News.RttP{ Former GRIP INC. Singer GUS CHAMBERS Dead At 52}

From Blabbermouth this AM...

Former GRIP INC. vocalist Gus Chambers passed away on October 13, 2008 at the age of 52. Chambers, who resided in Coventry, England, reportedly took his own life.

According to the Coventry Telegraph, Chambers made a name for himself in the UK punk scene as the frontman for SQUAD in the late '70s. He later took his skills as a top notch front-man to the new band 21 GUNS. They released the single "Ambition Rock" on Neville Staples's Shack Records.

Gus later moved to America and formed SONS OF DAMNATION before hooking up with SLAYER drummer Dave Lombardo and German guitarist Waldemar Sorychta in GRIP INC. They released three acclaimed albums in the mid-to-late '90s — "Power of Inner Strength" (1995), "Nemesis" (1997), and "Solidify" (1999) — and finally came back with a fourth entitled "Incorporated" in 2004, which was greeted as a true return to form by the critics.

Gus was most recently a member of the Coventry, UK punk band MANTRA SECT which was scheduled to play its next concert tonight (Friday, October 17).

In an October 15, 2008 online posting, MANTRA SECT bassist Wendy X stated about Gus' decision to take his own life, "My emotions are swimming round and round in my head, trying to comprehend it all, so I will not say too much on here except to say to everyone that has asked why, as I do myself, that we were always, as normal, constantly in contact with him (myself virtually daily) yet none of us saw this coming. Nor many other friends that also constantly kept in touch with him either. We are at a loss about why. My usual daily phone calls with Gus all the days leading up to this didn't give any clue whatsoever that anything was THIS wrong."

"I've been very lucky in my career," Gus once said, according to the Coventry Telegraph. "I have had the privilege of playing in front of thousands of people at festivals like Rock in Rio and the Dynamo festival in Holland. Nothing though brings back fonder memories than playing in front of maybe 20 or 30 people in The Hand and Heart or the back room of The Swanswell."