25 Facts About Casey Chaos

Karim George Chmielinski, known professionally as Casey Chaos, was an American musician, best known as the lead singer of Amen.

Casey Chaos's music encompassed a number of styles in the punk and metal genres.

When he was seven, his parents separated and Casey moved with his mother to Melbourne, Florida.

Casey Chaos became enough of a fan that he started corresponding with Henry Rollins and his friend Ian MacKaye.

Casey Chaos created Casey and the Skate Punx, and recruited bassist Scot Lade, drummer Bill Erwin, and his childhood friend from New York, guitarist Ken Decter.

Casey Chaos met Rikk Agnew, who invited him to sit in as bassist on a concert by his band Christian Death.

Casey Chaos then asked Chaos to sing on his new solo album, and play bass on Christian Death's new album, Iconologia, for which Chaos wrote or co-wrote three songs.

Casey Chaos then wrote and recorded the album Slave, for which he played all of the instruments.

Casey Chaos released it under the Amen name in 1994 and began to put together a new lineup: Paul Fig and Sonny Mayo on guitar, John Fahnestock on bass, and Shannon Larkin on drums.

In March 2002, Casey Chaos announced that Amen had been dropped from Virgin after internal restructuring of their recording division.

Malakian and Casey Chaos had met at the 2002 Big Day Out festival in Australia and had become friends.

In 2005, Casey Chaos released a compilation box set that included previously unreleased Amen and Disorderly Conduct track in addition to remixes of previously released songs.

Between the two songs, Casey Chaos made political death threats and it became the first of the show's episodes to have material cut by IFC, although it ran the full performance on its website.

In 2014, Casey Chaos went back into the studio with Amen to begin recording a new album with Ross Robinson with Dave Lombardo on drums.

In late 2019, Casey Chaos went back into the studio to continue work on the latest Amen album in the UK before COVID-19 put a hold on the recording.

Casey Chaos collaborated with Twiggy Ramirez and members of Queens of the Stone Age on a project called Headband, who recorded music but never released it.

Casey Chaos produced an EP for The Kinison, working with the band off the back of a demo they passed Casey Chaos when he was touring with Amen.

Casey Chaos founded the band Scum with black metal icons Samoth and Cosmocrator from Zyklon, Bard Faust from Emperor, and Happy Tom from Turbonegro.

In 2005, Casey Chaos recorded a song for No End in Sight, an album by This Is Menace.

Amen was then meant to tour with the band, but all dates were canceled when Casey Chaos had to undergo emergency surgery to repair multiple ruptured hernias.

Casey Chaos was part of the supergroup Ross Robinson assembled to write the soundtrack for the House of Shock documentary.

In 2012, Casey Chaos was arrested for allegedly driving his car into 15 parked cars in Studio City, California.

Casey Chaos died from a heart attack in his Laurel Canyon home on December 20,2024, at the age of 59.

Casey Chaos was said to have been suffering from underlying heart issues, poor circulation and high blood pressure just before his death.

Casey Chaos was cremated three days later at the Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood.