Gus Chambers

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Gary Kenneth "Gus" Chambers (* 18th January 1958 ; † 13. October 2008 in Coventry , England ) was a British punk - and Metal musician who primarily by his singing with Grip Inc. was announced.

Life

Chambers was born on January 18, 1958 and grew up in Coventry in a typical English working class family. He had multiple siblings, alcohol abuse and father's violence against him and his siblings marked Chambers' childhood and adolescence. Years later he processed these experiences in the song Isolation with the text line "30 years of nothing". In the late 1970s, Chambers began his musical career with the punk band The Squad, where he replaced Terry Hall . With them he recorded two singles : Red Alert ( B-Side : £ 8-A-Week ) and Millionaire (B-Side: BrockHill Boys , 1979). It was at this time that he met his longtime companion, Wendy Seenan. After The Squad, he played in the band 21 Guns, which released a single on Shack Records, the Neville Staple label, and broke up in 1981.

In 1980 Chambers moved to the United States to make a fresh start with his drug addiction. He got by first in Texas with odd jobs as a waiter and worker in a gold mine and eventually lived in Las Vegas. Together with his friend Paul Raven from Killing Joke , Chambers moved his activities to Los Angeles , where he first founded The Remnant , which released an EP in 1984. In 1984 his first son Nolan Gary was born and a few years later he married Hope, an American with Filipino roots.

With Dave Lombardo and Waldemar Sorychta , Gus Chambers founded the successful thrash metal band Grip Inc. in 1993. Already after the second album there was tension between Chambers and Lombardo. Chambers was now a father of three and dependent on the money he made with Grip Inc., so it came to a dispute over royalties. After the third album, Grip Inc. came to an end in 1999. Chambers tried Sons of Damnation with Paul Raven, but the band came to a standstill due to the sudden cancer death of guitarist William Tucker (including Ministry ). Chambers moved to Dortmund around 2000 , where he lived with an employee of the music magazine Rock Hard and earned his living as a printer at various textile printing companies .

Chambers recorded two songs under the name Rogue Process with Stuart Carruthers (Grip Inc.) and Jed Simons ( Strapping Young Lad ) in Vancouver , one of which was on the demo compilation Unheard! of the rock-hard magazine. Around 2002 he began to collect ideas for new songs with Waldemar Sorychta, which in 2004 led to the fourth Grip Inc. album Incorporated . In 2004 he founded Squad 21 in Dortmund as an homage to his earlier bands. The band consisted of members of the local bands Nothing but Puke and Duke . In 2006 he briefly replaced the late Andy "Henner" Allendörfer with the Hessian power metallers Squealer AD and can be heard on the album Confrontation Street . He then moved back to Coventry and founded the punk band Mantra Sect with his long-time companion, Wendy Seenan . The group recorded the album The Brave Die Lonely in February 2008 . At Summer Breeze 2008, Gus Chambers was guest vocalist with Enemy of the Sun when they played covers of Grip Inc.

Gus Chambers suffered from bipolar disorder for which he was taking medication. Chambers died on October 13, 2008 in his Coventry apartment, where two members of his last band, Mantra Sect, found him two days later. Initial reports suspected suicide , but the official investigation revealed an accidentally fatal mixture of drugs and alcohol. In 2015, Waldemar Sorychta released the EP Hostage to Heaven as a homage to Chambers with previously unreleased material by Grip Inc.

Discography

With Grip Inc.

Other publications (selection)

  • The Squad: Red Alert / £ 8-A-Week (Single, 1978)
  • The Squad: Millionaire / BrockHill Boys (single, 1979)
  • 21 Guns: 21 Guns (single, 1981)
  • Squad 21: Skullduggery (2004)
  • Squealer: Confrontation Street (2006)
  • Mantra Sect: The Brave Die Lonely (2008)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Holger Stratmann: Gus Chambers: Hard shell, soft core . In: Rock Hard . No. 354 , November 2016, p. 38 .
  2. Jump up ↑ Squad biography on Punk77.co.uk
  3. ↑ a b c Holger Stratmann: Gus Chambers: Hard shell, soft core . In: Rock Hard . No. 354 , November 2016, p. 39 .
  4. ↑ a b c d Holger Stratmann: Gus Chambers: Hard shell, soft core . In: Rock Hard . No. 354 , November 2016, p. 40 .
  5. ↑ Review of the album
  6. ↑ Squealer - band history. In: squealer.de. Retrieved December 16, 2016 .
  7. ↑ a b c Holger Stratmann: Gus Chambers: Hard shell, soft core . In: Rock Hard . No. 354 , November 2016, p. 41 .
  8. ↑ News message ( memento of the original from November 3, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on Blabbermouth October 17, 2008  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.roadrunnerrecords.com
  9. ^ Obituary for The Music's Over

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Chambers, Gus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chambers, Gary Kenneth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British punk and metal musician
DATE OF BIRTH January 18, 1958
DATE OF DEATH October 13, 2008
Place of death Coventry , England