“I looked up to him like a hero”: World pays tribute to Every Time I Die guitarist and pro wrestler Andy Williams, who has tragically died aged 48
Andy Williams – former Every Time I Die guitarist who turned pro wrestler under the ringname ‘The Butcher’ – has died aged 48, prompting an outpouring of tributes from the guitar and metal worlds and beyond.
According to a report by TMZ, Williams was participating in a tag team wrestling match in Pennsylvania when he collapsed, and later died in hospital.
While a pro wrestler as part of All-Elite Wrestling for 10 years, Andy Williams was also a founding member of Every Time I Die, and was an integral part of the Buffalo, New York heavy metal outfit until its disbandment in 2022. He played on all nine of their studio albums, most recently 2021’s Radical.
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Since the news of his death broke, musicians far and wide have penned tribute to Andy Williams, with Bring Me The Horizon’s Lee Malia regretting the pair never having made music together.
Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou writes: “Today we mourn the loss of an old friend, musical visionary, storyteller, force of nature and all around rad dude, Andy Williams. I’m not ready to put on a smile and play a show, but the only way through grief is forward.”
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Balaguer Guitars – the guitar brand with whom Williams had a number of signature models – writes in a post: “You were a light in a darkening world and anyone who knew you, loved you. What a devastating loss. Andy was hilarious, caring, and loving. He always went out of his way to make sure you knew he cared about you. He was one of a kind.”
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“Andy was the nicest guy ever. And he was one of the greatest to ever do it,” says Scott Ian of Anthrax. “If you don’t know, do yourself a favour and go down an ETID wormhole on YouTube and watch him destroy.”
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Fit For an Autopsy guitarist and Grammy-winning record producer Will Putney writes: “If you knew Andy, you understand why he is so universally loved. A testament of hard work and artistic creativity. One of the funniest, kindest, and craziest dudes. A perfect storm of a human. He could accomplish anything he wanted, and he did.
“Last week he told me he would bite someone for me if I asked him to, I woke up still laughing about it today. I loved talking shop about gear, I loved his excitement for music, his drive, his overwhelming kindness.
“I loved seeing his rise as a wrestler when the odds were against him, I loved making records with him, and challenging ourselves to be better. I loved the inside jokes, the banter, and everything else you can’t even explain. There will never be another person like Andy. I looked up to him like a fucking hero.”
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Back in 2021, shortly after the release of Radical, Williams spoke to Guitar.com about the difficult act of balancing wrestling with playing guitar in one of metalcore’s most dominant bands. He explained how the Covid pandemic led him to commit further to his pro wrestling career.
“You spend all this creative energy doing this beautiful record, you get out, you play one show and the entire world shuts down,” he said. “At that point in time I had been working with AEW but I was getting paid by appearance. If they booked me for a show, that was the only time I got paid. It seemed like that was what they were going to do with me and my [tag team] partner. But then they offered us the full contract.
“It was right when things started getting dicey with the pandemic. I was like, ‘The universe is really speaking to me. I have to do this.’ I’ve been listening to that record for almost two years, and every time our manager would hit us up because it was looking like we could book some shows, they would get cancelled. I dove headfirst into wrestling – if the other thing doesn’t come back, I need to set myself up. I went full on, to say the least.”
The post “I looked up to him like a hero”: World pays tribute to Every Time I Die guitarist and pro wrestler Andy Williams, who has tragically died aged 48 appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
