# Cheetah Chrome, punk architect, dead at 71

> The Cleveland guitarist behind Rocket From the Tombs and the Dead Boys turned feral riffs into the blueprint for American punk.
- Title: Cheetah Chrome, punk architect, dead at 71 · Rolling Stone
- Summary: The Cleveland guitarist behind Rocket From the Tombs and the Dead Boys turned feral riffs into the blueprint for American punk. Cheetah Chrome built the…
- Keywords: punk, obituary, dead boys, guitar, cleveland, Cheetah, Chrome, architect, dead, Rolling Stone
- Source: Rolling Stone — https://rollingstone.com/music/music-news/cheetah-chrome-dead-boys-guitarist-obituary-1235625943
- Author: Emily Zemler
- Published: 2026-09-14T07:21:23+00:00
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: punk, obituary, dead boys, guitar, cleveland
## A punk architect is gone
Cheetah Chrome, guitarist for the Dead Boys and Rocket From the Tombs, died at 71. His band confirmed it on Instagram Sunday night. No cause of death was given.

> Cheetah was a true original, an architect of the punk-rock movement.
## Born Eugene in Cleveland
He was born Eugene Richard O'Connor on Feb. 18, 1955, in Cleveland. In the fall of 1974 he picked up guitar duties in the proto-punk band Rocket From the Tombs.
## Ten months, permanent mark
Rocket From the Tombs opened for Television and Patti Smith in 1975, then played a farewell show that August. Lester Bangs called them the original legendary underground rock band.

> No one else in American rock, underground or over, was writing and playing songs this hard and graphic about being fucked over and fighting mad.
## Young, loud and snotty
He formed the Dead Boys with Stiv Bators, Jimmy Zero, Jeff Magnum and Johnny Blitz, moved to New York, and sold out CBGBs behind two albums in 1977 and 1978.
## After the Dead Boys
When the band split in 1979 he played New York with the Stilettos and his own Cheetah Chrome and the Casualties. He also played on Ronnie Spector's solo debut, Siren.
## He kept coming back
The Dead Boys reunited for a 40th anniversary tour in 2017. He revived Rocket From the Tombs in 2003 with David Thomas and Richard Lloyd, and played with Sylvain Sylvain in Batusis.
## The punk who ran a label
He wrote a memoir in 2010, moved to Nashville, and became creative director of A&R at Plowboy Records, where he released his own album Solo in 2014.

> It's very funny to find out that I could do this.
## Key takeaway

Cheetah Chrome built the sound of American punk in two short-lived bands, then spent forty years proving he was more than a guitarist.