On Monday, November 26th the sad announcement hit the Metal news wires like a rapidly firing machine gun that legendary Heavy Metal singer Kevin DuBrow of Quiet Riot had been found dead in his home. The initial report was that he had passed away the previous day and the full details were not disclosed but it was only days after the public announcement that we found out that it was determined that Kevin had been dead for at least six days before he was found. The singer was always surrounded by controversy/news/wild stories and with his passing the online mediums were bombarded with music personality recollections about their own experiences with him. As you might expect some of these tales were very interesting and I have yet to read a bad one. I was a fan of Quiet Riot since the beginning, well, I mean since the album Metal Health came out and did its whole blockbuster thing for Hard Rock and Metal music on the nation’s airwaves. I even played a lot of their music in the bands I had in my youth and I even find myself listening to those old records every so often. Based on this I decided to offer up my own recollections as they relate to the band and the singer.
Just the other day the Polish Technical Death Metal masters Decapitated were traveling to a show in Belarus when their tour bus collided with a truck that was hauling wood. The impact from the accident caused terrible injuries to both their drummer Vitek and singer Covan and while initially there was hope for some kind of recovery from this in due time, Vitek would pass away from the injuries four days later while Covan would remain in the hospital after slipping into a coma. Vitek was only 23 years old when this happened. That frigging sucks.
Before this terrible circumstance I had only been fortunate enough to see Decapitated once in concert. Yes I had done some reviews of their releases on the website but its something else to see a musician like this in action right in front of you. I had to say that Vitek was a powerhouse and a technical monster on the drums. His loss at this very early age not only cheats the fans of his promising future accomplishments but also impacts the development of such technique quite a bit as well. I’ve posted this news in the blog under the category of “When The Music Died” so fans can speak their minds about such losses and maybe find some level of comfort by my doing so. Vitek is survived by his mom and dad and his brother “Vogg” who is also a member of Decapitated. One can only imagine that the band will cease to exist based on this occurrence and it honestly makes sense if this is what Vogg chooses to do going forward.
We wish his family, friends and legions of worldwide supporters the deepest of condolences. Rest in Peace Vitek.
