Helix drummer Greg "Fritz" Hinz passes away

[Captain Howdy]

https://blabbermouth.net/news/longtime-helix-drummer-greg-fritz-hinz-dead-at-68

Longtime HELIX Drummer GREG 'FRITZ' HINZ Dead At 68

February 16, 2024

 

Longtime HELIX drummer Greg "Fritz" Hinz has died after a nearly year-long battle with cancer. He was 68 years old.

Hinz joined HELIX in 1982 and stayed in the band until 1996, before returning to the group 13 years later.

 

Earlier today (Friday, February 16),HELIX frontman Brian Vollmer posted the following message on social media: "Greg 'Fritz' Hinz: January 23rd/1956-February 16th/2024. R.I.P.

"It is with a heavy heart that I must announce the passing of Greg 'Fritz' Hinz, drummer for HELIX since 1983, after a 10 months fighting Cancer.

"At a future date there will be a Memorial Service. Traci (Fritz's common law wife) hasn't slept in six months, so I'm going to give her a couple of days. She's been an ANGEL throughout this whole ordeal. I don't know what Fritz would have done without her. Right now I'm respecting HER wishes. This is NOT up for debate. She's cared for Fritz since he found out he had Cancer last April. She has the right to do whatever-and whenever-she wants. PLEASE DO NOT CONTACT TRACI-GIVE HER SPACE AND LET HER HEAL. When she wants to talk to everyone she will.

"Fritz was like a brother to myself, Brent, Kenny, and many other people who worked for the band.

"Traci has asked me to write something to post. I could go on for hours about the guy, but right now I'm devastated, as are the other guys in the band. We've known about this since last April, but were unable to tell anyone, at Fritz's request. He wanted his privacy through this. He was a proud guy and tough as f**k.

"When he fell off the ladder a couple of years ago and nearly died, I thought that was the end there. Fritz surprised everyone by coming back less than 8 months later for gigs in Vancouver & Calgary in one weekend. This meant lots of driving and flying-something that's extremely bad for someone who has suffered a major concussion. He played great that weekend and didn't complain. Many months later he told me that at the end of the Vancouver show at the Hard Rock, he nearly stood up and fell forward through his drums at the end of the show 'cos he had vertigo so bad. Like I said, 'One tough guy.'

"I met Fritz way back around the late 70's when he played for the Cambridge based hard rock band STARCHILD. We both used to laugh over the fact that's Fritz's big part on the STARCHILD record 'Children of the Stars' was in the song Johnny Groover. The line in the song went '...here comes Johnny Groover in his Vet-he's got to get it wet…' to which Fritz would then add a squirting sound: Pht-t-t–t–t-h!...'

"Fritz was the funniest guy you'd ever want to meet. We could be in the seriousest of situations and he could say something and everyone would burst out laughing. He had that kind of personality everyone wanted to be around. Add to that his ability to attract scores of women at our gigs. Fritz was HELIX's 'David Lee Roth.' The most frequent question asked by girls outside the buses on the QUIET RIOT/WHITESNAKE Tour in 1984 was, 'Do you know where your drummer is???' As a result, Fritz was frequently in 'movies' as he called them. This meant that one of his relationships had gone sideways and was becoming a soap opera. The funny thing was that no matter how much he would piss off the girl, they would always forgive him, come back, and shower him with gifts.

"Fritz was the consummate rock drummer: It was his craft. He prided himself in his playing, and well he should have. He had a style all his own. Check out the bridge to the chorus in Heavy Metal Love. Such a simple lick-playing on the off time, but Fritz learned that playing his first instrument-the accordion-in an 'oom-pah-pah' band.

"Over the next couple of days I'll be putting up pics (as I'm sure hundreds of other people will) some video, and even Super 8. Here's the first batch of stuff I've found. There's so much.

"Fritz joined the band in 1983. This means that he's been in the band for over 40 years, with the exception of when he moved to Florida for a couple of years.

"The world has lost one of it's GREAT rock drummers. As I was telling Jamie on the phone today: The public has no idea the sacrifices that musicians make for their craft. You think of the music business as be a fairly low-impact kind of job. In reality, you give up your personal life, your financial life, any type of regularity in your life, and…not to mention the physical scars. I've yet to meet a drummer who hasn't ripped his rotator cuff. Guys with guitars and basses-ditto. We've stayed in the coldest rooms, the hottest rooms, gone without sleep, and made shit money. All for this thing called 'making music.' Fritz definitely did that. He loved his drums and he loved drumming and performing. He took great pride in everything he did. I'm going to miss him so much.

"My heart is breaking now. Gotta go."

HELIX is one of the most successful Canadian rock bands, especially after the release of 1984's "Walkin' The Razor's Edge" album, which sold more than 100,000 copies in Canada, and more than 400,000 internationally.

HELIX has shared the stage with some of the world's best hard rock and heavy metal bands, including KISS, AEROSMITH, RUSH, MÖTLEY CRÜE, ALICE COOPER, WHITESNAKE, HEART, QUIET RIOT and MOTÖRHEAD.

HELIX has released 14 studio albums, including its latest, "Old School", which came out in 2019.

https://www.facebook.com/helixrockband/posts/978092063882887?ref=embed_post

[gener8tr]

Sucks.  Walkin' The Razor's Edge got a lot of play in my various cassette decks back in 1984.

Unfortunately, those of us who were in junior high and high school in the 80's when "our" music was dominating the airwaves are now in our mid 50's... which means most of our rock heroes from that timeframe are at least 60, and many are older (and others much older).

We will continue to see RIP threads from this point forward WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too often.  It really has me thinking about my own mortality.  Graduation night in June 1986 really doesn't seem that long ago to me.  Obviously it was.

[auslander]

In some ways I am a little jealous of the older artists. They will be remembered long after death cause there are still people who listen to their recordings long after they die. For the rest of us, once we die we are remembered by our kids and sometimes grandkids if you had your kids early enough to be around for grandkids (soon to be rarer with many only having kids in their 40s). After that we are Dust in the Wind, as is written in the immortal Kansas song.

[Captain Howdy]

10 hours ago, gener8tr said:

Sucks.  Walkin' The Razor's Edge got a lot of play in my various cassette decks back in 1984.

Unfortunately, those of us who were in junior high and high school in the 80's when "our" music was dominating the airwaves are now in our mid 50's... which means most of our rock heroes from that timeframe are at least 60, and many are older (and others much older).

We will continue to see RIP threads from this point forward WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too often.  It really has me thinking about my own mortality.  Graduation night in June 1986 really doesn't seem that long ago to me.  Obviously it was.

The thing is, a lot of the guys dying really are not that old being in their late 50s or in their 60s. Cancer really does no descriminate. And lets face it, with substance abuse we have seen a lot of much younger guys pass away through our lives.

From my perspective, I think passing away before you are in your 70s or 80s is still young.

This guy was only 68, RDJ was only 67, James Kottak was only 61. Just to name a few.

Hell, Erik Gronwall was in his 30s when he got Leukemia, but was one of the luckier ones in that he was able to beat it, but we could have been looking at one of these type of posts for him had it not been different.

 

[Captain Howdy]

 

[KarpetRydOFunk]

On 2/18/2024 at 5:08 AM, Captain Howdy said:

The thing is, a lot of the guys dying really are not that old being in their late 50s or in their 60s. Cancer really does no descriminate. And lets face it, with substance abuse we have seen a lot of much younger guys pass away through our lives.

From my perspective, I think passing away before you are in your 70s or 80s is still young.

This guy was only 68, RDJ was only 67, James Kottak was only 61. Just to name a few.

Hell, Erik Gronwall was in his 30s when he got Leukemia, but was one of the luckier ones in that he was able to beat it, but we could have been looking at one of these type of posts for him had it not been different.

 

Exactly. These guys are all still young.

[Doug]

On 2/22/2024 at 2:36 PM, Captain Howdy said:

 

A really nice video tribute. You don't see many rock drummers today using a tadeonal grip style.