Top Ten Saddest Metal Musician Deaths

The Top Ten
1 Cliff Burton Clifford Lee "Cliff" Burton (February 10th 1962 - September 27th 1986) was an American musician, best known as the second bass guitarist for the American thrash metal band Metallica, recording three studio albums. He died after the driver of the bands tour bus lost control on a patch of black ice and crashed at the town Dörarp in Sweden whilst promoting Metallica's third album "Master of Puppets" Cliff fell out through a window during the chaos and when the bus rolled over the last time it crushed him.

As much as I wanted to vote for Dimebag, I had to stay true to my band Metallica and my boy cliff. He was such a bass genius, and he went way too soon.

At 23 and did nothing to cause his own death. Innocent victim.

2 Dimebag Darrell Darrell Lance Abbott, also known as Diamond Darrell and Dimebag Darrell, was an American guitarist and songwriter best known as a founding member of two bands, Pantera and Damageplan, alongside his brother, Vinnie Paul. Abbott died in 2004 after he was shot by a mentally unstable fan.

This man died 8 days before I was born damn it, it stings to know of that, and I love his work, and continue to play guitar with him as my motivation. He is the GOAT when it comes to metal guitar, absolute god taken from us, and he feels like a friend I never had met, and never will

The way this man used a guitar still inspires guitarists today. Dimebag did for metal what Jimi Hendrix did for blues rock.

He Was The Saddest Death Because Everybody Loved Him And Many People Cried When He Died Including Rob Halford, Scott Ian, David Ellefson
And Many More I Still Cry To This Day About His Death

3 Chuck Schuldiner Charles Michael "Chuck" Schuldiner (1967-2001) was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, best known as the founder and vocalist, guitarist and bassist of the American heavy metal band Death. He is considered the most influential figure in Death Metal, with some publications referring to Chuck as the "Godfather of Death Metal". Schuldiner died in December 13, 2001 of brain cancer, his death subsequently leading to the disbandment of Death, but has remained influential among many aspiring metal artists. He was also known for his polite and life loving attitude and openly condemned stereotypes of metal musicians being harmful and evil.

Where would Death Metal be without this guy? Sure the genre isn't my thing, but I gotta admit, this guy is awesome and deserves more attention from mainstream music industries. Still, though cancer is painful and he succumbed to it at just 34 :(.

Imagine Death Metal's progression and influence if he were alive...

One of the kindest and most talented musicians of all time. RIP Chuck

4 Randy Rhoads Randall William "Randy" Rhoads was an American heavy metal guitarist who played with Ozzy Osbourne and Quiet Riot. He was killed in a plane crash.
5 Ronnie James Dio Ronnie James Dio (born Ronald James Padavona; July 10, 1942 – May 16, 2010) was an American heavy metal singer, songwriter and musician. He fronted and/or founded numerous groups including Elf, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Dio and Heaven & Hell. He is credited with popularizing the "metal horns" hand gesture ...read more.
6 Dead Per Yngve Ohlin, better known by his stage name Dead, was a Swedish black/death metal vocalist and lyricist best known for his work with Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. He committed suicide in 1991 in which former guitarist Euronymous took a few pictures of his corpse and used one of them as the front cover for one of Mayhem's live albums, Dawn of the Black Hearts.
7 Criss Oliva Christopher "Criss" Michael Oliva was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and co-founder of the band Savatage.
8 Jimmy The Rev Sullivan James Owen Sullivan, professionally known by his stage name The Rev, was an American musician, composer and songwriter, best known as the drummer, composer, songwriter, co-lead vocalist and founding member for the American alternative metal/ metalcore band Avenged Sevenfold.
9 Jeff Hanneman Jeffrey John "Jeff" Hanneman was an American musician, best known as a founding member of the American thrash metal band Slayer.
10 Clive Burr Clive Burr was an English drummer. He was a member of Iron Maiden from 1979 to 1982. Previously a member of Samson, Burr joined Iron Maiden in 1979 (coincidentally at about the same time Bruce Dickinson joined Samson).
The Contenders
11 Gar Samuelson Gary Charles "Gar" Samuelson was an American musician best remembered for being the drummer for thrash metal band Megadeth.
12 Nick Menza Nick Menza (1964-2016) was a professional drummer best known for his work in Megadeth from 1989-1998 and in 2004. He recorded drums on four of Megadeth's albums "Rust In Peace", "Countdown To Extinction", "Youthanasia", and "Cryptic Writings".
13 Lemmy Kilmister Ian Fraser Kilmister, known as Lemmy, was an English musician, singer and songwriter who founded and fronted the rock band Motörhead. He was a bassist and a singer known for his raspy voice. He died in 2015 from cancer and other health problems.
14 Mitch Lucker Mitchell Adam "Mitch" Lucker was an American musician and lead singer for the deathcore band Suicide Silence.
15 Paul Gray Paul Dedrick Gray, also known as The Pig or by his number #2, was an American musician, best known as the bassist and one of the founding members of the Grammy Award-winning metal band Slipknot.
16 Chester Bennington Chester Charles Bennington (March 20th, 1976 - July 20th, 2017) was an American musician, singer, songwriter and actor, best known for being the lead singer of Linkin Park. Before he was known for Linkin Park, Bennington was the lead singer of post-grunge act Grey Daze who was heavily inspired by Stone Temple Pilots they released two albums with Chester before his death. Wake Me and No Sun Today, a third album called Amends would be released in 2020 consisting of voice samples from Bennington. After Grey Daze dissolved, Bennington would join Linkin Parkin in 1999 formerly called Hybrid Theory, replacing former vocalist Mark Wakefield, who would go on to become Taproot's producer. Even with Bennington's ...read more.
17 Quorthon Tomas Börje Forsberg, known by the stage name Quorthon (1966-2004), was a Swedish musician. He was the founder, songwriter, vocalist and guitarist of the band Bathory, which pioneered the black metal genre and is credited with creating the Viking metal style. A multi-instrumentalist, Quorthon wrote ...read more.
18 Dave Brockie David Murray "Dave" Brockie, was a Canadian musician, and best known as the lead vocalist of the metal band Gwar, in which he performed as Oderus Urungus.
19 Chris Cornell Christopher John "Chris" Cornell was an American rock musician and singer-songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist, primary songwriter and rhythm guitarist for Seattle rock band Soundgarden and as former lead vocalist and songwriter for the supergroup Audioslave. His vocal range was C2 to A5, while ...read more.
20 Terje "Valfar" Bakken
21 Riley Gale
22 Kevin DuBrow
23 Cozy Powell Colin Trevor "Cozy" Powell was an English rock drummer, who made his name with many major rock bands and artists like The Jeff Beck Group, Rainbow, Robert Plant, Whitesnake and Black Sabbath.
24 Euronymous Øystein Aarseth (1968-1993), who went by the pseudonym Euronymous, was a Norwegian guitarist and co-founder of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. Euronymous was stabbed to death by band member Varg Vikernes in August 1993. ...read more.
25 Warrel Dane
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