RIP Chuck...

Jim LotFP

The Keeper of Metal
Jun 7, 2001
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Helsinki, Finland
www.lotfp.com
'allo...

Haven't had a chance to sit down and say anything about this...

Not much to say, although I'm sure I'll squeeze a bit of wordage in this week's LotFP.

I just felt terrible when I saw the news, and I'm just glad I had the chance to see him perform live when the Symbolic and Sounds of Perseverence tours pulled through Atlanta.

During the 1995 stop through, Chuck did something I've never heard of before or since... he approached the people in line very early at the venue, shook hands, asked us if we'd heard the new album, what we thought of it, and what other bands we'd been listening to lately. Seemed odd, still does actually, but that he made the effort to listen to the fans' opinions in such an upfront manner was still one of the coolest things I remember a musician doing.

There's a lot of assuming about his life that I'd done, based on the way he gave interviews, what his lyrics were about, and I'm certainly not going to actually voice any of those assumptions, but I really do hope that all of his pain is gone now and he's found peace.

I look at my shelf which has all of the Death studio CDs, and the Control Denied album as well, and it's impossible not to really think about the countless hours I've listened to his creations, how much I thought about the lyrics, how much air guitar and hair twirling they inspired, and everything he gave to metal.

I'm happy that he was able to get the Control Denied CD out, his final statement with the more classic heavy metal singer that once and for all (at least to the clueless, the rest of us had caught on long before) took him out of one corner of metal notoriety and made sure the world knew he wasn't 'death metal', but 'Heavy Metal' in its global sense.

I lied when I said there's not much to say. There's plenty to say, isn't there?

But nothing that sums it up as succinctly as the one word I spoke when I heard the news.

Damn.
 
Yeah..........this really sucks. I have been a huge Death fan for as long as I can remember. I'll never forget the first time I met Chuck. It was at City Limits in the Penn Hills area of Pittsburgh, before the Death/Pestilence/Viogression show (...for the Human tour). Me & a friend got there like 3 hours early.....determined to meet our hero. We pounced on him on his way into the venue. He was very nice.....gave autographs, chatted for a while. It was awesome! I proclaimed that to be the greatest day of my life! We got to chat with him after the show too. So cool! Man....that was over 10 years ago. I also caught Death once on the Symbolic tour, and twice on the Perseverence tour. Chuck/Death was simply in a class of their own.

I really don't know what to say? Hard to believe.
 
Being a Death-Fan for about 10 years, I was totally shocked, when I heard about it - I still can't believe it and I won't believe it for a long time. A great person has left us...

*Rule in silence*