Rick Froberg, the singer, guitarist and visible artist finest recognized for taking the knotty, overdriven sound of math rock into the mainstream (or near it) along with his influential San Diego band Drive Like Jehu, died Friday in San Diego. He was 55.
His dying was confirmed Saturday by his longtime bandmate John Reis, who wrote on Instagram that he “handed away immediately final night time from pure causes.”
“His artwork made life higher,” Reis wrote. “The one factor he beloved greater than artwork and rock and roll was his buddies. He’ll perpetually be remembered for his creativity, imaginative and prescient and his potential to deliver magnificence into this world. I really like you, Rick. I’ll miss you for the remainder of my life.”
Signed to the most important label Interscope Data within the early Nineteen Nineties as a part of a package deal deal that included Reis’ extra commercially interesting Rocket from the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu specialised in a model of loud and structurally formidable indie rock that served as a key inspiration for acts like Modest Mouse and On the Drive-In.
But the band was simply considered one of a number of Froberg performed with in a profession that stretched over three many years: Earlier than Drive Like Jehu, he and Reis performed in Pitchfork, whose 1990 LP “Eucalyptus” is broadly considered a post-hardcore basic; after Drive Like Jehu broke up in 1995, he and Reis fashioned Sizzling Snakes, and Froberg later based Obits. Every band was constructed round his perception that blistering noise and catchy hooks might simply coexist; as a vocalist, Froberg honed a form of determined yelp that carried equal components emotion and disgust.
Drive Like Jehu’s self-titled debut got here out in 1991; “Yank Crime,” its sophomore LP and first for Interscope, adopted in 1994, a number of years after the runaway success of Nirvana’s smash “Nevermind” set off a feeding frenzy for rough-edged bands with robust native followings. The band’s drummer, Mark Trombino, went on to provide hit information by Jimmy Eat World and Blink-182; Trombino additionally opened Donut Pal, the hipster-fave L.A. doughnut store with treats named after post-punk bands corresponding to Fugazi and Hüsker Dü.
Along with music, Froberg was an illustrator who designed placing album covers for his bands in addition to for Rocket from the Crypt, Sparta and others.
Drive Like Jehu reunited in 2014 for a efficiency on the Spreckels Organ Pavilion in San Diego’s Balboa Park and later performed festivals together with Coachella. Sizzling Snakes launched 4 studio albums between 2000 and 2018; Obits’ most up-to-date album, “Die on the Zoo,” got here out in 2021.
