like a send-off. It was a big and successful party.'

Platinum Blonde had a string of hits including Hungry Eyes, Crying Over You, Standing in the Dark and It Doesn't Really Matter.

MacLean joined the band for their second album Alien Shores in 1985, which went quadruple platinum and featured their only US hit Somebody Somewhere. -- AFP