Andy Williams, the co-founder of Every Time I Die and a wrestler with All Elite Wrestling, has died at the age of 48.
According to the magazine Louder, Williams was taking part in a tag team match at an Enjoy Wrestling event at the Mr. Smalls Theatre when he became unwell. Medical staff on site gave him cardiopulmonary resuscitation until emergency services arrived. The show was then stopped. His death was confirmed by the office of the Allegheny County medical examiner.
A founding figure in Every Time I Die
For rock and metal audiences, Andy Williams was best known for his role in Every Time I Die. He co-founded the group in Buffalo, New York, in 1998 and remained its rhythm guitarist until the band split in 2022. Over a career spanning almost a quarter of a century, the band became one of the best-known names in American metalcore.
Williams appeared on all nine of Every Time I Die’s studio albums. The last, Radical, was released in 2021, just months before the band came to an abrupt end. Their music built a distinctly urgent identity, blending hardcore, metal and often chaotic structures, driven by the force of its riffs as much as by its live performances.
From metalcore to the wrestling ring
Andy Williams also had a rare second career: he managed to work as a professional wrestler alongside his music. After starting on the independent circuit in 2015, he adopted the persona “The Butcher” and formed a team with Jesse “The Blade” Guilmette. Their arrival in All Elite Wrestling from 2019 gave him international visibility.
Williams saw a direct connection between his two professions. In an interview in 2022, he explained that building a wrestling match was, for him, like writing a song, with a beginning, a development and an ending. It was a revealing way of thinking from a musician who said he composed more by form and instinct than by musical theory.
After Every Time I Die split up, he also returned to music with Atomic Rule, while several of his former bandmates formed Better Lovers.
Tributes from former Every Time I Die members
Since the announcement of his death, tributes have been pouring in from both of the worlds he inhabited. Better Lovers, which includes several former Every Time I Die members, described him as “un être humain vraiment unique” before adding: “Il n’y aura jamais un autre Andy Williams.”
All Elite Wrestling also highlighted his unusual career path, that of a respected musician who succeeded in making the transition to professional wrestling. In Andy Williams’s case, the two careers were never all that far apart: on stage and in the ring alike, everything depended on rhythm, impact and the ability to build tension.