Charles Michael Schuldiner was born in 1967 in Long Island, New York. In 1983 he founded the band Death (initially under the name Mantas) in Florida. Death was part of and arguably led the first wave of death metal bands, many of which were based in Florida at that time. The discography of Death can be seen as a shorthand for the stylistic progression of the genre in general: initial albums Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy, and Spiritual Healing are morbid, guttural takes on the preceding genre of thrash metal, though the musical sophistication ticks up with each successive effort. The following albums Human and Individual Thought Patterns introduce elements from jazz and neoclassical guitar traditions, essentially starting the technical death metal subgenre. The final records Symbolic and The Sound of Perseverance take a turn to Chuck's personal taste, incorporating sounds from power metal and progressive hard rock. It is difficult to name another individual with so much influence over so much of the genre.

But a dark streak runs through Schuldiner’s history. The documentary Death by Metal (2016) catalogs several instances of tours abruptly cancelled, managers and bandmates abruptly fired. In 1990 Chuck personally refused to participate in a European tour with German Thrash act Kreator; because of contractual obligations, drummer Bill Andrews and bassist Terry Butler did the tour anyway as Death, with two Kreator roadies filling out the band. Drummer Sean Reinert recalls learning he was no longer part of the Death lineup when bassist Steve DiGiorgio called him from a rehearsal informing him that Gene Hoglan was there playing drums with the band.

There is a musical argument to be made for the replacement of band members almost every album, one made by Albert Mudrian of Decibel magazine in Death by Metal: that Chuck was artistically moving quite quickly, changing the concept of Death so rapidly that the members he’d recruited for one iteration weren’t suited musically to the next. This is understandable and to a degree honorable. We all are glad the Death albums are what they are, that the progression over the discography is what it is and that he didn’t slow or dilute his vision just to avoid hurting his bros’ feelings. And most of Death’s existence happened when Chuck was in his 20s, a period when many of us (certainly me) are mercurial and unreliable. We are robbed by the brain cancer that claimed him at the age of 34 from ever knowing how he would reflect on or recast these moments given the benefits of age and hindsight.

In interviews Chuck frequently spoke of not wanting to be limited by the gore-oriented death metal sound that Death had become famous for early on; he expresses the desire to grow, to not be “put in a box” again and again. Certainly, the early innovation of death metal was very quickly codified into a formula; fans and labels would bristle at deviation from it. Such pressures on a young and restlessly creative musician would feel quite constraining. But some of it seems to have been purely personal factors. Steve DiGiorgio says in Death by Metal that Chuck was “wound tighter than most people,” and in fact he and Gene Hoglan, part of the small group of musicians to play on two consecutive Death albums, seem to have achieved that mostly by virtue of being good at calming Chuck down. Sensing he was near the snapping point that, left unchecked by previous band members, had led to the blowups in which tours were abandoned and musicians or managers fired.

I wonder if there wasn’t one more bit of agitation causing Chuck to be wound tighter than most. As a bisexual man who’s watched a lot of Death interviews, I want to claim him as one of our own. He was prone to acts of light aesthetic rebellion against metal orthodoxy, such as wearing a shirt festooned with cats to a TV interview; most of these also read as somewhat effeminate. Explicit homoeroticism was a huge no-no in metal during his lifetime. I caught the tail end of this era– I’d say the metal community’s default attitude towards LGBQT turned from default negative to default acceptance in the early 2010’s, following a larger movement in American culture. I used to worry in the early days of my musical journey about being outed on some message board. If he was indeed queer, being forced to be closeted either by his own mind or social pressures of his community would add another layer of tension to his psyche. It’s impossible to know, and some might say it’s irresponsible for me to speculate like this, but to me it’s just one more possible factor contributing to the psychology of this brilliant, complicated artist who burned so brightly but not for very long. Hail Chuck.