Rick Froberg, the influential frontman for numerous post-hardcore bands including Drive Like Jehu and Hot Snakes, has died aged 55.
The news was confirmed in a post published by John ‘Speedo’ Reis, a longtime friend and collaborator of Froberg’s who revealed the singer/guitarist passed away from natural causes.
“Rick passed away suddenly last night from natural causes,” Reis wrote. “His art made life better. The only thing he loved more than art and rock n roll was his friends.
“He will forever be remembered for his creativity, vision and his ability to bring beauty into this world,” he continued. “I love you, Rick. I will miss you for the rest of my life.”
A giant of the post-hardcore genre, Froberg was born in January 1968 in Los Angeles and began playing music as a teenager, involving himself in the San Diego scene before eventually forming Pitchfork with Reis in 1986.
With only one EP and studio album under their belt, the band split in 1990, though the seeds for the pair’s post-hardcore sound had been well and truly sown: 1990’s Eucalyptus is widely regarded a classic of the genre and a precursor to Froberg’s later albums.
Not long after Pitchfork's split, Froberg and Reis linked up with members of the newly disbanded Night Soil Man to form Drive Like Jehu – a band that saw Froberg also pick up rhythm guitar duties, having been the vocalist in the pair’s previous project.
With a dual-guitar attack now established, Froberg and Reis cemented their six-string setup with an approach defined by visceral noise, battering riffs and unchained energy explored through changing time signatures and the odd 10-minute song.
Drive Like Jehu released two albums – 1991’s Drive Like Jehu and 1994’s Yank Crime – that gained a cult following in the math rock and emo realms, and served to heavily influence the wider post-hardcore world: At The Drive-In, Modest Mouse and Blood Brothers are among those steered by the band’s experimental sound.
It was another relatively short-lived project, but although the group disbanded in ‘95, Froberg and Reis would reunite for their third project just four years later. With a more primal, garage punk persuasion, Hot Snakes released three studio albums between 2000 and 2004.
A second Hot Snakes stint saw the band release their last studio album, Jericho Sirens, in 2018. Notably, the band proved to be a slightly more streamlined version of the pair’s Drive Like Jehu sound, swapping sprawling epics for straight-to-the-point sledgehammer songs.
That’s not to say Froberg’s guitars and vocals were any less impactful, though: some of Hot Snakes material is considered to accommodate some of his most aggressive six-string work, evidenced in the cut-throat dissonances of 10th Planet and unrelenting, snarling passages of Let It Come.
Beyond his collaborations with Reis, Froberg also formed indie rock out Obits – an outlet for more blues-informed punk, whose most recent album Die at the Zoo came out in 2021.
Outside of his musical exploits, Froberg was also a celebrated graphic designer and visual artist. Not only did he supply artwork, tour posters and other material for the bands he played in, he also created works for Reis’s own project, Rocket From the Crypt, as well as numerous other bands that shared its label.
