The guitarist for the influential American hardcore band Harm’s Way died on Thursday at the age of 38. He was also well known as the co-host of the Hardlore podcast, which has been a guiding light on happenings in the hardcore scene for the last few years.
“It is with heavy, broken hearts that we share that our beloved Bo Lueders has passed away,” a statement by the band declares. “For those struggling with depression or urges to self harm, help is always available. We’re not in this alone.” The statement concludes with a phone number for Americans suffering with mental health crises.
Lueders’ passing comes at a difficult time for deaths in the rock world. Both Manowar’s Ross “The Boss” Friedman as well as Motörhead’s Phil Campbell have passed on in preceding weeks, all of them influential guitarists.
Lueders had been a member of Harm’s Way since its formation in 2006 and stayed with them throughout their career. Now signed to Metal Blade records, their first three albums were released through independent punk labels and saw experimentation with the classic modern hardcore sound being fused with metal and industrial, as well as more alternative sounds. Their fourth, 2018’s ‘Posthuman’, was given 8/10 by Metal Injection and saw the band flirt with Slipknot-esque nü metal and Deftones-flavoured soaring pop. Their most recent album, 2023’s ‘Common Suffering’, was a more political effort and also saw discussion of mental health.
In the day following the guitarist’s death, a GoFundMe was set up by his family in his memory to cover the costs of his funeral and living support for his loved ones, which has now raised over $164,000. His podcast co-host, Colin Young, speaking of the meeting of the goal, issued another statement. “With the donation goal automatically updating throughout that duration, I quickly rounded down the current amount to end the goal… and then you all just kept donating. We cannot thank you enough for this beautiful outpouring of love and support for our sweet Bo throughout these darkest of days.”
In a statement shared by the band’s singer, James Pligge, the frontman said that “I met Bo 24 years ago, we were just young hardcore kids searching for our place… from then on we created a bond that not many people can ever say they have with someone. I was able to play music, eat expensive food and see some of the world’s most beautiful places with him. We spent hours together in hotels rooms, in the drivers seat or shotgun just talking about the Sopranos or listening to Crowbar.”
Lueders’ career took an interesting side road in 2022 when he began his podcast, Hardlore. What began with excerpts of discussions of live on the road and hardcore anecdotes soon became lengthy interviews with legends of the genre. In 2024, they went so far as to establish a record label promoting metal and hardcore. He also played with another hardcore band, XweaponX, based out of Kentucky.
