Bob Bryar, the former drummer of the US pop-punk band My Chemical Romance which was said to have influenced the youth culture movement emo, has died aged 44.
Bryar’s body was found in his home in Tennessee last week. The entertainment news outlet TMZ, which was the first to report his death, said that according to police no foul play was suspected as his possessions, including musical equipment and weapons, were untouched.
He performed with My Chemical Romance between 2004 to 2010, making him the band’s longest-standing drummer. In that period, they produced their biggest hit – the 2006 album The Black Parade which reached No 2 in the US Billboard 200 charts and also took the UK music scene by storm.
At the time of The Black Parade, the group became caught up in a moral panic around so-called “emo”. The Daily Mail castigated them as a “dangerous teen cult of self-harm”, though the band denied any association with emo.
“I’m surprised a newspaper thought we were such a threat that they had to write a whole article about us and our fans, calling them a death cult,” the frontperson Gerard Way told the Guardian in 2006.
Bryar was born in Chicago, Illinois, and learned percussion in a marching band at school. He took up sound engineering, which drew him into the orbit of touring rock bands that in turn led him to My Chemical Romance.
He replaced the band’s first drummer, Matt Pelissier, soon after the release of their second album, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, in 2004. The group had been formed in 2001 by Pelissier and Way in their home state of New Jersey.
Bryar quit the band in 2010 at about the time of the release of Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys.
My Chemical Romance is scheduled to go on a new US tour next year, starting in Seattle, Washington, in July. The current lineup consists of Way, his brother the bassist Mikey Way, lead guitarist Ray Toro, and rhythm guitarist Frank Iero.
Bryar formally retired from music in 2014 and began working as a real estate agent. His passion was advocating for dog rescue and other animal sanctuaries.
Three years ago he sold off the drum kit on which he played on The Black Parade tour to raise funds for an animal rescue center near his home in Tennessee.