By Maria Sherman | Related Press
NEW YORK — The choice music neighborhood is in mourning after a non-public jet hit an influence line in foggy climate early Thursday and crashed right into a San Diego neighborhood, killing a number of individuals on board.
Amongst them was the groundbreaking music govt Dave Shapiro, a pillar of his music scene, and Daniel Williams, a former drummer for the favored Ohio metalcore band The Satan Wears Prada. Additionally killed had been two staff of Shapiro’s Sound Expertise Group company: Kendall Fortner, 24, and Emma Huke, 25. A fifth sufferer, who wasn’t an worker however was on the airplane, was recognized Saturday by authorities as Celina Marie Rose Kenyon, 36.
Each Williams and Shapiro served as success tales for his or her respective rock music scenes — proof that these subcultural sounds had actual mainstream attraction.
Williams’ band, which had two releases attain the High 10 of the Billboard 200, was a consumer of Sound Expertise Group. He cofounded the corporate in 2018 with fellow brokers Tim Borror and Matt Andersen, who beforehand labored on the Company Group and United Expertise Company.
Sound Expertise Group’s roster targeted on bands in and throughout pop-punk, metalcore, post-hardcore and different well-liked arduous rock sub-genres — equivalent to Sum 41, Pierce the Veil, Parkway Drive, Silverstein, I Prevail — plus pop acts just like the ’90s brother-boy band, Hanson, greatest recognized for his or her music “MMMBop,” and “A Thousand Miles (Interlude)” singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton.
The post-hardcore band Thursday known as Shapiro, 42, an inspiration “who despite achieving success never forgot the scenes and the communities they came from.”
“It’s hard to put into words how much this man meant to so many of us,” Pierce the Veil, which has been performing for practically 20 years together with a sold-out live performance this week at New York’s Madison Sq. Backyard, stated in a tribute on the social platform X.
The World Alive, a band signed on Shapiro’s label, stated he was amongst “the most influential and positive forces in our music scene and beyond. And Dan was one of the most influential and positive forces behind the kit.”
Shortly after punk rock entered the cultural zeitgeist within the late ’70s, it impressed musical sub-movements fueled by its “do-it-yourself,” community-minded ethics: hardcore punk begat post-hardcore, metalcore, emo and so forth. Throughout many years, these music genres advanced in sound and scope, transferring from underground recognition at live shows held in garages and basements to actual mainstream fame, whereas refusing to desert its unbiased ethos.
Thomas Gutches, who manages Beartooth and Archetypes Collide, recalled a time when now-popular bands like The Satan Wears Prada had been getting their begin enjoying in “DIY shows” in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, by which you can see 10 bands carry out for $5.
Shapiro was “single-handedly developing this next wave of bands that are coming in,” Gutches stated. “He was able to take those bands, package them together and put them on a larger scale. … He took a risk in being like, ‘Okay, I’m going to go and take them to that next level.’”
These artists reached a type of apex within the 2000s and 2010s. As soon as-obscure bands that had discovered audiences on early on-line social media platforms like Myspace, on the mall goth haven Scorching Matter, or within the pages of left-of-center publications like “Alternative Press” grew to become MTV staples, celebrities in their very own proper.
Though many of those acts performed similar-yet-different music — consider the blast beats of metalcore and the palm-muted energy chords of pop-punk related to the Vans Warped Tour — they had been introduced collectively by a shared punk rock spirit. And for the previous couple of many years, these tight-knit teams have confirmed to be the dominant drive in various rock, based on Mike Shea, founding father of “Alternative Press,” who used the phrase “community” to explain the scene.
Shea stated Shapiro was “vital” in bringing these punk rock subcultures to the plenty.
“In this music industry, there are just too many people ripping people off and using people,” he stated. “Dave was not like that. He was a beautiful soul, and beautiful person, a guiding force, just someone who would end up being an inspiration for so many people. And he will continue to be an inspiration.”
And it was not solely musicians but additionally many reserving brokers, band, and tour managers and promoters who obtained their large breaks due to Shapiro, Gutches stated.
The bands Shapiro represented are most of the hottest of their style and scene, just like the Grammy-nominated Sum 41 or the platinum-selling Pierce the Veil.
That additionally contains The Satan Wears Prada, one of many best-known metalcore bands of the previous couple of many years, celebrated for his or her capacity to marry melodic punk rock with metallic detouring. When Williams “was in the band, that’s when they broke out,” Shea stated.
Gutches stated Williams captivated audiences at reveals along with his drumming as a lot as a band’s entrance man does: “Daniel was putting on a show from his style of playing.”
The tributes will proceed for each, Shea stated, as an increasing number of artists reveal the impression Williams and Shapiro had on their lives.
Living proof: “There is no single person more responsible for my identity as a professional adult than Dave Shapiro,” metalcore band Points bassist Skyler Acord stated through Instagram.
His band coined a phrase they’d use when issues obtained heated “to remind us to chill out and try to understand each other,” he wrote.
“We’d say, ‘Do it for Dave.’”
Related Press writers Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles and Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed.
Initially Revealed: Might 24, 2025 at 3:59 PM PDT
