Following the outpouring of support from the metal community of peer artists and fans, Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine has shared a post to social media thanking fans in the wake of his diagnosis of throat cancer last week. Dave looks well in the clip and exclaims “we’re gonna beat this thing together”. Great to see Dave in high spirits at this tough time. Continue reading
As we reported yesterday, the world lost thrash metal legend and an all-around great person, Bruce Corbitt, when he died as a result of his battle with esophageal cancer at the young age of 56. After posting several tributes to Bruce during the day, Phil Anselmo, who was the best man as Corbitt’s wedding, opened the Phil Anselmo and The Illegals show last night in Santiago Chile with the song ‘Better Place’ from his new post-punk/goth project En Minor. In possibly one of the first performances of the track or any En Minor music live that we know of, the band played the beautiful song for the lost friend. Anselmo and bandmate Blue Gonzalez, formerly of Corbitt’s Warbeast band, also shared a short video tribute to Bruce, stating “I have so much I can possibly say about Bruce, and I will eventually. But for right now, all I can say is I send my love to his wife, his daughter, his mother and everybody that was close to him. The guys in WARBEAST, the guys in RIGOR MORTIS, all the DFW [Dallas-Fort Worth] fans, I love you so much, and I know Bruce loved you so much. I wouldn’t even know Blue if it weren’t for Bruce. And there’s a lot to sort through and a lot to deal with. Over the next few days, just find it in your heart to think about Bruce and his family and his music and his impact on heavy metal and music in general. And that’s really all I can say right now. We love you.”Continue reading
Sad news has come down at this hour as metal legend Bruce Corbitt has passed away. He was just 56 years old. He had been in hospice care of late, following his battle with esophageal cancer. He was 56 years old. Bruce was one of the best, most distinctive metal singers, lyricists, and frontmen ever, with both Rigor Mortis and later with Warbeast. Corbitt was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in May 2017. He went through extreme radiation and chemotherapy treatment before they could attempt surgery. Just when everyone thought Bruce would surely be out of the woods, his first doctor’s visit in 2018 brought him the horrible news that the cancer was still there and that it was at Stage 4. He was given two months to two years to live. Due to issues with insurance companies, Bruce was unable to get permission for a second opinion at MD Anderson Medical Center in Houston, the leading cancer treatment and research hospital in America. Bruce was forced to use a second opinion in Dallas. Alternative therapies and treatments were considered, but unfortunately unavailable to treat him in time. Bruce, who previously survived a stabbing and a heart attack, told Billboard last August that he had “a 2.8 percent chance of living five years. So what am I going to do, sit around and cry about it or be that 2.8 percent?” His medical bills from 2017 alone totaled over $1 million in charges. We send our condolences to Bruce’s wife Jeanna, his family, friends, and fans, at this time. Continue reading
Sad news thrash legend Bruce Corbitt of Warbeast and Rigor Mortis has been moved to hospice care after his esophageal cancer has spread all throughout his body. The goal of hospice care is to make a patient comfortable when treatment of an illness is no longer possible. To his credit, Corbitt remains upbeat as you can see in a video h posted to Facebook Live video below. Continue reading
Lucas Starr, co-founder, and bassist of popular metalcore band Oh, Sleeper has passed away after a battle with stage for colon cancer. He was only 34. News of his passing spread on social media last night with his bandmates sharing the news. Shane Blay, the band’s guitarist and vocalist, took to Instagram to post a brief tribute to his friend. Starr co-founded the band in 2006, and played bass on their first two albums — 2007’s When I Am God and 2009’s Son of the Morning. He left in 2011, shortly before the release of the band’s third album Children Of Fire. Starr rejoined the band a tribute and benefit concert in his honor earlier this year. Before Oh, Sleeper, Starr was a member of seminal metalcore band Terminal. We send our sympathies at this hour to Lucas’ family, friends, bandmates and fans at this difficult time. Continue reading
Cancer is a sonofabitch and there will be more than 1.7 million new cases of it in 2018 alone. One person making the best of a bad situation is Melissa S. who uses her multiple diagnosis of cancer to raise money on her own raise awareness and money for animal rescue, Friends of Melissa have been raising money on both BiddingOwl and GoFundMe to raise the $20,000 USD she needs for aggressive treatment for her long-term survival. Now her friend, metal legend Mike Dean of Corrosion of Conformity has joined the fight, donating a classic bass from his aresenal to the auction to give it a boost. Mike’s NYC Sadowsky Sunburst Vintage J 4 Bass Guitar has been played live with played in over 2,000 shows with COC and Kyuss Lives and the COC albums America’s Volume Dealer, Live Volume album and concert video, In the Arms of God, and Corrosion of Conformity. Learn more about how you can support Melissa’s fight and own Mike’s bass at the links below.
Rock drummer Ben Graves has passed away after an 11 month battle with cancer. He was 46. A very private person, Ben kept his struggles quiet over the last year, according to a post to his Facebook account, made by his fiancee Lydia. A powerhouse drummer, especially live, Graves lived out his dream of being in successful bands and touring all over the world in his stints with The Murderdolls, Dope and Pretty Boy Floyd. Wednesday 13, who played with graves in The Murderdolls mourned his passing in a post you can read below. Continue reading
We made it! We’ve reached the end of our countdown of the Top Albums of 2017. As voted on by our global team of experienced editors, reviewers, photographers and tabulated by fearless Ghost Cult Associate Editor Steve Tovey: we give you our number 1 pick: Mastodon – Emperor of Sand (Reprise).Continue reading
While you may be aware of Lamb of God’s status of one of the leaders of American metal for over fifteen years, you may not know how passionate the members of the band are about their fellow people. Perhaps that doesn’t matter to you, and you only like your music without the entanglement of human affairs included with your “bree bree bree” death vocals. Maybe music is your ultimate escape from the coils of life and you’d rather not think about the hard stuff.Continue reading
Sad news from camp of British technical metalcore band Architects, as guitarist Tom Searle lost his three-year battle with cancer. Tom’s twin brother and bandmate Dan posted to the bands’ Facebook page to announce the news:
“It is with unbelievable pain and sadness that I have to announce that at around twelve minutes past midnight on August 20th my amazing brother, Tom, passed away after over 3 years living with cancer.
He was an incredible songwriter and guitarist. He was my closest and oldest friend. He was a funny, intelligent and sweet man and he leaves an enormous void in all of our lives.
Many of you will be aware that Tom has been absent from various shows over the past 15 months and I can now let you know that this was due to various surgeries that he had to have to treat the cancer. When we left for our European Festival tour on June 2nd Tom was very unwell. He had been advised to stay in hospital to receive care but ultimately there was nothing that they could do for him and he signed himself out of the ward two days before we departed for Germany. Some of you might view this as reckless but this is the way Tom wanted to do things throughout his last year because he never wanted the cancer to get in the way of what he loved. He got on stage and performed his last two shows at Rock Am Ring and Rock Im Park, which took him an incredible amount of strength but those are two shows that we will never forget.
We had to cancel our European festival tour and US headline tour because on June 8th, in Luxembourg, Tom was extremely sick, we called an ambulance and he was taken into ICU. The following day he was placed into a medically induced coma and the doctors told us that it was unlikely that they’d ever be able to wake him. Five days later, against all the odds, he was awake again, and in a few short days following that, myself and Tom canceled the air ambulance that was due to take him home and we got the Eurostar train home. Classic Tom Searle.
He spent the last 2 months of his life fighting with everything he had to overcome the disease once and for all, and things appeared to be moving in the right direction, but in the last 2 weeks it suddenly took a turn for the worse and finally he left us.
I don’t know what will become of Architects. Me and Tom started playing in a band together when we were 13 and, really, Architects is just an evolution of the band that we started all the way back then, over half my life ago. To pretend that Tom wasn’t at the heart of everything that the band created would be to show a complete lack of respect to the amazing talent that he was. The band will never be the same and there is simply no denying it.
We will 100% tour All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, there is no doubt about that. We will be going to Australia in a few weeks and we will be doing our UK and European headline tour in October and November. We hope that these shows will be an opportunity for everyone out there to show their respects to my wonderful brother. It won’t be easy for us to get on stage and play every night without him, but its something that we must do.
We want to carry on, that is important to say, and we will strive to do so, but we will not release any music unless we truly believe that it is something that Tom would have been proud of. Whether or not we can achieve that is something that we will have to discover in time.
The Martlets Hospice in Hove took unbelievable care of Tom in his final days. We were constantly blown away by their compassion and hard work and we feel hugely indebted to them for ensuring that we were able to make some amazing memories with Tom before he passed away. If you feel as though you’d like to contribute a donation to the Hospice in Tom’s memory then please donate on the Just Giving page that we have set up below.
www.justgiving.com/thomassearle
For now we need to begin to process what has happened. Myself, Sam, Ali and Adam will need time to fully come to terms with the loss of our brother and we hope that everyone out there will continue to respect our privacy during this terribly difficult time.
Much love,
Dan x”
Architects released their recent album this spring, All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, via Epitaph. Our sympathies go out to Tom’s family, friends, band, and fans.