Book review: Born Human – The Life and Music of Death’s Chuck Schuldiner

By PERRY GRAYSON

THIS is going to be much more than a run-of-the-mill book review.This time it’s personal!

As a veteran heavy rock and metal journalist, I usually require a promo copy of an album or book I intend to review. So, I think it speaks volumes that I’ve singled out Born Human as such an important book and even purchased a copy at my own expense.

It was money well spent!

Those who know me even slightly are acquainted with the fact that I’m a rabid Death/Chuck Schuldiner fan. I can frequently be spotted wearing Death t-shirts and spouting the metal gospel about Chuck, my biggest extreme metal hero – the man who blended sheer musical brutality with hooks, melody and thought-provoking, existential lyrics!

Born Human is thoroughly well-written and sucks the reader in immediately. Even if you’re not a big Death fan, the book is of interest to anyone wanting to learn
about the history of heavy metal.

In 2010, I was contacted by Eric Greif (Chuck’s ex-manager), then overseeing Death and Control Denied mastermind Chuck Schuldiner’s intellectual property. Greif had incorporated Perseverance Holdings with the Schuldiner family, in part to reissue the Death and Control Denied back catalogue. Eric remembered how I interviewed him in 2001 for my Metal Maniacs retrospective article, “Precious Memories of Chuck Schuldiner” He wanted me to write the liner notes to the Relapse Records deluxe reissue of the trailblazing Individual Thought Patterns LP and CD.

I was thrilled at the opportunity to be a part of such a metal milestone!

At the time, I inquired with Greif about the possibility of my expanding Precious Memories to proper book length – to make it the first full-on Chuck bio ever. His reply was that he he’d already put his friend Ian Christe forward for that task – with the approval of Chuck’s sister, Beth. It’s worth noting that my unexpurgated version of Precious Memories ran to approximately 15,000 words, whereas the chopped version was a mere 5,800.

The massive article was published in its entirety on Emptywords.org (the official Chuck Schuldiner website, spearheaded by Dutch couple Yvonne and Kees Kluitman), and it was the longest biographical piece on Chuck. That is until Born Human reared its head.

It goes without saying that I was already a leg up on the competition in that respect. I could have expanded the article by another 40,000 or so words. While I did indeed write the liners to Death’s Individual Thought Patterns, my wish to write the definitive Chuck bio didn’t progress any further than that talk with Greif.

But Greif died in 2021, after another major falling out with the Schuldiner family over funds Greif embezzled. I was curious how the Chuck bio book was progressing. From my few phone calls with Greif, who was always quite condescending to me, it was easy for me to see how/why Chuck had serious legal battles with Eric. He inevitably got on the Schuldiners’ bad side again in the 2010s. No surprise there!

Fast forward to 2025, and the buzz was that Ian Christe had relinquished command of the authorised Chuck bio to fellow metal journalist David E. Gehlke. (Christe did, however, pen the foreword.) Gehlke was nearing completion of his book, Born Human, to be published by Albert Mudrian’s Decibel Books in the US in early 2026.

Now, I don’t personally know David Gehlke, but we were both staff writers for the major newsstand American mag Metal Maniacs. I freely admit to being a bit envious of Gehlke where Born Human is concerned. After all, between 2000 and 2001, I interviewed scores of Chuck’s friends, band-mates and music industry contacts, some of whom had never talked about their relationships with Chuck before (namely Repulsion and ex-Death members Scott Carlson and Matt Olivo and ex-Death/Autopsy drummer Chris Reifert’s ex-girlfriend Chieko Redmer).

I didn’t know what to expect from Gehlke’s book, but I was pleasantly surprised when it arrived in Oz from the US. I immediately devoured all 490 pages of Born Human within two days. So, yeah, a bit of envy, but the same time, I was very moved by Gehlke’s sympathetic portrayal of Chuck and the exhaustive amount of research – the sheer volume of input from Chuck’s immediate family and those closest to him, including lifelong friend David Minshew, Malcolm Schuldiner (Chuck’s dad), Chris Steele (Chuck’s nephew) and Kim Robinson (Chuck’s former fiancée, whom Eric Greif repeatedly demonised).

Born Human completely and utterly blew me away, and I’m now just thoroughly happy that someone has finally done Chuck Schuldiner’s life story justice.

In Born Human, Gehlke paints a picture of the anachronism that not-so-evil Chuck was – a family oriented, animal loving stoner. The doting uncle and father figure to nephew Chris Steele, the beloved younger brother to Beth and adored son of Mal and Jane. For a guy who fronted one of the earliest death metal bands, Chuck was everything but evil. He loved his pets, enjoyed cooking, regularly wore white cat t-shirts and lived for spending the holidays with his family.

Chris and Beth now oversee Chuck’s intellectual property and his official social media accounts.

The earth-shattering revelation detailed in Born Human is the cause of Chuck’s older brother Frank’s death at the age of 16. Previously, Chuck’s mom (Jane) told fans and the press that Frank died in a car accident when Chuck was only nine. During my research and interviews for “Precious Memories of Chuck Schuldiner”, I discovered otherwise.

I struck up a friendship with Scott Carlson and Matt Olivo from Repulsion in 2000, and they entrusted me with something I hadn’t previously known – that Frank Schuldiner died from a gunshot wound to the head – the classic, terrible tale of a kid finding a loaded gun with no adults present. Then, the unspeakable happens. It’s truly heart-wrenching.

Coincidentally, one of Chuck’s favourite bands, Queensrÿche, composed the tune “Best I Can”; (from their 1990 album Empire) about just such a scenario. Carlson and Olivo used the term “accident” as well. Out of respect to the Schuldiner family, I didn’t mention Frank in my initial writings.

David Gehlke bares all though. Jumping ahead to 2026, and Beth Schuldiner has revealed to the public – both in Born Human and the Chuck episode of the Hulu documentary series Into the Void – that Frank took his own life while spending the summer of 1976 with his aunt, uncle and cousins in South Carolina.

This is revealed to be a key factor in Chuck eventually becoming a heavy metal musician and penning such classic Death tunes as “Open Casket”, “Pull the Plug” and and “Suicide Machine”.

Born Human reveals that Jane and Mal Schuldiner supported Chuck through thick and thin with his aspirations to be a pro metal muso. Now we all know the truth. They didn’t want to lose their second son too soon.

Unfortunately, brain stem cancer dealt another deadly blow to the Schuldiners in 2001 when Chuck was only 34. Twenty-five years later, it never ceases to amaze me when I get asked to teach my teenage guitar students how to play immortal Chuck songs like “Evil Dead”, “Pull the Plug”, “The Philosopher”, “Lack of Comprehension” or “Symbolic”. It would seem that Chuck and his music are more popular than ever – gaining new fans who weren’t even born when the final Death album, The Sound of Perseverance, was released.

In terms of appearance and content, Born Human is a top-notch, professional affair. It contains tons of rare and previously unpublished photos, including a full-colour centrespread. Gehlke certainly did his homework, and personally sourced interviews with tons of people integral to Chuck’s life story: ex-Death bassist Erik Meade, metal journo Borivoj Krgin and ex-girlfriend Tammy Seals to mention a few. The cover features a painting of Chuck by noted metal artist Ed Repka, along with
motifs from the Death album covers.

If you consider yourself a true metalhead, Born Human is an absolutely essential read! Hats off to David Gehlke!