Original subtitles

[♪ death metal music playing]

The music combined headlines and horror film.

Fact and fantasy, it's bizarre.

[reporter 1] And you may be surprised to know that Tampa Bay

is the death metal capital of the world.

[reporter 2] It's called death metal.

It's louder and faster than heavy metal and it has a message.

-[♪ death metal music playing] -[singer screaming]

-♪ Death! ♪ -About being brutal.

We wanna see bodies fly, bodies slammin'.

[reporter 3] What about people that say that it's Satanic,

it's devil worshipping music?

They just don't understand the music, that's all.

-[cheering and applause] -[band playing]

[Steve Di Giorgio] We hear Chuck playing the early death material,

and it is low, and earth-shaking, and guttural.

♪ Little do they know that I hear their choice of life ♪

[Paul Masvidal] And I think the real thing that Chuck was able to do

that was unlike a lot of other people in that extreme scene back then

was he found a sound that was uniquely his.

♪ Why don't you ♪

[Rick Rozz] It was something different.

"Oh, man, that's frickin' badass, that's frickin' cool."

♪ Pull the plug ♪

♪ Don't want to live this way ♪

[Kim Robinson] He made such great sacrifices,

and I could tell he was doing it not for fame and fortune,

but for truly the music.

And he loved his fans.

[Paul] We were playing an arena in Mexico.

It was like Death were like the Beatles there.

[Jim Morris] Chuck Schuldiner, I've always sort of thought

he was one of the founding fathers, as it were, of death metal.

He had every bit of drive that you would ever want from an artist.

[Chuck Schuldiner] For me, music is the dream,

and to keep reaching for bigger things, that's what my goal was.

[Chris Steele] As his albums progressed,

he didn't pull inspiration from the outside world.

He pulled it from within and brought it out.

[Steve] One of the main things that really puts a dark cloud on it

is he's going through some physical changes.

He's trying to figure out what the hell's wrong with him.

[Jim] And he was like, "You know what?

My hand's not doing what I thought it should do."

I said, "We need to get an MRI."

-[car door opens] -[Chris] I get in the backseat.

-[car starting] -We're driving down the road,

and I'm like, "What's going on?" And Chuck just lost it.

The doctor gave him three to six months to live.

-[clock ticking] -It was his worst nightmare coming true.

We were in the middle of working on the Control Denied album,

and he was hellbent on getting that album done.

[Jim] For Chuck, it had to be a race against time.

His health versus his music.

The music took precedent.

-[VHS machine whirring] -[♪ death metal music playing]

Oh, yeah.

This wall, we were spray painting it all the time

with our favorite bands, and this was a wall

in the Coconut Grove neighborhood in Miami,

and I had just finished spray painting the Death logo on the wall,

'cause we were such huge fans.

So, it's a-- it's a pretty cool moment.

My name is Paul Masvidal.

I'm a guitar player and vocalist in a band called Cynic.

And I met Chuck through the underground tape-trading scene

in probably 1986.

And then one day I get the call, and Chuck's like, "Dude, can you help me?

I've got a gig in Mexico in like two weeks."

And I was like, yeah!

[♪ death metal music playing]

The early origins of the death metal scene

was almost punk in the sense that it was driven

by just visceral brutality, you know, just absolute rage.

[Steve] We were in our high school days

looking at this underground scene,

and that was what we vibed with.

It's gotta be pretty evil and pretty dark to be death metal.

My name's Steve Di Giorgio, bass player.

I met Chuck in the early days.

We were about... 17?

Death metal is the most caveman-style approach,

yet the dichotomy is you have to be very technically proficient

to play it, because it's high speed and it's very precise riffing.

[♪ death metal music playing]

But I think the vocals are the main defining characteristic.

Death metal is the guttural voice.

[♪ guttural singing]

[screaming]

The vocals, the approach was like, you're just-- you sound like a demon.

[screaming]

[Paul] I mean, like an absolute monster, you know?

And when you put Chuck's voice on it, it suddenly is like,

"Wow, listen to that guy's voice."

♪ Left to die ♪

♪ Suffering until the end ♪

♪ Left to die ♪

To me, when I first heard it, I said, "This guy just swallowed broken glass."

It was sort of different than a lot of the other concurrent death metal bands.

My name's Jim Morris.

I met Chuck Schuldiner in the late '80s,

and did several albums with him in the '90s

and in the 2000s, and I considered him a personal friend.

The first time I ever heard about Death

was when we got a call to record an album.

But my first reaction was, my parents aren't gonna like this at all.

And that's sort of the point.

It was, "Break all the rules, let's get as extreme as we can get."

And Chuck was sort of right in the front of that.

[Chuck Schuldiner] As a death metal singer,

I try to make things interesting

and as catchy as possible.

[Beth Schuldiner] I mean, I just never really heard music

like that before, you know, so. [chuckles]

[interviewer] Yeah, like, what was your reaction to it?

It's like, it sucks.

And Chuck and I were very open about that.

You know, I didn't understand it all. That was his thing.

My dad was proud, and my mom was very proud.

Chuck, of course, thought it was the greatest thing ever.

I'm Beth Schuldiner, and I'm Chuck's older sister.

Chuck was definitely the spoiled young one. [laughing]

[Malcolm Schuldiner] Family was very important to him, very important.

I'm Mal Schuldiner, Chuck's father.

Chuck's proud father.

[interviewer] What was Chuck like as a kid?

[Mal] He was very likable, very likable, easygoing kid.

I thought very quiet, very soft-spoken.

Had a lot of good characteristics, a lot of good traits.

We would wake up on Saturday mornings and my dad had a reel-to-reel,

and he would play '50s music,

and, you know, we'd dance around the house.

The whole family loved music, so the house was filled with music.

[♪ rock music playing]

[Mal] He was an enormous fan of Kiss, enormous fan of Kiss.

Chuck, he wanted, you know, rock, something powerful.

They were dynamic, they were different.

Chuck so wanted to see them,

and my parents got us tickets in North Carolina.

And we went. Chuck was thrilled with it.

I mean, it was great stuff.

[Beth] Halloween, dress up for Kiss, Kiss birthday cakes.

And so, he'd paint posters with his friend, David Minchew.

[doorbell ringing]

[David Minchew] Chuck and I met in the fifth grade,

and he noticed that I was drawing Kiss pictures on the back of my folders.

I'm David Minchew, and Chuck was my best friend.

We discovered so much together as kids,

and we discovered heavy metal together,

and just obsessed.

Judas Priest and Iron Maiden,

Metallica's Kill 'Em All, darker stuff like Bathory.

Chuck was a huge Venom fan.

Chuck started playing guitar.

He learned by obsessing,

sitting in the bedroom for hours every day.

And he just got heavier and heavier and darker.

And then, he met Rick.

My name is Frederick Donald DeLillo, I go by Rick Rozz

in the death metal world.

And, uh, met Chuck Schuldiner in 1983 at a backyard party,

swapped numbers, and then just started hanging out.

He had a garage, I was like, whoo!

We just all got together and just played in that garage.

Yeah, it was cool stuff, man.

Chuck was like the master of tape trading.

The both of us would sit in his room.

We would dual-cassette it

all day long, just freaking making tapes, making tapes.

He was really good at it.

Yeah, he was a pretty dedicated guy, man.

He was, you know, succeed in what he wanted to do.

[Chuck] And, uh, we recorded Mutilation demo,

which we sent to Combat.

And then, Chuck got a record contract.

[♪ death metal music playing]

[David] Towards the end of high school, he got an envelope from Combat Records,

which was, you know, one of our favorite labels,

and they were offering him a recording contract.

It was crazy.

[Paul] If you look at the first few records,

Scream Bloody Gore, Leprosy,

those were just like, brutal, intense, heavy music.

[♪ death metal music playing]

[Chuck] I started this band when I was 16 years old,

so the music is growing rapidly

from each record to each record now, as well as I am.

[Jim] And they were having a ton of fun.

I remember walking in one day,

and seeing a grapefruit on a string.

And I remember saying, "Chuck, why is there a grapefruit?"

And Chuck was like, "That's not a grapefruit.

"That's the orb of metal.

And when you're doing the vocals, you have to have the orb of metal,"

at which point, the entire control room starts giggling,

because it's funny. He's self-deprecating.

He was making fun of everything about his own music.

[speaker] And to show how metal we are,

Chuck is on the orb.

[laughter]

Yeah, so playing in a band called Death

in a scene that's called death metal, we were really not,

because Chuck hated being pigeonholed into one sound.

And you can tell, every fan knows that the sound

and the writing style changes per album.

So, everything about Death

was about creating something strong,

and then moving on and trying something different.

[Kim Robinson] Chuck had a way of zoning in on a concept,

and just creating something that the kids

could feel down deep in their gut.

My name is Kim Robinson,

and Chuck Schuldiner was my soulmate.

When I lived in Miami, I was in journalism.

I knew that there was these fanzines out there,

and I wanted to be a part of it.

And so, it was called Cerebral Holocaust.

And that was the first I started writing about the music.

The first time I met Chuck, I was about 19,

and Chuck was gonna be coming down to the Cynic Warehouse.

[Paul] Kim was like a fixture kind of in our-- our inner circle.

And we had a warehouse down in Miami

where we would all hang out,

and this is how, you know, I introduced Chuck to Kim.

[Kim] I walked into the warehouse, and directly across the room...

-[heartbeat thumping] -...Chuck looked up,

and I looked at him, and our eyes locked.

It was an immediate connection.

Some people believe in that love at first sight.

That's literally what it was.

He was just so nice, down to earth.

By the end of the night, I kind of forgot that he was Chuck from Death,

and he was just Chuck.

He lived in Altamonte Springs,

and he invited me to come up there.

And so, I met his mom, and his nephew Christopher was really little.

And so, we ended up engaged by 1992.

Chuck was very dedicated to his family,

especially with his brother, Frank,

passing years before I met Chuck.

I believe that Chuck was very in tune

with death in itself,

stemmed from his experience as a child.

[crowd cheering]

And then Chuck used that pain in a very constructive way.

This one's for you. This one's called Open Casket!

[♪ death metal music playing]

And so, when it came time, we were talking in his bedroom.

And I never had seen Chuck cry,

but he was choked up and teary,

telling me about the death of his brother.

[interviewer] So, Chuck's the youngest?

[Beth] Yes. I'm middle, and Frank is the eldest.

[interviewer] And he's four years older than you?

Correct. He was our big brother,

so we looked for him to take care of us.

But I think that Chuck with Frankie, it was a very loving relationship.

He looked up to Frankie, and Frankie took care of him.

He was an Eagle Scout. He played tri-level chess.

He was an intellect.

But he was really casual, and fun, and sweet, you know?

I mean, he didn't grow past 16.

Frankie was visiting my aunt and uncle

and their kids in Greenville, South Carolina.

[phone ringing]

We received a phone call from my uncle.

I was next to my mother, we were in the kitchen,

and she answered the phone in the kitchen.

She just knew that there was a horrible accident,

and that's when she dropped the phone.

[thunder rumbling]

And, I mean, maybe in a half an hour,

we were in the car headed to South Carolina.

I remember the drive there was probably 10 hours,

but it seemed like 20.

And we went to the hospital, and when we walked in,

I remember a nurse saying to my mother...

"Your son died."

And she said, "He's in the cooling room.

So, we'll take you there. Kids stay here."

And it was just me and Chuck.

[person over PA] All nurses to the nurses' station.

[Kim] When the situation with Frank happened,

Chuck told me that Frank had gone to the cousin's house,

and, apparently, they were playing with guns they found.

And the bullet hit Frank in the head.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

[Beth] Then another nurse came up and handed to me a brown bag.

She said, "Give this to your parents."

And I said, "Okay." And then Chuck and I looked in the bag.

And it was my brother's clothing,

saturated in blood.

[♪ somber music playing]

I just remember both of us crying

and frantically looking for somewhere to hide this bag.

We knew as small children, that you don't give that

to grieving parents, and what would be the purpose?

So, we ran, and found a trash can,

and threw it away, and never made mention of it to my parents.

♪♪

[Beth] And then the next day, relatives coming in from everywhere,

and a-- a funeral.

We had never been to a funeral before.

So, you don't know what to expect, you're children.

And I remember walking in with Chuck,

there was an open casket with our-- our brother in it.

And I do remember Chuck saying, "Can I touch him?"

And I said, "It's not a good idea,

because I regret having done that."

Because you're a child, you don't know, you think you're gonna touch a warm face.

And I'm so glad he didn't,

because I think that would have even just been so much worse.

And I remember at the time, Chuck asking me,

"Is it okay for boys to cry?"

You know, I was young myself. You know, of course.

And my father, he was hurting.

You know, my mom was almost like a zombie, really.

And she was also afraid to let us out of her sight.

Life changed, life certainly changed for Chuck.

[Kim] And I think it was one of the single most things

that he was angry about.

Angry that his brother left, angry--

you know, originally angry at God.

I believe that the band Death was his outlet.

I think that's where he was reaching down deep

and grabbing some of that inspiration from,

was the pain and the agony from his brother's death.

[♪ death metal music playing]

-[music ends] -[cheering and applause]

[Steve] Yeah, he tried to really write more socially aware lyrics,

personal experiences, you know,

and he was into this semi-cerebral state of writing stuff that's interesting.

And he's enjoying it. He loved being different.

When you're in death metal, thrash metal, whatever,

you know, black leather jacket, black T-shirt,

usually logo of your favorite band and stuff.

And you see him walking around with a Blondie shirt,

you know, white T-shirts with kitty cats on 'em.

You know, I'm walking around with Birkenstocks and a headband,

and Gene's got a cane with an eight ball on it,

and everybody had their own character

that was totally outside of this-- this "death metal" look.

And he encouraged the hell out of that.

[Chuck] We appreciate everybody's support,

you know, we really do.

We've been getting really good reviews.

I've only really seen a couple of the shitty ones,

but those are from, like, people who just don't know

what the fuck they're talking about.

[Steve] And that's when things started really opening up for him,

getting better publicity, and coming into his own.

And at this time, Death was a force.

[Kim] As he was getting more notoriety,

and the albums were starting to sell,

we realized that when you're like a sole proprietor of a business,

and you're dealing with the business side, the musical side,

and then the touring side, all the logistical things about touring,

there was a weight on him.

Sometimes he would be upset at things that were going on on tour.

[interviewer] Describe what it was like being on tour with Chuck.

Every time was different.

Try to do a few tours, go to Europe a few times,

come back home, never finish a tour.

[Steve] He's developing a reputation for leaving tours, canceling shows.

We had a tour manager on this particular tour

that was an old buddy of mine,

and I told him straight up, "Grab him by the shirt.

Physically, do not let him just-- 'I'll be right back,' no."

On tour, he's had people take his money, take his things,

steal from him.

[Rick] He was on the phone with the owner of Combat Records,

just screaming at this guy, and I was like, whoa.

[Paul] There was a lot of press where people were coming up to him

and asking him questions, and he would get really triggered by that.

[reporter] Somebody told me that the record company

wouldn't pay for your flight, you had to pay out your own money,

-so that's why you canceled it. -[Chuck] Well, yeah,

there were a couple tours that we had to cancel.

When you don't get money, you cannot tour.

-[interviewer] Yeah. -[Chuck] And people have to realize

because you have albums out does not mean you have the money...

-[interviewer] Yeah. -[Chuck] ...to do it yourself.

He was pushed to his edges, and sometimes it would turn that corner,

you know, where it was just like, "Whoa, okay."

There's a lot of nostalgia in death metal, and people love to gossip.

So, he would always-- you know, you'd see him in old interviews

saying, "No more rumors. Don't believe the rumors,"

'cause he felt very betrayed.

Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas.

[David] At the same time, he couldn't wait for the tour to end

so he could get back home. He became homesick a lot.

These are Mal, made in 1962.

[Kim] You know, he just wanted to be home with his mom.

The death of Frankie made such a powerful impact in his life

that he took care of everything.

[Jim] I think he definitely gave family priority.

He did not like touring. I mean, he loved his fans,

he loved being in the moment, but that whole process killed him.

My name is Chris Steele. Uh, Chuck Schuldiner is my uncle,

my mother's brother.

And here's a few minutes with Chris Steele.

Christopher loved Chuck so much.

[Chris] That's my uncle.

-He's afraid of spiders. -You know it.

God, it was so crazy. They almost seemed

like they were the same age when they were together sometimes.

[Chuck and Chris imitating chickens]

[Beth] I think that Christopher allowed him to go back

and be the child he was before Frankie died.

[Chris] You know, Frankie's passing, there was still always a shadow

of that over the family.

You'd see my grandparents pass by his picture,

and a stop for a second and look at it.

And I think when a major loss like that occurs,

you know, there's collateral damage, and I think the holidays

are one of those things.

And Chuck was, like, super into holidays.

Yeah, he definitely kept the family traditions going.

[Jim] He was all about his family.

When he wasn't doing music, he was doing family and home.

I think he was able to, like, throw the switch back and forth,

and really concentrate on one thing or the other thing.

I first really started directly working with Chuck

on the Symbolic album, and then The Sound of Perseverance.

He said to me he wanted to lean on me

for some more advanced musical approaches.

I think he felt somewhat limited

by what death metal had become.

[Paul] He's heard everywhere. I mean, it's to the point

where you hear like all the post bands that kind of borrowed from them, right?

It's like, "Oh, those are Death riffs," you know?

[Steve] And when the bands that were following in line of the Death sound,

who were talking about satanism and the demons,

and he's getting lumped in with bands that are doing it blatantly.

[Chuck] Reality is far more brutal

than a demon tearing someone's heart out.

You know, that just does not happen in life.

I see no demons around me.

I think if there's evil, it's people.

Yeah, he was asking record companies to not do combined record ads,

like separate his album release advertisements from the other bands.

Anything to create a distance from what they were doing

because he believed he was doing something totally different.

[Kim] Those bands hated Chuck.

They would write to him terrible things,

you know, they would pass rumors through the rumor mill,

and that they thought he was a sellout.

That wasn't his intent, but he just wanted to evolve.

[Jim] Chuck was very intense about recording,

about what he was trying to do.

And on the day we're starting vocals, Chuck says to me,

"Jim, I don't wanna start the vocals yet. I wanna listen to everything."

My reaction is, "We don't have the budget for that."

Chuck's, "I gotta do it. It's important."

I'm like, "It's important to you, it's important to me."

[♪ death metal music playing]

So, we sit up, and we listen to every song.

And Chuck looks at me, he goes, "Well, let's go ruin it."

I'm like, "What?"

He says, "Yeah, if I had my way, we'd be done.

"And so, we're gonna go put a bunch of screaming on top of this.

"I really wish I didn't have to, but that's how the songs go."

♪ Spirit crusher ♪

In the back of my mind, I'm thinking, "Well, it's a joke.

"Right? He's joking.

Ha ha, let's go ruin the record."

It's a great record, and it's gonna be even better with the vocals on it.

But that stuck with me the whole time. "Let's go ruin it."

And, you know, that's the predecessor to what Control Denied was all about.

That's where he was going, and I didn't know it at the time.

[Paul] What's interesting with Chuck, he always had at his disposal,

you know, like an endless flow of, like, ideas,

and he was just ready to reinvent himself.

[Steve] In fact, he got so sick of his own vocal style

that he quit singing for his own band and got someone that he was a fan of.

[Chuck] Control Denied is very much a band.

It's going to be equally as important, even more so

than-- than what Death has done,

because it will have the ability to go farther

in what I feel needs to be done musically

that can't be done with Death.

For him, that was, "Let's do just as extreme music, but with melody."

At that point, Chuck's the songwriter, and the main guitar player.

Richard Christy, Shannon Hamm,

Steve Di Giorgio, and then doing vocals,

you add Tim Aymar into it.

♪ Your faithful servants, they ♪

♪ Bow to you ♪

[Tim Aymar] There wasn't really much to compare it to

because it was basically a death metal band

with a power metal singer,

but not singing in the power metal style per se.

[Jim] Chuck seemed nervous. He said to me,

"You know, this is kinda scary

"because it's like a whole new style of music.

"I wanna make sure that I bring my fans with me.

"That's why I'm doing this.

I want to give them the next thing."

When we started the Control Denied record,

and Chuck would just kinda play an amalgamation

of what all the guitar parts were gonna be.

One thing about Chuck as a guitar player,

great vibrato, great bending skills,

had a very muscular approach with his left hand.

And then, he started having problems, and he was like, "You know what?

My hand's not doing what I thought it should do."

And I'm like, "What are you talking about? It sounds great."

He says, "No, it's-- I'm struggling."

And he says, "And my neck hurts."

He would hand me the guitar, and he'd say,

"Imitate my vibrato and put it in there."

[Steve] He was losing his dexterity during this.

So, he's going through some physical changes,

he's trying to figure out what the hell's wrong with him.

[♪ ominous music playing]

[Beth] We were at the Altamonte Mall, and Chuck tripped.

And me being the asshole sister, I said, "Walk much?"

And he's like, "It's not funny." And I said, "Well, what's going on?"

And he said, he goes, "Sometimes my foot just flops."

And I also noticed that, uh, Chuck started doing this a lot.

And within three months, he was getting worse.

So, I called the orthopedic clinic, make an immediate appointment.

We get in a couple days later.

I said, "We need to get an MRI."

And then, we received a phone call from the neurologist.

[clock ticking]

And he said, "I need to make an appointment.

Can you come tomorrow?"

And it was Chuck's birthday.

We went in and the doctor said,

"There is no easy way to say this to you,"

and said, "You have a brain tumor.

"It's a glioblastoma of the pons region...

and you have three to six months."

♪♪

[Beth] I remember Chuck not saying anything,

just looking straight ahead.

And we were just kinda-- at this point, it almost sounds like you're in a hole.

The doctor walked back a couple of steps,

and Chuck tried to stand up, and Chuck collapsed.

And so, the doctor grabbed him before he hit the floor,

and I called my father.

[Mal] And got a phone call that said,

"Chuck got his diagnosis and prognosis, and it's terrible."

"Okay, I'll come right away."

Then we knew we had to tell Mom, and that was our biggest fear.

Because of how she reacted to the death of my other brother.

Now, we're going in and telling her this.

But Chuck didn't wanna do that first, and I was in my own car,

so Dad took Chuck to go pick Chris up from school early.

-[car starting] -[Chris] I get called up

to the administration office like, "Hey, your grandfather

and uncle are here to pick you up," which was super bizarre.

My grandfather would never take me out of school early.

I get in the backseat, we're driving down the road.

Chuck was clearly upset.

You know, he's very quiet, looking down.

And I'm like, "What's-- what's going on?"

And my grandfather just kind of casually said,

"They-- they found something right here."

And Chuck just lost it.

Incomprehensible noises, you know, like just guttural crying,

like almost like a child would cry.

He called me at work, and they said it was Chuck,

and I thought that was really odd.

Because at the time, we had been broken up

for five, almost six years,

because I really wanted to get married.

I wanted him to be my husband.

I think that was sort of a hard concept for him.

And so, I-- I left.

We started talking on the phone.

He was crying, and he told me that he had cancer.

Facing that prognosis was devastating to Chuck.

Even though he wanted to be hopeful,

he knew that it-- the odds were against him.

[Jim] He certainly wasn't in denial about it,

but I think he was sorta like-- he wanted to insulate his friends

from the kind of horror that it was.

[♪ dramatic music playing]

Finishing the album became unimportant to me at first.

I will tell you this. It was important to Chuck.

He stayed on point and on task,

and we had already cut the four rhythm tracks

for the next Control Denied record.

I kinda think that was cathartic for him as a way to deal

with all this other shit that's happening.

For Chuck, it had to be a race against time.

So, then we went on the journey looking for doctors immediately.

[Chris] My mom went into like battle mode,

like, "Let's make a plan, like, how are we gonna attack this?"

She's like, "I don't accept that prognosis."

Within that week, she started making phone calls and doing research.

[Beth] Well, it turns out I found Dr. Weiner

after many other doctors, and Dr. Weiner worked at NYU.

And so, I said, "Okay, the best hospitals are there."

Florida's great for old people and hearts, not brain tumors.

And we got on a plane immediately to New York.

We went to see Dr. Weiner,

and he looked at the scans, examined Chuck.

He said, "I'm not gonna lie to you." He goes, "This is a bad situation here."

I said, "You can't operate? You can't do--" I just didn't understand.

"Okay, it's in his head, go get it." And he said, "It's the location.

"Your pons of your brain is like a ball of rubber bands.

"All nerves.

"And there's a tumor on it.

"And we can go in and take the tumor out,

"but we don't know what damage we will do

"to your body while we're doing this.

We could blind you, we could paralyze you."

And he said, "But if this were in either one of my children's head,

I'd wanna know what the hell it was and see if I could go get it."

And Chuck was like, "Oh, that-- that's what we're gonna do."

But now, we're talking about an enormous amount of money.

Chuck had resources, and he burned through those pretty fast.

And I had two cars.

I sold a car. Then, I sold my house.

And the fans immediately started writing letters.

I mean, there were hundreds of letters, and the sweetest things ever.

Like, there would be a euro taped on the inside.

"I don't have a lot of money, but here, this is to help."

It was amazing.

[Steve] We were in the middle of working on the Control Denied album,

and I think the album cheered him up and kept him focused

during all his medical treatments he was doing.

And he would say stuff like, "Man, I think I got this.

Let's make plans for the future."

[Beth] So, when the brain surgery was finally scheduled,

it was hours long, hours long.

Any kind of brain surgery is gonna be very worrisome.

I mean, we were so scared sitting there waiting for the doctors to come out.

I mean, anything could've happened on the table.

He could have passed away there. He could have been injured

to the point where maybe he would be a vegetable at that point.

Who knew? So, I mean, it was brutal.

I said to Bethann, "I wish I could trade places with him."

I would've given him a brain transplant if I could have.

Can't do it.

[machine beeping]

[Beth] His surgery was very successful.

He was waking up, and Dr. Weiner said,

you know, "Move your arm, move your hand, lift up your leg."

Chuck, he had a very hard time doing before the surgery.

So immediately, the surgery offered him relief.

They did not get all of the brain tumor,

nor could they get all of the brain tumor.

When the doctor said if he went any further,

he could paralyze Chuck or blind Chuck.

When they released Chuck, for the first time in a long, long time,

he was able to go out there and be Chuck.

And it meant the world to him.

We knew the battle wasn't over, but Chuck said,

"I-- I just want some normal. I wanna be normal."

[family member chuckles]

[Chris] When he first got out of brain surgery in New York,

we just talked for hours.

And I would be his sounding board, you know,

as much as a 15-year-old could be, right?

So, he would just dump on me what he was feeling,

his fears, his dreams, you know, his goals.

He would always say, you know, "When I recover,

when this, when that." There was no "if."

You know, he had plans of venturing more into the production side.

And then, he would talk about his fears, you know,

leaving us behind scared him, the fallout from that.

I remember being in the shower, and I heard Chuck

playing guitar for the first time, and I started hearing songs,

and that was so emotional, man.

[♪ heavy metal guitar music playing]

I got goosebumps.

I got that, like, pit in my stomach.

It was like a very visceral feeling to hear that music again.

It was like almost hearing him break free of chains,

you know, it was amazing.

[Steve] There was an upswing to his health.

His attitude was improving, his mood was improving,

his dexterity was coming back a little.

We had conversations, just hypothetical things

about going out as Death,

calling it the Death Farewell Tour.

And immediately following that tour up with a Control Denied full tour.

So, he was hell-bent on getting that second album done,

and he was kicking out the songs for the second album.

He wanted to go full force,

to just release that and go, "Here, I'm back."

[Jim] If you're a player at his level,

to have the rug pulled out from under you,

"No, you can't do that thing."

I could tell he was trying to push through it.

He was trying to stay positive, "And I'm gonna get through this,

it's gonna be okay."

But I think doctors would've been honest with him,

and would've honest with his-- his mom, and his sister, and his nephew.

They would've told him everything.

I think they all just kept it from the rest of us.

[Steve] He was still in good spirits about getting the album done.

And we were just talking about me coming down there,

spending time and, you know, learning the material,

and, you know, helping it grow into the album.

And then he told me, you know, "Oh wait, hold off for a little bit.

"I'm-- I'm kinda going downhill.

"Let me get a hold of this and get my strength back

before you come out."

[Jim] But we were having more and more trouble,

like doing a pass in an hour,

it was taking a pass in three hours.

I could tell this isn't right.

He was gonna try to finish, even if the sounds weren't up to snuff.

He was gonna try to finish them at his house.

I went over to his house.

He bought the mics that I recommended to mic his cabinets.

"Here's where the mics go.

It'll be close to the sound we get at Morrisound."

He said, "This is gonna work."

-[birdsong] -[dog barking]

[Chris] When Chuck started driving around again,

started spending more time alone, you know,

and writing the next Control Denied album,

he had a really humble ranch home.

Five and a half acres, it was a super private home studio,

and we all felt safe that he could be out there by himself again.

[Beth] It wasn't uncommon for us not to hear from him

when he was in studio.

But at least after six or eight hours, he would call, and he hadn't called.

And that studio in that house was almost an hour away.

[Chris] And we drive up there.

-[Beth] And we opened it up... -[door creaking]

...and found him on the floor, he couldn't get up.

[♪ ominous music playing]

And he said, "It's back."

[Jim] This was right around the same time he was telling me,

"Hey, if I don't make it, I need you

to stand up for me at my funeral."

And I'm like, holy crap, that's really heavy.

That was kind of the-- the smack in the face with the two-by-four.

We might not finish the record.

[Mal] The challenge was after a while,

speech started to then deteriorate as well, and it became difficult.

I know it had to hurt him to be losing his ability to speak properly.

He said, "I can hardly say 'I love you, Mom,'

or 'I love you, Dad,' it's getting more difficult."

And at one point, couldn't speak anymore.

So, I tried using like a board with letters on it,

you know, with different letters on different lines and pointing to 'em.

And it helped a little bit, but it was very frustrating

because it was very slow,

and it was a very difficult time for him

and for us, too, of course.

[Beth] I called Dr. Weiner in New York

and I said, "Chuck's getting weaker."

He said, "Can you get his latest scan sent to me?"

I said, "Yeah, he had a scan yesterday."

And he called me and he said,

"I'm surprised Chuck's communicating at all."

He said, "Chuck may have less than a day to live."

I said, "What?" And he said, "Less than a day."

[♪ somber music playing]

[Beth] Chuck was in the hospital.

I went up to Chuck's room and I pulled Mom out in the hall,

and I said, "Mom, I'm taking Chuck out of this hospital today."

She said, "Oh, don't, he'll die." I said, "He's dying.

"And we promised he would not die in a hospital.

So, I'm taking him out of the hospital today."

[Chris] It was around Christmas time, so we made sure the living room

was as cheerful as possible.

[fire crackling]

[Beth] We went into the house.

It was all lit up Christmas.

[Chris] We had a Christmas tree up, decorations, we had the fireplace going.

And a tear fell from his eye.

[Chris] I remember getting him in bed.

Once that all settled, then, yeah, it got really quiet and somber.

[♪ somber music playing]

We made it by the skin of our teeth because three hours later, he died.

[Mal] I was in the house with him.

And then, I could see...

he did that last breath, that... [quick shallow breath]

And I knew that was it.

[David] I was at work and got a phone call from Bethann,

and they-- they wanted me to come over.

And I sat over there with his mom for a couple hours, and-- and with Chuck.

Well, you know, I'm tr-- trying to decipher...

you know, your-- your best friend from childhood ly-- lying there, passed away.

Yeah, it was, uh...

[clicking tongue] It was tough.

[Kim] It was December 17, 2001.

At that time, I had signed a contract to go to the Army.

The Army let us go home on holiday.

And I got off the plane,

and I just saw my parents' face.

[choking up] And I knew that he had passed away.

And I had just missed him by a few days.

And so, I petitioned my NCO if I could stay a little bit extra

and attend his funeral.

Because we weren't married, and because we weren't together...

they would not approve it.

And I will always regret...

not just sticking through with him,

and being-- giving him the ultimatum of getting married.

[sniffling] But I also wish that-- that we had been,

if only it was to be able to attend his funeral.

But I could not do that.

And I'll never have closure.

Ever.

[interviewer] What do you miss the most about Chuck?

Oh.

Well, to say everything is not an overstatement.

But certainly being able to pick up the phone.

If anything went wrong or anything went great,

he was the first person I would talk to.

Chuck was a very down-to-earth human being.

Even through the music and everything else,

he was just a down-to-earth human being.

[Paul] And I really genuinely believe, you know, artists are like muses

in the sense that we're just obviously like vessels for information.

And Chuck was a true embodiment

in the sense that he was just trying to work through shit.

He was just trying to get-- get it out there and say something.

[Chuck] Well, I think, um, definitely there's been a lot of growing

as a person, and, uh, musically,

which go hand in hand together.

Chuck was showing people that you can progress, right?

That you don't have to, you know, stay in your little bubble.

He was just showing people, "Yeah, you can change, and it's fine."

[interviewer] For someone like Chuck, do you think it was super challenging

for him to come to terms with not being able to finish that Control Denied album?

Oh, hell yeah.

Because he was pretty excited to show everyone, like,

"Hey, look what I went through, and I'm still able to create this."

Yeah, so in his mind, that album was very important to him.

[Jim] There's a path to finishing the record.

It's difficult.

It's sort of, we'd have to do it forensically.

It's kinda one of my goals in my career

to get that record done for Chuck.

[♪ death metal music playing]

[Paul] He was so young. He had so much more to say.

That's the thing. But as much of it seems like a tragedy,

it's like, celebrate the body of work

that he left behind. He did a lot.

♪ Do you feel what I feel ♪

♪ See what I see ♪

[David] I wish he could see now how huge he has become,

and how huge Death has become, you know?

I'm sure he'd be very proud of it.

[Steve] To the level of what it is now,

for a band that hasn't existed since 1998,

I probably see that logo more than any other band.

Patches, tattoos, stickers, everything.

But to see that people

that weren't even around at all when Death was a band,

now they're grown up, and it's their favorite band.

[Chuck] For me, music is the main reason why I'm here.

You know, I'm here to play music,

and hopefully, people will enjoy it.

You know, that's all that really matters to me.

[♪ death metal music playing]