A sad day for the music community.
Yesterday – March 23, 2014 – Dave Brockie, a founder of the satirical trash metal band GWAR, was found dead in his Richmond, Virginia home. Police believe his tragic death to be accidental or natural, so they are not currently investigating his passing as a homicide. He was only 50-years-old.
Dave Brockie – along with Hunter Jackson, Don Drakulich, Chuck Varga, Mike Delaney, Mike Bonner, Scott Krahl, and Dave Musel – founded GWAR in 1986. Brockie served as vocalist and guitar player. The band was actively recording music in recent years with their last album, Battle Maximus, being released in 2013. Brockie was still a member of the band and the last original founder.
GWAR has recorded 13 studio albums, earned four top 10 MAIN ROCK hits, and received two Grammy Award nominations.
Mike Bishop, one of the many former GWAR members, had this to say: “Dave was one of the funniest, smartest, most creative and energetic persons I’ve known. He was brash sometimes, always crass, irreverent, he was hilarious in every way. But he was also deeply intelligent and interested in life, history, politics and art. His penchant for scatological humors belied a lucid wit. He was a criminally underrated lyricist and hard rock vocalist, one of the best, ever! A great frontman, a great painter, writer, he was also a hell of a bass guitarist. I loved him. He was capable of great empathy and had a real sense of justice.” [Blabbermouth.net]
R.I.P. Dave Brockie aka Oderus Urungus
August 1963 – March 2014
