AMEN’s Casey Chaos Dead At 54
December 21, 2024, 8 hours ago
Casey Chaos, one of the key punk and metal performers of the last 30 years, and one of the very few, too, to have received a Grammy award, has passed at age 54.
Born in Trenton, NY, but growing up in Melbourne, FL, Chaos - real name Karim Chmielnski - took his musical lead from teenaged encounters with hardcore legends Black Flag. He formed his first band, Casey & The Skatepunx, soon after, and quickly developed his own unique performing style as the band - now named Disorderly Conduct - launched onto the Florida punk scene.
Chaos relocated to Los Angeles in 1990, where he formed Amen; a friendship with former Christian Death guitarist Rikk Agnew also saw him perform and cowrite several songs on that band’s Iconologia album; and, in 1993, appear alongside Agnew and original Christian Death vocalist at the band’s reunion show. A video recording of the show was subsequently released by Cleopatra Records.
Touring with Slipknot, Coal Chamber and others, Amen were a key figure on the late 1990s metal scene, winning acclaim for the albums Amen, We Have Come For Your Parents and Death Before Musick; subsequent projects include Headband, Scars on Broadway and Scum, while a fourth Amen album was seldom far from Chaos’s mind.
