Future legend Chuck Schuldiner was born in 1967 in a family of teachers. At birth, he received the name Charles. Chuck is his pseudonym, which was first used by his friends, and later assigned to the frontman during the years of the existence of Death.
Childhood
Music has become the element that Chuck Schuldiner became interested in from an early age. His first guitar appeared only in the tenth year of his life. At first, Chuck studied a classical instrument. However, he was immediately discarded when his parents bought an electric guitar. The future musician learned to play in his spare time from school. Even in his teens, he showed leadership, trying to collect his first teams.
Musical tastes of Chuck were formed under the influence of the then British wave of heavy metal, as well as the first thrash metal bands. His idols were Iron Maiden, as well as Venom. The first album Chuck bought was Destroyer recorded by Kiss.
In addition, the young man was fond of other genres: classical academic music and jazz. This interest was instilled in him by his mother. Such a palette of tastes will later play a role in the composer activities of the founder of Death.
The passion for music experienced by Chuck Schuldiner did not foster interest in learning, even though the teenager was a capable student. At school, he was attracted to microscopes and everything related to science. Later, in 1995, in an interview, he admitted that if he had not started playing the guitar, he would have become a veterinarian or cook.
Mantas and the first demos
In 1983, sixteen-year-old Chuck Schuldiner founded his first group. She got the name Mantas. It was the pseudonym for the British guitarist Venom. The songs of this collective became the first repertoire that Chuck played with friends. Almost immediately, the young guys began to write their own material.
Under the banner of Mantas in the new year 1984, the only demo recording Death by Metal was released. It was heavy material that equated the new band with the cult Possessed, which at that time played in clubs in San Francisco. However, in Florida, where Mantas started, such music did not gain popularity.
Chuck Schuldiner himself recalled that the group was looked down upon and with contempt. The reason for this was the poor recording quality. Since the musicians did not have a contract with the label, they could not record in the studio either. Because of this, the group was agitated by conflicts, and in the end it broke up. This happened at the end of 1984.
However, Chuck did not give up and created a new group, which he briefly called Death, that is, "Death." The first demo released by the group was called Reign of Terror. Everything was recorded in a few hours in a music store, or rather, in his office.
In Death Metal Music: The Passion and Politics of a Subculture, which was released in 2003, twenty years later, the Reign of Terror demo was called "one of the pillars of the genre." This will confirm any fan of this music.
Debut album
However, this recognition was still far away. Chuck had to work a few more years in order to get the opportunity to record a real album. The next demo of Mutilation was spotted by agents from the Combat Records label.
The group was offered a contract signed by Chuck Schuldiner. The reviews for the new album, released in 1987, were enthusiastic. It was music that no one had played before. The fast pace, interesting melody, distortion, as well as the growling (roar) of Schuldiner - all this has become signs of a new genre. Nobody has ever played so brutally, even Slayer, which were then considered the most "heavy".
However, revolutionism was not only about music. A distinctive feature of the group were its texts and images. The songs were dedicated to the dead, diseases and everything connected with the afterlife. Actually, the name Death symbolized this theme as well as possible.
Time has shown that the debut album Scream Bloody Gore has become a real cult for the then youth. Songs like Evil Dead and Mutilation turned into hymns of a new movement. Very soon, similar bands appeared that copied Chuck's style. Already in the 90s, the term death metal appeared, which began to describe this genre of music. The name was taken in honor of the Schuldiner group, where for all years he was the only permanent member.
Leprosy and Spiritual Healing
Very soon, the concert halls of America learned what Death is. Chuck Schuldiner immediately wrote new songs for his performances. Among them was the hit band Pull the Plug. This song became a permanent number in the set lists of the group until its breakup.
New material was recorded in a studio in Tampa in 1988. He was like a debut album and thundered in the underground with the same success. The name Leprosy translates as "leprosy." This is a medieval disease that affected human skin with deadly ulcers. On the cover of the plate was a victim of this scourge, dressed in a turban. The original Death covers have become another hallmark of the band.
On the third Spiritual Healing album, released in 1990, the songs became longer and more complex in structure, although the sound remained the same. Chuck diligently searched for a new format for his brainchild.
Album Design and Religion
Among other things, Chuck came up with the Death logo. It was an inscription in Latin, which also contained a braid and a skull. Both of these symbols were associated with death, and such a metaphor was understandable. Another sign in the logo is the letter t, depicted as an inverted cross. As you know, it was a symbol of the Satanists.
When the angry religious community and fans noticed this, Chuck removed the cross from the logo. The musician himself explained his act by the fact that he absolutely did not want to be associated with the Satanists. According to him, faith in God or its absence is all too personal a matter for each individual person to be affected in his work and songs. Indeed, in the texts of Death there are no references to religion, let alone attempts to insult someone.
In general, the image of metalists that has developed in society was erroneous, according to Chuck Schuldiner. The biography of the musician will tell the best of the rest - he was a man with the most good-natured and bright character. He was alien to anger and other shortcomings that many around him attributed to him because of his music.
Composer Evolution
1991 year. The fourth album, Human, was the turn Chuck Schuldiner sought. The scales on this disc have changed a lot. Music received elements of jazz. Lyrics dramatically changed their focus from death to internal human experiences and conflicts with the outside world. It was the poetics of a completely new, adult level. This trend continued in 1993 when the album Individual Thought Patterns was released.
Symbolic
The sixth album by most fans and music journalists is considered the best in Chuck's discography. Each note of musical parts here has its own mood. The sound from violent and basement changed to deeper and softer. Simple melodies were replaced by a multi-tiered compositional structure. It was 1995. It seemed that Death had nowhere to develop, so unique was the work done by Chuck on the album.
The lyrical tangle of the plate is confused and ambiguous. The title track tells of the loss of human innocence. 1,000 Eyes talks about the persecution mania. Lyrics also have a universal meaning, each listener could understand them in their own way. That is how Chuck Schuldiner explained his poetic world. Quotes from his interviews were snapped up by numerous magazines that tried to extract from the musician the true meaning of his songs.
Misanthrope's composition touches on the theme of extraterrestrial civilizations. Chuck himself believed that they exist, which he spoke of in a conversation with Czech reporters. Like many children of his generation, at this age he could not take his eyes off science fiction films. However, his favorite film was the film “The Wizard of Oz”.
The sound of perseverance
Swan song Death appeared in 1998. The Sound of Perseverance was the most technically challenging album ever. Chuck Schuldiner's guitar could dramatically change the tempo and melody several times in one song. This music had little to do with Death's debut songs.
The instrumental composition Voice of Soul, which is considered by many fans to be the zenith of the musician’s creativity, has become a real diamond. As a bonus to the album, a cover of Judas Priset's “Painkiller” was recorded. Schuldiner paid tribute to the legendary group, surprisingly and unusually performing the roles of Rob Halford.
Disease
In 1999, Chuck had unnatural pain in the back of his head. First, the musician turned to the therapist. He performed the necessary tests and did not find a pinched nerve, which was initially considered the cause of pain. It became clear that the matter was something more serious.
Magnetic resonance imaging showed that Chuck had a brain tumor. Radiation therapy courses were urgently prescribed. At their completion, the doctors said that the tumor had died off safely. In January 2000, Chaku underwent an additional operation, during which the remains of a malignant tumor were excised. It seemed that everything was behind, and the musician returned to his usual activities.
"The fragile art of being"
Back in 1996, a new group appeared, founded by Chuck Schuldiner. The growth of his composing skills led him to think that the scope of Death was too narrow for his new idea. Therefore, he gathered a new lineup of musicians, with whom he recorded an album that was even more different from his past work.
The team was called Control Denied, and the disc - The Fragile Art of Existence ("Fragile art of being"). She was released in 1999. The music of Control Denied was very different from Death. It turned out to be a logical continuation of the movement that began on Symbolic.
It was a progressive metal with numerous references to other genres, broken rhythm and pace. Schuldiner performed on the disc only as a guitarist and main composer. His friend Tim Aimar stood up to the microphone, playing his parts with a clear voice, which was also not characteristic of Death.
Death
However, this was the last album recorded by Chuck Schuldiner. Photos of the musician stopped appearing in print, he did not leave home. In the spring of 2001, headaches resumed, and doctors said the cancer was back. Chuck's family has been financially exhausted due to recent operations. Fans began hastily collecting money, but it was too late.
Due to potent medicines, the musician’s body was fatally weakened, his immunity was seriously damaged. When he fell ill with pneumonia in the fall, his health simply could not stand such a blow. Chuck died on December 13, a couple of weeks before the new 2002.
Life after death
The musician’s legacy, primarily within the Death group, is of tremendous importance today, after a little over a dozen years. Death metal continues to evolve, many of the composer's innovative ideas embodied in recent albums have become the basis for new bands. Now this phenomenon has formed in new genres - technical death metal, brutal death metal, jazz death metal, etc.
For thousands of musicians and millions of fans, Chuck Schuldiner has become a cult figure. His short but productive life remains an object of interest for music lovers and researchers.
Of course, the Death group ceased to exist with the death of Chuck. However, numerous musicians who have been collaborating with Schuldiner in different years gather from time to time at retrospective concerts. The money from these events goes to the accounts of a special fund, which was founded by the Chuck family to help cancer patients.