Iconic 80s guitarist Al Barile from Hardcore band SSD has died at the age of 63

Hardcore legend Al Barile - guitarist in Boston icons SSD - has died at the age of 63. The news was confirmed by his wife, author Nancy Barile, in a social media post.

“I never met anyone who was his own person as much as Al was,” she said. “No one made me laugh more. There was always a story. We loved each other unbelievably, and my heart is crushed into a million pieces.”

SSD were revered in the New England hardcore scene after emerging in the 1980s, cited alongside the likes of Discharge, Black Flag, and Minor Threat. They featured on bills alongside the likes of the Dead Kennedys and Negative Approach.

Barile typified the band's aggressive approach, as a ball of energy onstage and off. Privately, he became sober and drug-free after becoming friends with Dischord label owner and Fugazi/Minor Threat musician, Ian MacKaye.

His moral compass became a theme through SSD's music, and led to fans sporting homemade T-shirts bearing the phrase, 'What Would Al Do?'.

“When we met the D.C. people, I saw how they were all X’d up and not drinking, I found a lot of strength in that,” he told the Former Clarity newsletter in 2023.

"I came home and said, ‘You know, I’m not going to drink anymore.’ That's kind of my story of how I decided not to drink, but what really went into that is me getting my voice. I was leaving that life behind. It took a lot of courage to just walk away from all your friends and find new friends, you know?"

Barile pursued a life in music after seeing the Ramones in the late 1970s, putting together his own band in the Boston area. “I wasn’t just trying to get a band that would play cover songs,” Barile recounted in the documentary Get It Away. “It would be a special band.”

They went on to release two albums as SS Decontrol (Society System Decontrol), and two more after rebranding SSD.