The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars (274 page)

‘Dimebag’ Darrell: Ultimately, there was no ‘DamagePlan’

‘Bottom line: you’ve got Jimi Hendrix, you’ve got Eddie Van Halen, you’ve got Randy Rhoads - and you’ve got “Dimebag” Darrell.’

Zakk Wylde, guitarist with Ozzy Osbourne/Black Label Society

The breakup of Pantera in 2003 was one of considerable acrimony, though, indirectly resulting in the tragedy of December 2004. Having fallen out with the volatile Anselmo, the Abbott brothers worked with veteran country rebel David Allan Coe, before embarking on their next metal project, DamagePlan, with Patrick Lachman (vox) and Bob Zilla (bass). This band’s first album,
New Found Power
(2004), made a decent showing on the Billboard charts and ‘life after Pantera’ seemed likely. But it was not to be, the ghastly events of 8 December effectively ending DamagePlan as a going concern. As the band began a low-key performance before 250 devotees at the Alrosa Villa nightclub in Columbus, Ohio, an armed fan named Nathan Gale beat security to scale an eight-foot fence, enter the club in haste and approach stage left – ‘Dimebag’ Darrell’s usual spot. Grabbing the guitarist, Gale put a Beretta pistol to his head – and shot him twice at pointblank range; Abbott died instantly. In the pandemonium that followed, DamagePlan security guard Jeff ‘Mayhem’ Thompson was also fatally shot, as was employee Erin Halk and audience member Nathan Bray, as they attempted to assist the stricken musician. Gale – said to have been uttering disparaging remarks about the breakup of Pantera as he carried out his attack – then held the weapon to the head of drum technician John Brooks, before James Niggemeyer, a police marksman, finally took the assailant out with a single bullet from afar as concert-goers fled for their lives. In this jaw-dropping scenario, Gale (who had previous convictions for petty crimes) had somehow had time to reach the stage and unload fifteen bullets before security were even close enough to apprehend him. All of which naturally prompted Abbott’s family to take legal action against the venue in 2005.

Within hours, the Alrosa Villa was to become a shrine to the memory of ‘Dimebag’, two generations of metal fans joining forces to howl both their sadness and outrage at the events of the previous night as the forecourt became swathed with yellow roses and makeshift inverted crosses. Some days later, one of the most extraordinary eulogies arrived in the form of an online video from Phil Anselmo, who, having publicly denounced Abbott for break-ing up Pantera, was now seen choking with grief upon his words.

Monday 13

Alex Soria

(Montreal, Quebec, 1966)

The Nils

(Chino)

The brilliance of Alex Soria won’t ever be known to the world in general – after all, he was a smalltime guitarist in a smalltime punk band who were never likely to make it out of their locale – but even so The Nils were cited by no less than Bob Mould of Husker Du. Taught to play three chords by his older brother Carlos, Soria had mastered his instrument in days and became the band’s chief songwriter when they began back in 1979. Within a few years, the group had been signed and were working with producers such as Brit stalwart Chris Spedding – and an EP,
Sell Out Young
(1985), did just that. But problems with personnel, management and distribution prevented what many thought should have been an inevitable graduation to the big league.

Perhaps if The Nils – or Chino, the band Soria then formed in the late nineties – had been American, things might have been different. In the event, the lack of musical progress was just one setback too many for Alex Soria: forced into unreliable menial employment and succumbing to drug abuse, he took his life one night. After a major row with his partner, Soria raced to a nearby railway line, waited for a train and then saluted the driver before leaping to his death.

‘Nobody played an SG [guitar ] like that little fucker!’

Sean Friesen, The Asexuals

Monday 20

Frank ‘Son’ Seals

(Osceola, Arkansas, 14 August 1942)

As a novice artist brought up on a diet of Earl Hooker and Albert King – with both of whom he’d eventually tour – ‘Son’ Seals played Chicago blues like he really meant it. The youngest of thirteen kids born to musician Jim ‘Son’ Seals, the guitarist emulated his father by playing at his juke joint and inheriting his nickname (then going on to better Seals Sr by siring
fourteen
offspring of his own). Soon known for the sheer intensity of his playing, Seals recorded several albums of material that blended Delta roots music with the rock ‘n’ roll with which he’d grown up. The latter years of ‘Son’ Seals’s life were the
real
stuff of the blues, however: having been unwell since the seventies, in 1999 he lost a leg to amputation, already having lost much of his face to a psychotic ex-wife who’d shot him in the head as he slept. On completion of his reconstructive surgery, Seals then lost his mobile home to a fire and his prized custom guitar to a thief. His death from diabetes may perhaps be seen as a kind release after a decade in which his authenticity as a bluesman was sorely tested.

Lest We Forget

Other notable deaths that occurred sometime during 2004:

Jimmy Arnold
(Canadian lead singer with pre-rock vocal hitmakers The Four Lads; born Toronto, 4/1/32; lung cancer, 15/6)

John Balance
(UK singer/performer with experimental, occult-obsessed duo Coil; born Geoffrey Burton, Nottinghamshire, 16/2/1962; belying his stage name, he fell fifteen feet from a balcony, 13/11)

Johnny Bragg
(US vocalist with various vocal groups - the world’s best-known ‘incarcerated’ singer, with The Prisonaires; born Tennessee, 26/2/1925; cancer, 1/9)

Ritchie Cordell
(US pop songwriter whose smashes included #1s ‘Mony Mony’, ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ and ‘I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll’; born Richard Rosenblatt, New York, 10/3/1943; pancreatic cancer, 13/4)

Norma Nicole ‘Skeeter’ Davis
(hugely popular US country singer who recorded for four decades, originally with The Davis Sisters; born Mary Frances Penick, Kentucky, 30/12/1931; breast cancer, 19/9)

Willem ‘Mouth’ Duyn
(Dutch Europop singer with Maggie MacNeal who scored Top Ten hits in the US with 1972’s ‘How Do You Do?’ and in the UK with 1974’s ‘I See a Star’; born 31/3/1937; heart attack, 3/12)

Derek Frigo
(US guitarist with glam-metal act Enuff Z’nuff; born 26/7/1966; lung disease, 28/5 - just three years before the passing of drummer Ricky Parent from cancer)

Dick Heckstall-Smith
(revered UK jazz/blues saxophonist who worked with numerous artists including Graham Bond and Alexis Korner; born Shropshire, 26/9/1934; cancer, 17/12)

Rudy Maugeri
(founding Canadian baritone/arranger for vocal group The Crew-Cuts, who scored nine US Top Forty hits including 1955’s ‘Earth Angel’; born Ontario, 27/1/1931; pancreatic cancer, 7/5)

Mel Pritchard
(respected UK rock drummer with Barclay James Harvest; born Lancashire, 20/1/1948; heart attack, 28/1)

Quorthon
(Swedish black-metal pioneer who fronted Bathory; born Tomas Ace Forsberg, Stockholm, 17/2/1966; heart failure, 7/6)

George Williams
(US lead vocalist with R & B act The Tymes, who went to #1 at home with 1963’s ‘So Much in Love’ and in the UK with 1974’s ‘Ms Grace’; born Pennsylvania, 6/12/1935; cancer, 28/7)

2005

JANUARY

Wednesday 5

Danny Sugerman

(California, 11 October 1954)

Danny Sugerman – just twelve years old when he snuck out to watch The Doors perform at Long Beach – was to live a remarkable story of juvenile achievement. Sugerman for his part was not content with just the two-dimensional version of the hero his pals tacked to their bedroom walls, while Morrison for his was clearly impressed with the boy who hung around after hours and at The Doors’ offices during school time. The singer suggested fanmail-answering then associate management roles for Sugerman when he was still just fourteen. Sugerman’s love of the band, coupled with natural administrative and negotiating skills, proved him equal to these tasks; indeed, he went on to manage the post-Morrison Doors, replacing Bill Siddons. The downside to this extraordinary backstage pass was that Sugerman (who’d even begun
looking
like the singer) became a heroin addict while still in his teens. The death of his ‘brother’ Morrison
(-•having hit him hard, most of Sugerman’s memories of this era are nonetheless documented in the acclaimed 1980 Doors biography
NoOne Here Gets Out Alive
and
Wonderland Avenue,
his autobiography of 1989.

As though these previous exploits weren’t enough, Sugerman then went on to manage the equally wilful figures Iggy Pop (albeit briefly) and ‘super-groupie’ Bebe Buell. Later, Sugerman perhaps even topped this by marrying Oliver North’s former shredder-happy secretary Fawn Hall, with whom he stayed until his death after a long and painful battle with lung cancer. He may have conquered heroin and alcohol via stints in rehab units, but it was Sugerman’s lifetime addiction to cigarettes which claimed his life in the end.