DEATH

Death was an American death metal band founded in 1983. The band's founder, Chuck Schuldiner, is considered a "pioneering death metal vocalist/guitarist."The band ceased to exist after Schuldiner died of brain cancer in 2001,though remains an enduring heavy metal brand.

Death is considered one of the most influential groups in death metal. The band's debut, Scream Bloody Gore, has been described as "death metal's first archetypal document".One music biographer has referred to Schuldiner as the "Father of Death Metal"while another has claimed that Schuldiner is "readily acknowledged as the true founder of the U.S. death metal scene".Music biographer Garry Sharpe-Young considered Death "a genre breaking band...centred upon frontman Chuck Schuldiner" and that the band "would become one of the prime instigators of the death metal movement".

However, Schuldiner dismissed such attributions by stating, in an interview with Metal-Rules.com, "I don’t think I should take the credits for this death metal stuff. I’m just a guy from a band, and I think Death is a metal band".

As of 2008, Death have sold over 2 million albums worldwide, with over 500,000 copies sold by December 2009 in the US alone (excluding the numerous sales before the SoundScan era) making them the top-selling death metal band worldwide, and only topped in the US by Cannibal Corpse
Founded in 1983 by Chuck Schuldiner under the original name of Mantas in Orlando, Death were among the more widely known, early pioneers of the death metal sound along with California's thrashers Possessed. In the late 80s, the band was both a part of and integral in defining the death metal scene which gained international recognition with the release of albums by a number of area acts.

Together with Kam Lee (Barney Lee), and Rick Rozz (Frederick DeLillo), Schuldiner started to compose songs that were released on several rehearsal tapes in 1984.These tapes, along with the Death by Metal demo, circulated through the tape trader world, quickly establishing the band's name. In 1984, Schuldiner dissolved Mantas and quickly started a new band under the name Death. Its members included the same Rick Rozz and Kam Lee. Another demo was released, called Reign of Terror.

In 1985, after the Infernal Death tape was recorded and released, Schuldiner fired Lee and Rozz in favour of Repulsion's bassist and guitarist, Scott Carlson and Matt Olivio, respectively. However, a drummer could not be found; consequently the band dissolved again. Schuldiner moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and recruited DRI drummer Eric Brecht, but he was not happy with this incarnation of Death and moved back to Florida without a band. There, in 1986, Schuldiner got an invitation from early Canadian thrash band Slaughter to play on their album, which he accepted, moving to Canada. This only lasted two weeks, however, as he found the situation not to his liking. He returned to Florida, then moved quickly to the San Francisco Bay Area again, where he joined with Chris Reifert. They recorded the Mutilation demo, which led to a deal with Combat Records, owned by Important Distribution (later becoming Relativity), that enabled them to record the first LP.

Scream Bloody Gore was released in 1987. Schuldiner briefly had a second guitar player, John Hand, but Hand did not appear on the album (though his photo did). By this time Schuldiner moved back to Florida, leaving Chris Reifert behind. There, Schuldiner teamed up with former bandmate Rick Rozz and two members of Rozz's band Massacre, Terry Butler and Bill Andrews.