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Known to many as the founding
father of death metal, Chuck Schuldiner's brand of heavy
metal opened the doors for a genre that had only been hinted at by efforts
from Slayer and Venom. Beginning Death in 1985, the first few demos that
leaked out of his Florida home created a strong buzz in the underworld.
By 1987 he had managed to release his first album, Scream Bloody Gore,
a landmark moment in death metal. Much like Trent Reznor's Nine Inch Nails,
Death was merely a name given to his efforts to create the illusion of
a band. The other members continually changed, and the band was so influential
that entire careers were built out of stints in his touring and recording
lineups. He had a very fruitful career working in the metal underground,
releasing album after album of brutal death metal as the genre grew up
around him. Known for his intense, technically sound playing skills, he
managed to be one of the few survivors of the genre's fading popularity
during the mid-'90s.
As the decade wound down, Schuldiner received the unfortunate news that
he had a brain tumor. Death disbanded and he tried to get treatment, but
mounting medical bills and a distinct lack of funds despite his years
of making music began to take its toll on him. In a show of support virtually
unheard of in the metal world, hundreds of musicians began to flock to
his aid, holding benefit concerts and selling items on the eBay website
in hopes of helping Schuldiner pay for his treatments. Schuldiner recorded
a new album during this period, but at the last minute he decided not
to resurrect the Death name and released it under the telling name of
Control Denied. His condition worsened, and by 2001 he was bedridden and
being taken care of by his mother. Rock artists as diverse as Dave Grohl,
Napalm Death, Ozzy Osbourne, and Anthrax stepped up the efforts to earn
Schuldiner more money for his medical bills; Grohl even tried to involve
him on a metal album he was putting together. But on December 13, 2001,
Schuldiner passed away in the afternoon. Perhaps the most appropriate
tribute to his lasting influence occurred in the next few weeks, as his
official website was flooded with over 14,000 tributes and postings despite
virtually no mainstream media sources bothering to report his death. ~
Bradley Torreano, All Music Guide
Over the course of more
than a decade and seven increasingly accomplished albums, Chuck Schuldiner,
the architect behind the ubiquitous Death, became a bona
fide heavy metal icon. Now widely recognized as the father of death metal
(if a single candidate must be chosen, his resumé is about as good
as it gets), Schuldiner's singular drive and ruthless creative vision
guaranteed that Death retain a pole position at the forefront of the style's
development. Indeed, while the savagely raw aggression contained in Death's
first three albums proved crucial to spearheading the first generation
of death, and subsequently grindcore bands, the astounding musicianship
and increasingly sophisticated songwriting found on their later-day efforts
may have influenced even more groups exploring the limits of extreme metal's
progressive outposts. By all accounts a force to be reckoned with on-stage,
Death also logged more frequent-flier miles than perhaps any other band
of their extreme metal ilk, undertaking numerous far-reaching tours despite
suffering from continuous and acrimonious turnover within their ranks.
Throughout this long journey and drastic evolutionary curve, Chuck Schuldiner
was the only constant, the effective mastermind behind Death's continually
groundbreaking career, and his near-canonization at the time of his untimely
passing only confirmed his unequaled stature at the top of rock's most
uncompromising style.
The story of Death begins in Florida, around 1983, when vocalist/guitarist
Chuck Schuldiner formed a band named Mantas with guitarist Rick Rozz and
drummer Kam Lee. Although they'd yet to finish High School, the eager
teens quickly set about trying to replicate the most excessive heavy metal
sounds imaginable, which they often heard on tapes obtained via the bustling
underground tape-trading circuit existent at the time. Many of these hailed
from the U.K., where bands like Iron Maiden, Angel Witch, and Venom were
riding high on the New Wave of British Heavy Metal; others arrived from
the West Coast, where young bands like Metallica, Slayer, and Exodus were
redefining the genre by injecting it with unprecedented doses of speed
and energy, thus giving birth to thrash metal. All of these developments
converged to spark the young Floridian's excitement, and the newly rechristened
Death spent the next few years refining their chops through endless, arduous
rehearsals and sporadic live performances. Their hard work and perseverance
finally paid off when a three-song demo tape called Mutilation began drawing
rave reviews in the metal underground, soon convincing Bay Area-based
thrash specialists Combat Records to sign the group.
Leaving his bandmates behind (they would form a band called Massacre in
his absence), Schuldiner relocated to San Francisco and teamed up with
drummer Chris Reifert (later of Autopsy infamy) to record Death's now
legendary Scream Bloody Gore LP. Released in 1987, the album is considered
death metal's first archetypal document. Possessed's proto-death classic
Seven Churches may have predated it by almost two years, but the fact
of the matter is that both were concurrent works from a demo perspective,
and while Seven Churches represented something of a unplanned transition
between thrash and death metal, Scream Bloody Gore clearly defined the
new offshoot's true essence for the first time. Boiled down to the most
basic terms, this transition simply entailed propelling thrash metal's
sheer speed and ferocious execution into further inaccessibility with
the addition of gore-obsessed lyrics delivered via often indecipherably
growled vocals. Needless to say, this unprecedented level of sonic hatred
went down a storm with thousands upon thousands of angry teenagers across
the world.
Having set his metallic dreams (or nightmares, as it were) into motion,
Schuldiner returned to Florida, where he reunited with his old chum Rick
Rozz and drafted bassist Terry Butler and drummer Bill Andrews to integrate
Death's first touring lineup. Between ever-increasing touring commitments,
they were soon ensconced in Tampa's soon-to-be famed Morrisound Studios
with soon-to-be premier death metal producer Scott Burns (a lot of "firsts"
in this story) and working on 1988's Leprosy follow-up, which reprised
much of the debut's successful tricks, but was somewhat marred by Rozz's
subpar technical skills. He was soon unceremoniously ejected for his shortcomings
(the first victim of a Spinal Tap-like game of musical chairs) and replaced
by the far more gifted James Murphy, who would barely last a year himself
before embarking on a journeyman existence that would take him to Obituary,
Testament, and beyond, but nevertheless contributed stellar fretwork to
1990's transitional Spiritual Healing. This album found Death beginning
to relinquish some of the unrelenting velocity, mindless ferocity, and
often trite blood-and-gore lyrics which characterized death metal's infancy
(grindcore's fast-rising legions, led by Napalm Death and Carcass, would
take it from here) and diving headlong into its understandably experimental
pubescent phase. In practice, this meant introducing slower rhythms, complex
dynamic tempo changes, insidious melodies, and more enlightened, if no
less dark and cynical subject matter that commented on society's ills
and injustices.
All of these exciting developments would come to greater fruition on 1991's
pivotal Human LP, but given the various organizational problems and unsatisfactory
performances that had plagued the Spiritual Healing tour, it's a wonder
Death survived long enough to record it. In his obsessive quest for perfection
and constant evolution, Schuldiner had once again pushed his bandmembers
as far as their musical abilities could take them, mandating that an entirely
new group of players be cast to enact the next chapter in his grand scheme.
Sure enough, the sessions for Human convened a supra-technical ensemble
for the ages, namely guitarist Paul Masvidal and drummer Sean Reinert
of unsigned death/fusion sensations Cynic, and fretless bass wonder Steve
DiGiorgio, who was borrowed from Sadus for recording purposes only. This
release, along with the even more commercially successful Arise by Brazilians
Sepultura, helped ensure that 1991 should go down as the absolute apex
of death metal's world domination. At least in its original form, as hordes
of gifted new upstarts such as the aforementioned Cynic and the death/jazz
experimentalists Atheist, to name but a few, were even then undertaking
to rewrite the rule book and challenge elder statesmen like Death for
genre supremacy.
Not to be outdone, Schuldiner simply upped the ante, repeatedly reinventing
his band time and time again, even as he refused to compromise its brutal
core values one iota. As proof, both 1993's Individual Thought Patterns
and 1995's Symbolic introduced staggering advancements into the group's
sound. The first exploded with the brilliant fretwork of ex-King Diamond
guitarist Andy LaRocque, whose six-string duels with Schuldiner rank among
the most exciting of Death's long career; while the second benefited from
the dense harmonies contributed by the less flashy, but equally effective
Bobby Koelble, resulting in Death's most consistently melodic album ever.
And perhaps best of all for extreme metal fans, former Dark Angel behemoth
Gene Hoglan lent his inimitable percussive talents to both LPs, forging
an unlikely pairing with Chuck that remains the stuff of death metal dreams
to this day. Not surprisingly, this trio of albums continue to vie for
fans and critics' hearts as Death's greatest achievements -- how ironic
then that Schuldiner himself was beginning to grow tired of his life's
work.
But come 1996, Death's chief architect was hungry for a creative outlet
with which to express his more mainstream heavy metal songwriting, and
citing his own voice as too limited for what he had in mind, Schuldiner
shocked the heavy metal community by disbanding Death and announcing his
plans for an entirely new band, to be named Control Denied. But the new
project took longer than expected to get off the ground, so Schuldiner
decided to backtrack and record one final album under the Death franchise,
resulting in 1998's quite stellar The Sound of Perseverance. As was to
be expected, he was once again backed up by an entirely new band, this
time consisting of relative unknowns like guitarist Shannon Hamm, bassist
Scott Clendenin, and drummer Richard Christy. Following this release,
Schuldiner finally felt ready to move forward with the Control Denied
concept in earnest, and the new quintet (featuring many of Chuck's old
accomplices and a full-time lead vocalist in Tim Aymar) unleashed their
The Fragile Art of Existence debut in the fall of 1999. Everything seemed
to be going according to plan, but then tragic fate intervened.
Schuldiner was diagnosed with a malignant brain-stem tumor and immediately
underwent emergency surgery in early 2000 to remove it. All musical plans
were brought to a standstill as Chuck fought for his life amid ever-mounting
medical bills (like most professional musicians, he had no health insurance),
only a small portion of which were alleviated by the heavy metal community's
outpouring of support by way of numerous benefit concerts. Over the ensuing
two years, the true state of his health was often mired in mystery, and
even though he was occasionally rumored to be on the path to recovery,
all hopes were ultimately and cruelly dashed on December 13, 2001, when
Chuck finally succumbed to cancer at the age of 34. Like any headstrong
leader, Schuldiner's tyrannical monopoly over Death's brilliant career
is forever guaranteed to evoke adverse opinions about his character, ranging
from the resentful accusations of disgruntled former employees, to the
words of loving praise of willing collaborators. It hardly matters, since
whichever reputation people eventually choose to believe in, Schuldiner's
recorded legacy will forever remain inextricably linked, synonymous even,
with the death metal genre. ~ Ed Rivadavia, All Music Guide
Since its formation in 1983, Chuck Schuldiner was the creative center of the influential heavy metal band, Death. Combining strong songwriting with powerful, brutally delivered lyrics, the band was anything if not extreme. Seeking a project a little closer to his classic metal roots, in 1996 Schuldiner assembled Control Denied, a band which borrowed most of Death's personnel and added the strong and clear vocals of Tim Aymar. Aymar had provided vocals for a string of successful metal bands, including Psycho Scream and he suited the more melodic approach that Schuldiner was looking for. To Schuldiner, Control Denied part of a vision -- he acted much like a director or coach in bringing that vision to fruition. He maintained tight creative control, yet allowed the creative talents of musicians like Aymar and bassist Steve DiGiorgio to shine through. The project produced one album, The Fragile Art of Existence, in 1999, issued by Nuclear Blast America before Schuldiner began experiencing pain in his neck and shoulder -- after consulting a chiropractor and acupuncturist, he got an MRI which revealed a cancerous tumor on his brain stem. In the autumn of 1999 he began intensive radiation therapy, which did succeed in breaking apart the tumor, but both Control Denied and Death were on infinite hiatus until he regained his health. ~ Stacia Proefrock, All Music Guide
