Doug Fieger, performing in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer in 2003.Doug Fieger, performing in 2007 in Sydney, Australia, was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer in 2003. (Gaye Gerard/Getty Images)

Former Knack frontman Doug Fieger, who composed and sang the 1979 hit My Sharona, has died from lung cancer at age 57.

The Detroit native died Feb. 14 at his home in Woodland Hills near Los Angeles, said Jake Hooker, the band's manager.

"Our hearts are broken, we will miss you Doug," band members said on the Knack's official website.

Longtime friend David Weiss, who plays with Was (Not Was), visited Fieger just 10 days before his death.

"He was resigned but with the same sort of philosophical calm that he had been showing — this kind of steely determination," Weiss told The Detroit Free Press. "He never let his own troubles dictate the moment."

'She induced madness'

Formed in Los Angeles in 1978, the band enjoyed an instant hit at home and around the world with My Sharona. Fieger said the song, co-written with Berton Averre, with its pounding drums and bursting vocals, was about a girlfriend of the same name he had for four years.

'She had an insouciance that wouldn't quit.'— Doug Fieger, about girlfriend Sharona

Sharona Alperin, the inspiration for the song, told NME magazine on Sunday night: "Doug changed my life forever. He left on Valentine's Day, a day of heart and love, and that was Doug, all heart and love."

For his part, Fieger said Sharona actually drove him a little crazy.

"I had never met a girl like her — ever," he told The Associated Press in a 1994 interview. "She induced madness. She was a very powerful presence. She had an insouciance that wouldn't quit. She was very self-assured."

The song, which stayed in the No. 1 spot on Billboard for six weeks after its release, has become a pop culture phenomenon, featured in many films and performed by the likes of Weird Al Yankovic and Run DMC.

Other Knack songs that became hits include Baby Talks Dirty, She's So Selfish, Frustrated and Good Girls Don't.

Fan of British bands

The band had what some music critics called a British sound. Weiss agrees, since Fieger was a huge fan of Brit bands such as The Who and The Beatles.

"I always believed he was really channelling Lennon-McCartney every time he opened his mouth onstage," Weiss said.

Fieger toured with the band, which never recreated its popularity since its My Sharona days, but left in 2003 after being diagnosed with lung and brain cancer. Despite the cancer, he still managed to perform once in a while.

In 2006, two tumours were removed from his brain. That same year, former band member Bruce Gary died of cancer.

Berton Averre and Prescott Niles still perform as The Knack.

With files from The Associated Press