Metal Church vocalist, Mike Howe, was found dead at his home in Eureka, California on Monday, July 26. The Humboldt County Sheriff's Dept. said that Howe's official cause of death was determined to be asphyxia due to hanging, with authorities officially calling it a suicide.

Chris Akin spoke with Metal Church drummer, Stet Howland,  yesterday (November 22) for a future edition of CMS Music With Chris Akin, and he talked about how the band are dealing with the suicide of Mike Howe.

Says Stet (see video below): "I knew one of the questions was going to be 'what's next for Metal Church?', and... I just talked to (guitarist) Kurdt (Vanderhoof) last night, we just had an amazing conversation, and that's where we're at. We're all talking again, that's where we're at. But we were so broken, man. I mean all of us. When I talked to Kurdt a few weeks ago, he's like, 'he's in Barbados'. We're talking about trying to digest the loss of Mike. He was so much more than just our singer. I mean, he was Uncle Mike here at my house, and he was my friend. He would talk me down when I'd get heated, and I'd talk him down when he'd get heated. He was such an amazing human. So, you know, we're all digesting that in our own way. I had just lost my Mom, and had a couple of losses, so I was fairly fresh at facing the realities associated with death and loss. Everybody handles it different in our band. For some of our members, Mike's in Barbados on vacation. And so, we're all slowly digesting. We just started talking again a few weeks ago, and we're barely talking about anything except making jokes, and we have our banter, we're starting to joke and communicated again together. Building on the future will come, but right now... we're just like hugging right now, we're all like 'I love you, man'. That's kind of where we're at. I know everybody wants to know more, when there's more you'll hear about it."

Watch for the full episode on January 11 on theclassicmetalshow.com.

Metal Church previously announced the upcoming release of In Memoriam (Remembering Mike Howe), a memorial booklet and tribute shirt.

Kurdt Vanderhoof: "Many of you have asked if there would be an official Mike Howe memorial booklet & shirt, it took some time, but here it is. Hats off to the owner of Rat Pak Records for putting this amazing 60-page tribute book & shirt package together for Mike. It’s very classy to say the least! There are only going to be 500 in print so if you want one, don’t wait."

Reserve yours here.

Note: "In Memoriam (Remembering Mike Howe) memorial booklet and tribute shirt will only be available for a short while, so if you want one, be sure to order sooner than later. This is the ONLY place you will be able to get one, so if you happen to see this shirt on E-bay or Amazon, that is NOT us or Metal Church, it is the internet pirates that we have no affiliation with."