Guest
Danny Gallegos RIP 1987 - 2023 Danny Gallegos, who cofounded Cemetery in 2010 and fronted the Chicago death-rock band for its entire history, died on Thursday, July 27. “Danny had so many ideas. Too many,” says guitarist Dez Knuska, who became friends with Gallegos in 2007 because they went to a lot of the same punk shows. “He wanted to be the Sisters of Mercy and the Human League and Peter Murphy. He loved a good minor melody. What he lacked in music theory he made up for in enthusiasm and determination.” Cemetery debuted with a 2011 demo and released their lone studio album, Wind and Shadows, in 2015. Knuska and bassist Sam Nigrosh remember Gallegos as a charismatic singer who could be both confrontational and earnestly friendly. “If he slapped someone’s drink in their face during the set or something, I can guarantee that he’d be talking with them ten minutes after the set and they’d be best friends,” Nigrosh says. “One thing that made him unique is he cared about how the band looked. . . . In Chicago people seem to think that they should just wear what they wore to the hot dog stand onstage, and Danny said, ‘Absolutely not.’ He wanted to look cool—and he did. And it attracted people to the band and him.” The group’s most recent show was in October 2021 at Oozing Wound’s Ooze Fest at the Empty Bottle. Cemetery had been working on a new album for five years—Knuska says they’d recorded 40 minutes of material but no vocals. Gallegos will surely remain an influence on his bandmates, who cherish so much about who he was both onstage and off. “He was an incredibly kind and thoughtful person,” Nigrosh says. “He gave really great gifts and was not afraid to show and tell you how much he cared about you.” “He made me really look at aesthetics and really listen to music that I would have otherwise dismissed,” Knuska says. “I will miss him for the rest of my life.”
