Bassist Terry Butler has shut the door — hard — on any possibility of Kam Lee joining LEFT TO DIE, the band currently touring and recording the earliest DEATH material.
LEFT TO DIE pairs classic DEATH members Butler (also ex-MASSACRE, currently in OBITUARY) and Frederick "Rick Rozz" DeLillo (ex-MASSACRE) with GRUESOME founders Matt Harvey (EXHUMED) and Gus Rios (ex-MALEVOLENT CREATION). Live, the band performs most of DEATH's "Leprosy" alongside cuts from "Scream Bloody Gore." Their debut full-length, "Initium Mortis," landed July 17 via Relapse Records — newly recorded versions of DEATH's early catalogue, including songs from Chuck Schuldiner's pre-DEATH band MANTAS, which featured Rozz on guitar and Lee on drums and vocals.
Which makes Lee's absence conspicuous. Asked by Terry Palamara of Loud And Proud Italy whether there had ever been talk of involving him, Butler did not hedge.
"Not at all. There is one trillion percent [certainty that] Kam will not be involved with LEFT TO DIE," he said. "I mean, I've worked with the guy, I've known him for 40 years. He's always toxic. Yes, he's talented, but he's too hard to work with. I don't know. His thought process seems to be not human, actually, sometimes. And, yeah, we can't work with him. Rick and I will not work with him. And whatever. It is what it is."
Butler was willing to credit the work itself, if not the man's temperament. "He did play drums and sing on those songs, but the best part of those songs on his part is the actual singing," he said. "Drums aren't the greatest, but, hey, that's what demos are." He closed the subject flatly: "We never even gave it a thought, because we've all worked with him in the past, and there's absolutely no way we're gonna ever work with him in the future."
Lee has long argued for his own share of that history. Back in 2008, mulling re-recordings of early DEATH and MANTAS material with guest musicians, he wrote: "Like it or not... I'm as much a part of that history as Chuck was, and I wouldn't think to do anything to downplay his involvement in these songs." He claimed authorship of most of the lyrics and the drum patterns on the "Death By Metal," "Reign Of Terror" and "Infernal Death" demos, while crediting Schuldiner and Rozz with the riffs.
Founded in 1984 in Altamonte Springs, Florida under the name MANTAS, DEATH became one of the defining forces of the emerging death metal sound alongside California's POSSESSED, and a cornerstone of the Florida scene that drew international attention by the end of the decade. Schuldiner died on December 13, 2001 following a battle with pontine glioma, a rare brain tumor. His authorized biography, "Born Human: The Life And Music Of Death's Chuck Schuldiner" by David E. Gehlke, was published in November 2025 via Decibel Books.