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Original Broken Hope Drummer Ryan Stanek Dies At The Age Of 42

Broken Hope's co-founding drummer Ryan Stanek has passed away at the age of 42 on March 1st. States Broken Hope guitarist Jeremy Wagner about Stanek's unexpected death:

"I was stunned to hear of Ryan's passing and I'm still not believing it. Though Ryan and I didn't talk that often since he split from Broken Hope many years ago, we did correspond once in awhile, and we always wished each other well in whatever endeavors we were pursuing. Ryan was always an extremely talented man.

"When we first met, he was the best metal drummer within a 100-mile radius, and Joe Ptacek and I were fortunate to have this amazing drum-kid in our own backyard! Ryan co-founded Broken Hope with Joe and me. We were the core… just the 3 of us, in the beginning, all in high school. Ryan also designed the very first Broken Hope logo, which was a 'circular logo' we used on our first flyers and backdrop.

"With all that, Ryan's artistic talents went beyond drums and drawing, he also played acoustic guitar incredibly well, wrote some of the segues on the earlier Broken Hope albums, contributed his own lyrical-parts on the 'Swamped In Gore' album and also, Ryan became a singer-songwriter post Broken Hope, in other bands he formed where he expressed his art his own way, and very well done. Ryan set the bar for death metal drumming when we recorded 'Loathing.' Specifically, the track 'Siamese Screams' is a song that measures any drummer's worth if he or she can play it to Ryan's original level.

"If there's a heaven, I wish you travel well, Ryan… and I imagine you and Joe [Ptacek] have met up and are having a blast."