Rockers We’ve Lost in 2012: Drakar’s Ivan Sekyra

Drakar frontman Ivan Sekyra passed away from an undisclosed illness on June 30 at the age of 59. As the mastermind of the Czech heavy metal band, he led Drakar to gather a cult fan base in their home country.

Sekyra was happy to let fans into the depths of his sonic philosophy. "The music of Drakar is deliberately riddled with practices that are banned in classical music," Sekrya said. "There is important work with rhythms. None of the drummers wanted to play like that because they used to play different from it."

He also spoke about why he decided to become Drakar's vocalist. "We could not find right singer, so I started to sing of necessity alone. A few people told me that I have an interesting timbre of voice, and so I tried to take advantage of it. The vocal should sound like when Big Brother speaks to you, a hundred times intensified."