Metal
Dennis Pepa, Death Angel’s founding bassist and original vocalist, has said that in February 2026 he was diagnosed with stage 4 duodenal cancer. He has opened a GoFundMe page with a goal of $150,000 to pay for treatment and support his family through the months ahead.
“My name is Dennis. You might know me from a Death Angel record sleeve, from work, or from years of friendship,” he writes on the page. “Forgive me, but I’m going to get straight to it because, well, I’m already feeling very vulnerable, and there’s no easy way for me to say any of this.” By February, he says, he had already lost the job he had held for almost twenty years: “Suddenly, my family and I had to find money for cancer treatment while trying to keep up with the everyday bills.”
The treatment he is after is at the Immunocine Cancer Center in Mexico and is dendritic cell immunotherapy, which uses a patient’s own immune cells and tumour material to prepare a personalised treatment. Pepa says Heal Navigator’s public listing puts the cost at $120,000, on top of which come flights and six weeks of accommodation.
Death Angel put out a statement on social media: “Please help our brother, friend, cousin, and founding member of Death Angel, Dennis Pepa, in his fight against cancer. He really needs the Metal community and beyond to come together and show their support in unity, as one of our own, that helped define this genre’s sound and attitude, as he fights this battle.”
He also writes on the page what he wants: to watch his sons grow up — Maddox, 22, and Roman, 19 — and to marry his fiancée, Gemalyn. The first of the appeal’s four line items is conditional: paying for care at Immunocine “if its team confirms I can go ahead”.
Text by Roger Estivill