NEW YORK – The alternative music community is grieving the loss of several individuals after a tragic plane crash in San Diego. The incident occurred when a private jet struck a power line in foggy conditions on Thursday morning, resulting in multiple fatalities on board.
One of the victims was the influential music executive Dave Shapiro, a well-respected figure in the industry, along with Daniel Williams, a former drummer for the popular band The Devil Wears Prada from Ohio. Also among the casualties were two employees from Shapiro’s agency, Sound Talent Group: Kendall Fortner, 24, and Emma Huke, 25.
Daniel Williams and Dave Shapiro were regarded as success stories within their respective music scenes, showcasing the broad appeal that subcultural genres like rock music could have in the mainstream music industry.
Williams’ band, which had two releases reach the Top 10 of the Billboard 200, was a client of Sound Talent Group. He co-founded the company in 2018 with fellow agents Tim Borror and Matt Andersen, who previously worked at the Agency Group and United Talent Agency.
Sound Talent Group’s roster focused on bands in and across pop-punk, metalcore, post-hardcore and other popular hard rock sub-genres — such as Sum 41, Pierce the Veil, Parkway Drive, Silverstein, I Prevail — plus pop acts like the ’90s brother-boy band, Hanson, best known for their song “MMMBop,” and “A Thousand Miles (Interlude)” singer-songwriter Vanessa Carlton.
The post-hardcore band Thursday called Shapiro, 42, an inspiration “who despite achieving success never forgot the scenes and the communities they came from.”
“It’s hard to put into words how much this man meant to so many of us,” Pierce the Veil, which has been performing for nearly two decades including a sold-out concert this week at New York’s Madison Square Garden, said in a tribute on the social platform X.
The World Alive, a band signed on Shapiro’s label, said he was among “the most influential and positive forces in our music scene and beyond. And Dan was one of the most influential and positive forces behind the kit.”
Shortly after punk rock entered the cultural zeitgeist in the late ’70s, it inspired musical sub-movements fueled by its “do-it-yourself,” community-minded ethics: hardcore punk begat post-hardcore, metalcore, emo and so on. Across decades, these music genres evolved in sound and scope, moving from underground popularity at concerts held in garages and basements to real mainstream fame, while refusing to abandon its independent ethos.
Thomas Gutches, who manages Beartooth and Archetypes Collide, recalled a time when now-popular bands like The Devil Wears Prada were getting their start playing in “DIY shows” in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, in which you could see 10 bands perform for $5.
Shapiro was “single-handedly developing this next wave of bands that are coming in,” Gutches said. “He was able to take those bands, package them together and put them on a larger scale. … He took a risk in being like, ‘Okay, I’m going to go and take them to that next level.’”
These artists reached a kind of apex in the 2000s and 2010s. Once-obscure bands that had found audiences on early online social media platforms like MySpace, at the mall goth haven Hot Topic, or in the pages left-of-center publications like “Alternative Press” became MTV staples, celebrities in their own right.
Although many of these acts played similar-yet-different music — think of the blast beats of metalcore and the palm-muted power chords of pop-punk associated with the Vans Warped Tour — they were brought together by a shared punk rock spirit. And for the last few decades, these tight-knit groups have proven to be the dominant force in alternative rock, according to Mike Shea, founder of “Alternative Press,” who used the word “community” to describe the scene.
Shea said Shapiro was “vital” in bringing these punk rock subcultures to the masses.
“In this music industry, there are just too many people ripping people off and using people,” he said. “Dave was not like that. He was a beautiful soul, and beautiful person, a guiding force, just someone who would end up being an inspiration for so many people. And he will continue to be an inspiration.”
And it was not only musicians but also many booking agents, band, and tour managers and promoters that got their big breaks because of Shapiro, Gutches said.
The bands Shapiro represented are many of the most popular of their genre and scene, like the Grammy-nominated Sum 41 or the platinum-selling Pierce the Veil.
That also includes The Devil Wears Prada, one of the best-known metalcore bands of the last few decades, celebrated for their ability to marry melodic punk rock with metallic detouring. When Williams “was in the band, that’s when they broke out,” Shea said.
Gutches said Williams captivated audiences at shows with his drumming as much as a band’s front man does: “Daniel was putting on a show from his style of playing.”
The tributes will continue for both, Shea said, as more and more artists reveal the impact Williams and Shapiro had on their lives.
Case in point: “There is no single person more responsible for my identity as a professional adult than Dave Shapiro,” metalcore band Issues bassist Skyler Acord said via Instagram.
His band coined a phrase they would use when things got heated “to remind us to chill out and try to understand each other,” he wrote.
“We’d say, ‘Do it for Dave.’”
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Associated Press writer Jaimie Ding in Los Angeles contributed.
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