Former Ghoul and Impaled guitarist Andrew LaBarre has passed away at 43 years old due to Lou Gehrig's disease (also known as ALS or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). Impaled broke the sad news on their Facebook page with the following statement:
"Impaled is saddened to hear that our former guitarist and vocalist Andrew LaBarre has passed away from ALS. He was an incredibly gifted guitarist, composer, and recording engineer, and an all around nice guy. His contributions to Impaled during the Mondo Medicale era of the band were enormous and helped shape what we do musically in ways that have lasted to this day. He will be sorely missed."
LaBarre played in Impaled between 2001 and 2004, and in Ghoul between 2001 and 2003. We wish LaBarre's friends and family all the best at this time. In a 2018 interview with Invisible Oranges, LaBarre said he ultimately shifted his focus from music to competitive biking after losing the creative spark for guitar. Still, his contributions to both bands are killer. Check 'em out below.
"Well, I got super into bicycling…I just got super into competitive bike racing and that's just how I am. It's one thing, full focus, and I don't have a variety of hobbies, it's just one thing that I do. So with the music… I was just in a weird place where I didn't know what I wanted to play. I lost some sort of creative spark thing that now just comes randomly. I still come up with riffs but it's not… I don't have the edge that I had back then. There was an edge where my whole life was playing guitar and writing music. That's all I did, really."
