Guitarist Dies Before Show at 9:30 Club

Hawthorne Heights Was Starting Tour

After Thanksgiving dinner with his family in Ohio, Hawthorne Heights guitarist Casey Calvert boarded a bus with his band mates Friday morning to start their "Wintour 07," a grueling schedule of back-to-back concert dates that was to include a show in Washington on Saturday night.

But the fast-rising pop-punk group, which finished up a show in Detroit on Friday night, never got a chance to perform for local fans. D.C. police were called to the 9:30 Club in Northwest Washington about 2:30 p.m. Saturday and found Calvert unconscious on the band's tour bus, according to Officer Junis Fletcher, a police spokesman.

Calvert, 25, was pronounced dead at the scene, Fletcher said. Police are awaiting the results of an autopsy.

Family, friends and fans were reeling from the news.

Fan tributes poured in at the Hawthorne Heights Web site, www.hawthorneheights.com, where band members Eron Bucciarelli, Micah Carli, Matt Ridenour and JT Woodruff announced that their "quirky and awesome" best friend had "passed away in his sleep."

"At this time we're not sure what exactly happened. Just last night he was joking around with everyone before he went to bed," the band members wrote in a posting dated Saturday.

The group sought to head off any rumors about Calvert's death.

"We can say with absolute certainty that he was not doing anything illegal. . . . We don't want his memory to be tainted in the least," the band's posting said.

Hawthorne Heights formed in 2001 and has released two albums. Buzz on MySpace helped boost the first album, "The Silence in Black and White." The second, "If Only You Were Lonely," entered the Billboard charts at No. 3, and the single "Saying Sorry" got play on MTV and VH1.

Reached at the family home in Middletown, Ohio, Calvert's stepmother, Tammy Calvert, said the family was in shock and mourning.

In addition to his stepmother, Casey Calvert is survived by his wife, two stepsisters and his mother and father, Tammy Calvert said.

Calvert picked up a love of music from his father, Greg, a member of Gary and the Hornets, a 1960s band that once performed on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." His father played bass, but the younger Calvert preferred guitar, his stepmother said.

He loved Dr. Seuss books and Tim Burton films and was so fastidious about his health that he was a vegetarian, she said.

He married about a year ago. His wife is a schoolteacher, his stepmother said.

"He was a very good and kind young man, and right now there aren't any answers," she said.

Staff researcher Rena Kirsch contributed to this report.