Former Trouble Singer Eric Wagner Refused to Get Vaccinated

We began our week with the depressing news that The Skull singer Eric Wagner, formerly of doom pioneers Trouble, has died from COVID-19 at the age of 62. That would have been tragic under any circumstances… but is made all the more so by the revelation that the singer refused to get vaccinated against the virus.

Bassist Ron Holzner — another former member of Trouble who went on to be in The Skull — tells The Chicago Reader that Wagner was a smoker who “occasionally” drank, vaped, and “had health issues.” Still, he was “generally opposed to institutionalized medicine” and “wouldn’t make an exception for the COVID vaccine.”

Says Holzner:

“We argued about it, and he stood his ground on the matter. I always joked, ‘The World According to Eric Wagner—you should write a book.’ He lived his life his way.”

There’s no way we can ever know for sure that a vaccinated Eric Wagner would still be with us today — but we can be certain that the odds of surviving would have been much higher. So, as I said… this just makes Wagner’s passing all the more sad.

Earlier this month, The Skull were on tour with The Obsessed — a band which includes COVID conspiracy theorist and anti-masker Scott “Wino” Weinrich — when they suddenly dropped off the trek, citing “the ongoing and growing COVID situation sweeping the nation again, particularly in the South.” It was later revealed that Wagner had been hospitalized with COVID pneumonia.

Please please please please please please go get vaccinated.

[via]