The story of Christian Death founder Rozz Williams
The world of music is brimming with stories of total iconoclasts ahead of their time, artists whose lights were so incandescent that they burnt out prematurely. From Kurt Cobain to Janis Joplin, it’s a tale the music world is all-too-familiar with. One of the most fascinating figures to fit into this category is Rozz Williams, the late frontman of gothic rock legends Christian Death.
Williams took his own life on April 1st, 1998, and although some fans thought it was a typically dark April Fool’s joke, it tragically was not. Aged just 34, the details surrounding his death, including what underpinned it, remain unclear, but one thing is sure: with Williams’ death, the world lost one of its most potent artists.
His story is a well-known one within the realms of goth, but outside of it, Williams remains relatively unknown. Born Roger Alan Painter in Pomona, California, in 1963, the budding musician was raised in a strict Southern Baptist family. As a child, he became deeply ensconced into the world of rock ‘n’ roll and specifically glam, with the likes of David Bowie, Lou Reed, Roxy Music, T. Rex, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop and The New York Dolls all having a significant impact on showing him the way into the arts. Afterwards, when a teenager, Williams threw himself at the local punk scene, befriending the likes of The Germs founder Darby Crash.
By 16, Williams started to cut his teeth by performing in bands. It was also around this time that he adopted the name he would become synonymous with after finding it on a gravestone in a Pomona cemetery, setting a rather morbid precedent for all that was to come. Singing and playing the guitar, he performed in bands such as The Crawlers and The Upsetters, and before too long, he had formed The Asexuals.
Williams then played in the outfit Daucus Karota alongside Mary Torcivia and Jay Albert. After a while, though, the busy Williams and Albert formed Christian Death in October 1979 with James McGearty and George Belanger in tow. Indicative of Williams’ humour and that of the broader punk scene, their name was a somewhat tenuous play on words linked to the fashion icon Christian Dior.
However, the band broke up for a short period in 1981. So, with that, Williams formed the performance art band Premature Ejaculation with Ron Athey, with whom he was locked in an intense romantic relationship at the time. However, the band called it quits within a year. Over the course of their very brief career, a handful of live shows managed to make a mark, but maybe not in the way they had intended. The group gained notoriety, and the mere mention of their name caused disgust, with clubs refusing to book them after Athey ate a real, crucified road-killed cat during a performance.
In the summer of 1981, Williams reformed Christian Death with McGearty and Belanger alongside guitarist Rikk Agnew, previously of the punk outfit The Adolescents. Together, they released their critically acclaimed debut album, Only Theatre of Pain, in 1982. From then on, Williams and the band would confirm themselves as one of the ultimate goth groups despite its shifting lineups.
Unfortunately, Agnew’s tenure was brief. He was afraid to tour because of the sheer volume of drugs that Williams and Athey planned to take on the road with them, as well as the widespread homophobia in the southern states, and so, in 1982, he left the band, as did Belanger later that year. Then, Eva Ortiz, otherwise known as the gothic queen Eva O, who would form an intense working and romantic relationship with Williams over the years, joined alongside Johnnie Sage and Rod Figueroa for live performances. It wasn’t to be, though. Drugs got in the way again, and by the end of the year, the group had split once more.
Not resting on his laurels, Williams again opted to reform Christian Death, comprising a new rabble under the name, with former members of Los Angeles post-punks Pompeii 99. This new lineup, which is arguably their most sophisticated, saw Williams become frontman yet again, with Valor Kand on guitars, Gitane Demone on the keyboard, Constance Smith on bass, and David Glass on drumming duties.
At the end of 1983, the band appeared on the US music show Media Blitz, where they promoted their ultimate anthem ‘Romeo’s Distress’, as well as ‘Cavity’, which exposed them to a more significant amount of listeners than ever before. Going from strength to strength, in February 1984, they played their first European show in Paris and toured the continent until June.
Christian Death recorded their second studio album, 1984’s Catastrophe Ballet, at Rockfield Studios in Wales around this time. An artistic masterpiece, drawing on surrealism, the Dadaist movement and the works of David Bowie and Lou Reed, it saw Williams and the band refine their craft. A more dynamic body of work than their debut, this was Christian Death taking the gothic essence up a notch and starting to do something truly exciting.
Despite the promising future, as was clearly the case for the band, things were not straightforward. This upwards trajectory was interrupted when Williams officially left the group in April 1985, explaining that he’d lost interest and wasn’t a touring fan. What ensued was a fascinating schism that saw Kand take over the premiership of the band. This meant that for an extended period, there were two bands operating under the same name, which led to an intense legal struggle between Williams and Kand — one that was unfortunately never settled.
An unwavering creative, this departure from his own group did not phase Williams, and to many, he entered the most important chapter of his career. Pushing ahead once more, he formed the goth metal pioneers Shadow Project in 1987 alongside Eva O, his collaborator, who he married that year.
In 1995, Demone and Williams reconverged for the release of the dark cabaret record, Dream Home Heartache, which took its name from the Roxy Music favourite ‘In Every Dream Home a Heartache’. A beautiful body of work that showed just how far Williams had come and how close to his glam heroes he was at that point. In fact, the project was even produced by the eminent Ken Thomas, the producer of the early Bowie album Hunky Dory.
Elsewhere, that year, Williams worked with Paris Sadonis and Ryan Wildstar for the cult spoken word album The Whorse’s Mouth, and began playing bass for the duo mentioned above’s group, EXP. A true artist, Williams’ creative tap never ceased to flow, with his painting and collaging works exhibited and directing the experimental short Pig with Nico B. in 1998. Something of an American answer to the late Genesis P-Orridge, Williams oozed art with his oeuvre, both musical and otherwise, as exciting as they come.
His story does not end as many would have hoped, although it must be said that it seems as if Williams was content with the outcome. On March 31st, Williams and Wildstar, with whom he’d lived for years, watched the 1968 biopic Isadora, a film about dance icon Isadora Duncan. Wildstar chose to go to bed, and according to him, Williams’ pleaded with him: “You don’t even know how it ends!” to which his flatmate replied that he knew exactly how it ended, with Isadora hanging to death after her scarf gets caught in her car’s wheel, and he retired for the evening.
That night, Williams made his final calls to friends and family. Since then, Wildstar has maintained that if he were not already locked in a state of mourning following the death of his long-term partner Erik Christides – who succumbed to a heroin overdose the year before – he would have picked up on the signs of Williams’ intention of suicide better.
It was Wildstar who discovered Williams’ body, hanged in his bedroom. He had immediately broken the door down to the room after hearing worried messages on their answering machine. Williams had left no note, just a rose on the coffee table in the living room, as well as a handful of other items, including a spooky tarot card depicting The Hanged Man. Fittingly, a memorial service was held at the iconic El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles, and then a small group of family and friends scattered his ashes in the Hollywood Hills.
Despite how morbid it might seem, Williams’ death is fitting of the man who fronted one of the most impactful goth groups of all time, utter heartbreak but with an artistic edge. There are many theories that account for why he opted to take his life, ranging from depression to his obsession with the number 1334, but as is the case with suicide, we’ll never know the truth. Wildstar has offered up his own explanation, saying that he views it as a form of art.
Rozz Williams was a truly fascinating figure, an artist who backed up his attitude with genuine art. If you’ve never heard his work, it’s well worth your time. He pushed every boundary he encountered, something that many artists today could do with heeding.
