John Berry, a founding member of the Beastie Boys, has died at the age of 52.
Guitarist John’s death was confirmed to Rolling Stone by his father John Berry III, who stated that his son was suffering from frontal lobe dementia.
While the Beastie Boys are known for being a hip-hop outfit, they began as punk band, the Young Aborigines.
John left the group - which he was part of with Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond, Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch and Kate Schellenbach - after just a year, but his contribution to their development is undeniable, and the band credit him with coming up with the name the Beastie Boys.
When he left, John was replaced by Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz, who commemorated his predecessor when the Beastie Boys were inducted into the Hard Rock Hall Of Fame.
Speaking at the 2012 ceremony, (via the Guardian) he made a dedication “to John Berry [and] to John Berry’s loft on 100th Street and Broadway, where John’s dad would come busting in during our first practices screaming, ‘Would you turn that fucking shit off already?’”
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