Dennis Pepa, the founding bassist of San Francisco Bay Area thrash veterans DEATH ANGEL, is battling stage 4 duodenal cancer, a rare and typically aggressive cancer of the small intestine. He has launched a GoFundMe campaign to cover treatment and keep his family afloat.
In his note on the fundraiser page, Pepa says he was diagnosed in February 2026, after he had already lost the job he held for almost 20 years. He hopes to undergo dendritic cell immunotherapy, a personalized treatment built from the patient's own immune cells, at the Immunocine Cancer Center in Mexico. The goal is $150,000: most of it for the treatment itself, with the rest going to travel, about six weeks of accommodation, and everyday household costs for his family back home. "A $5 donation multiplied many times over is so much more than $5," he writes, adding that he wants to keep watching his sons Maddox and Roman grow up and to marry his fiancée, Gemalyn.
DEATH ANGEL shared the campaign with a call to the scene: the band asked the metal community to stand behind "our brother, friend, cousin, and founding member", someone who "helped define this genre's sound and attitude", adding: "Let's show Dennis he's not alone fighting this battle."
Pepa formed DEATH ANGEL in 1982 with his cousins, guitarists Rob Cavestany and Gus Pepa, and drummer Andy Galeon; Mark Osegueda, their second cousin and roadie, took over vocals in 1984 after Dennis had handled lead vocals in the earliest days. Dennis played bass and sang backing vocals through 1991, the era of The Ultra-Violence, Frolic Through The Park and Act III, and returned for a second run from 2001 to 2008. His final show with the band was on October 28, 2008 at the Grand Ballroom in San Francisco.
The news lands as DEATH ANGEL prepare their December 2026 European tour celebrating 35 years of Act III, an album Pepa played on.
Support Dennis Pepa: GoFundMe — Help Dennis Pepa Beat Cancer