Bryn Merrick Dies: Former Bassist For Punk Band ‘The Damned’ Succumbs To Cancer, He Was 56

Bryn Merrick, former bassist for seminal British punk band The Damned, has died, after years of battling throat cancer. He was 56-years-old, and leaves behind three children, daughter Ella, and sons Christian and Richard.

Bryn got his start in the music world playing for the Cardiff-based (England) punk band, Victimize. In 1983, he joined The Damned, replacing bassist Paul Gray. Gray had taken over for bassist Algy Ward in 1980, who had, in turn, supplanted original bassist Captain Sensible, who switched to guitar in 1978.

According to Classic Rock, who spoke with Captain Sensible after Merrick’s death, though Sensible and Bryn Merrick never played in the band together, the two knew each other and were good friends. Sensible had the chance to speak with Bryn before his death.

“I called on Thursday, letting him know he was much loved in Damned circles and thanking him for his important part in the band’s history. But hearing the news that he’d died just before we hit the stage at Chicago Riot Fest was still a real shocker. Our set was thus dedicated to the great man, just before we played his fave song, Ignite. Bryn liked the fast stuff – it was the way he lived his life.”

In the five years before his death, Bryn Merrick played bass in a Ramones tribute band called the Shamones, in which his alter ego was Bee Bee Shamone (modelled after real Ramones bassist, the late Dee Dee Ramone). Shamones bandmate Andy Johnson announced Merrick’s death on his Facebook page on September 12, reports Loudwire.

“On behalf of his daughter, Ella, and sons, Richard and Christian, it is with so much sadness that I announce that my best friend, Bryn Merrick, passed away peacefully this morning after a long battle with cancer at Llandough Hospital near Cardiff.”

On The Damned’s Facebook page, band members shared a post — written by director Wes Orshoski, who had recently finished filming a documentary on the band — about Bryn Merrick’s death. Orshoski writes in his post about meeting Bryn for the first time, and about interviewing both Merrick and other former Damned bassist, Paul Gray, who was also diagnosed with throat cancer at the same time as Bryn.

“I met Bryn in Cardiff a couple years ago through his former bandmate and lifelong friend Andy Johnson. Bryn was really rather off the grid at the time, and Andy connected us for the Damned film. I immediately loved the guy. Full of life and love, smiling and joking, and just radiating warmth. A working class guy who loved music, and, like me, loved the Ramones.”

Though Bryn Merrick has died, his legacy will live on not only in the children he left behind, but in the music he played — in every song that he put a part of his soul into through his pounding bass licks.

[Image Credit: Classic Rock]