Sad indeed .
R.I.P

I had a feeling it'd happen sooner rather than later, given his alcoholism.

R.I.P Chris, I'll play Tapping the Vein in your honour.

Damn, how unfortunate... R.I.P

What with all this dying of alcoholism speculation, we're all going to look pretty silly if he kicked the bucket in a bizarre garden accident.

...having been drunk as always.

May his soul go to the land where the rivers of metal flow into the seas of beer. R.I.P.

RIP

Woah duder, most extreme metal comment of the day! Vince Neil and Tommy Lee are coming round to party down at your house! Come on, lets not just start throwing out stuff to see if you can get a reaction out of upset fans. Also poorly timed? Seems like fairly good timing to me, what with the Final Sign of Evil giving some closure to that era.

I'm going to listen to Persecution Mania and Agent Orange all day in his honor.

R.I.P.

R.I.P. Witchunter. Your work was appreciated by a great many.

This is sad news.

RIP.

The best Sodom, to me, is the Angelripper, Blackfire, and Witchhunter line up, and the albums made.

Sodom has been an inspiration in my music as well.

Hail!

R.I.P. The best Sodom drumer...

I guess he was making reference to Chris's sloppy drum performances. I'm more put out by Clansman's comment. If you're not a Sodom fan, fine, but *claps on the drummer's hat*hey, we battery-basherss aren't just furniture, you know .. you can't just replace us and expect everything to stay the same! our influence on a band's sound may be subtle but you can damn well bet it is there. We may not write the songs, but we direct the music. Chris was definitely a very charismatic drummer with a style that was just fun to listen to, and very busy, sometimes to the point where his technical abilities were strained. But hey, this is thrash metal .. personality over precision.

I saw this on Blabbermouth the other day. It is indeed sad. He may not have been the best drummer out there but he had feeling in his work.

WITCHING METAL!

Exactly. Actually Chris did have a fair few writing credits (to my knowledge on the Tapping the Vein album he wrote some lyrics). Drummers add immensely to the over all character of the music, look at the Who for one. Chris had a great style, I loved his performances on Agent Orange and Better Off Dead, some of the best thrash drumming is on their. I'm a guitar player, but it's often said, a band is only as good as its drummer.

Christ Passion!

I might not be a huge Sodom fan, but this has sadden me. Wherever he is... RIP.
A sad day...

I didn't really listen to Sodom *braces self for gunshots*, but I think it's sad whenever any metal drummer dies, especially one who is as esteemed as Chris Witchhunter.
I pay my respects.
R. I. P.

As a founding member and long time drummer of 'Sodom' he deserves all of our respect. Saying his death isn't upsetting just because he was no Quorthon is ridiculous.

R.I.P.

Currently cranking Agent Orange and downing a Heineken in his honor.

Remember the Fallen!!!!

For me, it's the only reason.I don't think that's what he means.
Work it a bit...

It is a shame, he recorded the best sodom albums. R.I.P. Chris!

Dio is already 66, we don't know how much time he has left

By the way, are there any news on how did Witchhunter die? Like, an official report?

From the Sodom website:

"Chris died by a “Decompansation of his organic system”. Means: Some of his vital parts got a malfunction and that´s leading to his death."

That sounds like if he was a machine and his parts just 'stopped working'.

Here's the statement of Tom posted on Myspace today:

In the beginning of this week I received the message that Chris Witchhunter had died. I was shocked - and you can believe me… I still am. As we recorded "The Final Sign Of Evil" I noticed that Chris was in a very bad condition. It took more than 18 months to finish the recording for this record. My god, I don..t know what to say about this tragedy and i..m feeling really down.

After Chris had left the band we didn..t meet very often. If you take a look at the "Lords Of Depravity" dvd everybody realizes that Chris was really ill and confused. You can also understand why Chris and I didn..t have much contact during the last few years.

His sickness was a slow process and everybody saw what happened - but Chris never took a helping hand from anybody else. All of Chris.. friends will tell you so.

The worst thing was that Chris himself never realized the situation he was in and that it was important to accept help from others.

I can..t write any "clear" words as I am in South America right now and we are flying from show to show. At first I thought that it might be better to cancel the tour but that wouldn..t have been fair to our fans and Chris wouldn..t have liked it either.

I hope that all of Chris.. friends will help his lovely mom and support her in these dark times.

In the beginning of our friendship she was like my own mom to me. After my return from South America I will surely support her, too. I hope that we can arrange a big show for Chris with a couple of friends to give him a special farewell and to make some money for his mother!



Hey Chris, you created music history. R.I.P.!



TOM

I heard it's his liver that gave up. Isn't the organ which de-toxicate you from alcool? If it's the case it isn't surprising at all... It's a shame to see he never realised anything and just made things worse...

how old is he old?

Although I wasn't so familiar with Chris Witchhunter's and Sodom's work, it's very sad to hear that a talented metal musician died at a far too young age.

R.I.P.

Chris died with the age of 42 (in case this was your question).

Shit, This past weekend I just got into Sodom and now Chris is dead .
I'll listen to Agent Orange in his honor.
R.I.P.

FUCK!!

First Vitek then Witchunter. I love his work on Tapping the Vein. Hise drummer really helped solidify the impact of Persecution Mania and Agent Orange.
At least he will be drumming in thrash metal heaven and guzzling beer like a motherufcker.

yeah i heard this news earlier this month, really sucks balls big time but atleast he left his mark in thrash history with great great albums like agent orange and tapping the vein, you will be missed Witchunter RIP