David Tyler from Bronx, United States · CC BY 2.0

A bassist who helped define thrash metal's sound in New York in the early 1980s, Lilker was a founding member of Anthrax before leaving to co-found Nuclear Assault and Stormtroopers of Death. He later formed the grindcore band Brutal Truth, giving him a hand in shaping three distinct extreme-metal subgenres over one career rather than resting on his first band's success.