Honorable Mention: Nachtmystium
Blake Judd is the mastermind of Chicago psychedelic black metal band Nachtmystium. He’s also a mastermind of ripping off his friends, fans and bandmates (and *cough* us) to feed his heroin addiction. He’s thankfully kind of fallen off the face of the earth in recent months after releasing the band’s probably final album The World We Left Behind, back in 2014. Hopefully he’s getting the help that he needs, but he’s lost a lot of good will among not just the Chicago metal scene, but also the fans that had supported his art. It’s a “fool me once shame on your, fool me twice…” scenario, so even if Judd pops up again and decides to reform Nachtmystium, he might have trouble getting it off the ground.
Honorable mention: Kyuss
Kyuss wasn’t the first stoner rock band, but the band’s four albums solidified them as one of the best. Their generator parties in the desert put them on the map, and the combination of Josh Homme’s riffage and John Garcia’s soulful vocals found them signed to a major label. Sadly, they broke up in 1995. Homme, along with former bassist Nick Oliveri, went on to be much more successful with his own band, Queens of the Stone Age.
While the band, minus Homme, got back together as Kyuss Lives!, a lawsuit by Homme forced them to change their name to Vista Chino, and they released a solid album. However, given that Homme is doing just fine in his old band and that he’s suing to keep the other guys from using the Kyuss name suggests that there’s not going to be a reunion with him playing guitar any time soon.
