Random Famous Rock Bands That Were Struck By Horrifying and Violent Tragedies (10 items)

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  (#7) Grateful Dead

  • Blues-rock, Rock music, Folk rock, Acid rock, Jam band, Psychedelic rock, Psychedelic music

  The Grateful Dead are one of rock's most beloved bands, thanks to their epic live shows and obsessive followers. However, you would never, ever want to be the band's keyboardist. 

  Beginning with Ron “Pigpen” McKernan, who left the band due to cirrhosis of the liver (he died in 1973), the revolving door swung around and around. Keith Godchaux replaced Pigpen, left the band in 1979, and died in a car accident the next year. Brent Mydland replaced him, only to die in 1990 from a drug overdose. Vince Welnick took over, and was in the position until Jerry Garcia's death in 1995. Welnick overcame cancer and bouts with severe depression before committing suicide in 2006.

  Then there's Jerry Garcia. The guitarist died from a heart attack in 1995. In his pre-Dead days, Garcia lost two-thirds of his middle right finger due to a woodcutting accident.  When he was four. Garcia had a huge appetite for drugs, most notably heroin, cocaine, and LSD. His hard-charging days resulted in a four-day diabetic coma in 1986. 
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  (#10) Red Hot Chili Peppers

  • Alternative Rock, Funk Metal

  It's easy to forget how out of control the Red Hot Chili Peppers were in the '80s and '90s, given the band's post-Californication shift to warm, cuddly cultural touchstones. From rampant drug use to insane sexual exploits, the band faced a ton of strife, much of which detailed in Anthony Kiedis's batsh*t insane autobiography Scar Tissue.

  Guitarist Hillel Slovak died of a heroin overdose, which led to then-drummer Jack Irons having a nervous breakdown. Replacement guitarist John Frusciante, developed a raging heroin addiction upon leaving the band in the early '90s. Lead vocalist Anthony Kiedis battled heroin addition for decades. In his book he writes of shooting up in his mid-40s in seedy motels with models half his age while the band was playing stadiums. 

  Drugs and mental breakdowns, yet the band forges on in the 21st century. 
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  (#5) Lynyrd Skynyrd

  • Outlaw country, Blues-rock, Boogie rock, Rock music, Country rock, Alternative country, Country, Blues, Southern rock, Roots rock, Hard rock

  Legendary southern rockers Lynyrd Skynyrd will forever be defined by a freak accident that changed the band permanently. On a fateful day in 1977, the band's chartered Convair CV-240 plane crashed in Mississippi when it ran out of fuel. Lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines (Steve's older sister), assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray all died. Their Street Survivors album was released three days earlier.

  If that wasn't bad enough, guitarist Allen Collins's wife died of a hemorrhage due to a miscarriage. Collins was later involved in car accident in 1986 that killed his girlfriend and left him paralyzed from the waist down. He pleaded no contest to DUI manslaughter and died in 1990 from pneumonia. 

  Leon Wilkeson, Skynyrd's bassist since 1972, was found dead in his hotel room on July 27, 2001 due to emphysema and chronic liver disease. Lastly, keyboardist Billy Powell died of a heart attack in 2009. Only one original member, Gary Rossington, is still alive  as of 2017 (drummer Artimus Pyle survived the accident but wasn't a founding member). 
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  (#8) Slipknot

  • Nu metal, Groove metal, Rapcore, Heavy metal, Alternative metal

  They say looks can be deceiving. In the case of Slipknot, the opposite is true. You get what you pay for with the nine masked madmen who churn out a frightening blend of death metal, nu metal, and Satanic noise. 

  Singer Corey Taylor started doing coke and speed when he was 13. He overdosed on coke at 15, and was placed in a dumpster instead of being taken to a hospital, because, you know... Iowa. Many years later, guitarist Mick Thomson got in a knife fight with his brother on someone else's lawn (while drunk, of course).

  In 2010, bassist Paul Gray met a grizzly fate in a Johnston, IA hotel room. Gray was found dead, a hypodermic needle next to his bed, a smattering of pills splattered across the floor. An autopsy revealed the drummer died from a combo platter of morphine and fentanyl, coupled with heart disease.
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  (#6) Alice in Chains

  • Rock music, Grunge, Heavy metal, Alternative rock, Traditional heavy metal, Sludge metal, Alternative metal, Hard rock

  The suicide of Kurt Cobain (a member of the 27 club) and overdose of Mother Love Bone vocalist Andrew Wood are the most well-known tragedies of the Seattle scene, but peers Alice in Chains suffered a far more protracted battle with its demons. Most of this is chronicled in the band's music, lyrics, and song and album titles, which deal overtly with drug addiction. 

  In 2002, vocalist Layne Staley, a long-suffering addict, retreated to his Seattle apartment to do heroin until he died. When his body was found (more than a week after he died), it weighed only 86 pounds and was already decomposing. Bassist Mike Starr suffered a similar fate, albeit nearly a decade later. He died from a drug overdose in 2011 in Salt Lake City.

  While the grunge icons are still around, they exist in a diminished state. Of the original line up, only guitarist Jerry Cantrell and drummer Sean Kinney remain. The two recruited a new vocalist and bass player and recorded music that has been received well by both fans and critics. 
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  (#1) The Allman Brothers Band

  • Blues-rock, Boogie rock, Rock music, Instrumental rock, Folk rock, Electric blues, Country rock, Jam band, Country, Blues, Southern rock, Roots rock, Hard rock

  If there were a poster band for enduring crippling tragedy while keepin' on keepin' on, it's the Allmans. Everyone knows one of the band's namesakes, Duane Allman, died in a motorcycle accident in his hometown of Macon, GA. To compound that tragedy, bassist Berry Oakley also died in a motorcycle wreck, a little more than a year after Duane. Oakley's accident occurred just three blocks from Allman's.

  Meanwhile, singer Gregg Allman, brother to Duane, has battled drugs, hepatitis C, cancer, and Cher. In early 2017, drummer and founding member Butch Trucks committed suicide by shooting himself in front of his wife. 

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