Mike Browning obit

Morbid Angel Founding Drummer Mike Browning Dead At 62

 He was not on the list.

Mike Browning, the drummer best known as a founding member of the legendary death metal band Morbid Angel, has died. The band's Instagram account posted the news today along with a brief tribute: "R.I.P Mike, thanks for helping making all this happen. Our condolences to his family & especially his daughter." Browning was 62.

Browning grew up in Tampa and took up the drums at age 13. In a 2006 interview, he described his musical coming of age, noting that he was already interested in the contemporary hard rock greats like Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and Pink Floyd when the clerk at a local record shop turned him on to metal bands like Iron Maiden and Angelwitch.

In 1983, he formed Morbid Angel with guitarist Trey Azagthoth, his friend from high school. "Trey and I were like the only two kids in that school that were into the occult and it just happened that he played guitar and I drums," he later recalled. Performing alongside peers like Death, Deicide, and Obituary, the band became key players in the pioneering Tampa death metal scene, helping to establish genre signifiers like blast beats and a flurry of extremely technical riffs.

Browning played in Morbid Angel up through 1986, including the recording of Abominations Of Desolation, which was intended to be their full-length debut. But the album was shelved when a personal conflict with Azagthoth led to Browning's departure from the band. Abominations Of Desolation eventually saw release in 1991.

After leaving Morbid Angel, Browning remained active in the Florida death metal scene, drumming for bands such as Nocturnus, Acheron, Incubus (not that Incubus), and Voodoo Gods. He had a series of projects with vocalist Lisa Lombardo including After Death, Devine Essence, and Wolf And Hawk.

In 2008, Lombardo released the solo album Mike Browning's Inner Workings – Trancemissions. In his later years, he revived Nocturnus under the name Nocturnus AD, releasing multiple albums on the essential underground metal label Profound Lore. He is survived by a daughter, born in 2007.