David Roach, singer and founding member of the late-Eighties hard-rock band Junkyard, died Friday after a battle with cancer. The group announced Roach’s death in a post on social media on Saturday. He was 59.
“After a courageous battle with cancer, David passed away peacefully last night at home, in the loving arms of his wife,” the statement read. “He was a gifted artist, performer, songwriter, and singer — but above all, a devoted father, husband, and brother.”
While a niche band on Los Angeles’ jam-packed Sunset Strip scene of the 1980s, Junkyard stood out for their edgy, blues-based sound and biker look. They were more in line with early Guns N’ Roses, both in music and aesthetic, and even the Black Crowes, who’d later open for Junkyard, than make-up and hairspray groups like Poison or Warrant. And Roach’s raspy voice — a mix of Southern drawl (he was from Dallas, Texas), cigarette smoke, and a lot of attitude — was the driving force.
Junkyard formed in Los Angeles in 1987, with Roach as frontman, Chris Gates on guitar, and, for a brief moment, skateboarding pioneer Tony Alva on bass. Guitarist Brian Baker, who’d go on to play in Bad Religion, joined in 1989 and, that same year, the group released their self-titled debut album on Geffen, also label home to the likeminded GN’R.
Despite being more of a blues-rock band than heavy metal, the group gained early traction on MTV’s Headbangers Ball with its video for “Hollywood,” a tale of desperation and hustling in one of America’s most mythologized neighborhoods. “See the boy on the corner/he’s only 12 years old/every night he’s out there doing his best/to get his goodies sold,” Roach sneered to kick off the song. “What Hollywood was to us when we were all living there together,” is how Roach described the track in the album’s press materials. “Prostitutes, crack-dealers on the front porch. It wasn’t culture shock exactly, but it was a learning experience.”
The power ballad “Simple Man” followed as the next single and underscored the Southern-rock vibes of the group: In 1991, Junkyard would open for Lynyrd Skynyrd on that band’s headlining tour.
Roach and the group returned to the studio, with Ramones and Living Colour producer Ed Stasium, to record 1991’s Sixes, Sevens & Nines. Singles like “All the Time in the World” doubled down on Junkyard’s blues-rock, but added an element of punk, while the acoustic lament “Slippin’ Away” revealed a country influence and featured songwriter Steve Earle on harmony vocals.
But 1991 was also the year of Nirvana’s Nevermind — released just a few months after Sixes, Sevens & Nines — and the hard rock of L.A. quickly fell out of fashion. Junkyard were a victim of that sea change and Geffen dropped the band, who split up in 1992.
In 2000, Junkyard reunited and released the live album Shut Up – We’re Tryin’ to Practice!, a 1989 recording of the band in its prime at the Hollywood Palace. Live tours followed, and in 2017 the group issued the comeback album High Water, its first new studio LP in more than 25 years. A standalone single titled “Lifer” dropped in 2021. Along with blues-rock groups like the Four Horsemen, Junkyard stand to many as an underrated alternative to the hair metal of the era.
Riki Rachtman, former host of Headbangers Ball, remembered Roach on Instagram. “We lost a singer of a true rock & roll band,” he said. “If you want to hear some good rock and roll, play some Junkyard right now.”