After the sad but perhaps more timely death of Ace Frehley barely hours ago, we now hear news that bassist and founding member of Limp Bizkit Sam Rivers has passed away at the far younger age of 48.
Rivers stepped away from the band for a few years in 2015 as he suffered liver damage due to alcohol abuse. He was fortunate enough to receive a liver transplant and was able to rejoin the bad in 2018. Limp Bizkit made the following statement on their social media:
Today we lost our brother.
Our bandmate.
Our heartbeat.Sam Rivers wasn’t just our bass player — he was pure magic.
The pulse beneath every song, the calm in the chaos, the soul in the sound.From the first note we ever played together, Sam brought a light and a rhythm that could never be replaced. His talent was effortless, his presence unforgettable, his heart enormous.
We shared so many moments — wild ones, quiet ones, beautiful ones — and every one of them meant more because Sam was there.
He was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of human.
A true legend of legends.
And his spirit will live forever in every groove, every stage, every memory.We love you, Sam.
We’ll carry you with us, always.Rest easy, brother.
Your music never ends.— Fred, Wes, John & DJ Lethal
As always, our thoughts go out to Rivers’ family, friends and bandmates – and we remember him with an example of the music he helped create. Trying to pick a single track out of their discography is tricky but wrap your ears around this one…
Header image: Achim Raschka, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
