Fuchs, 34, had attended a benefit party on the seventh floor of an industrial building near the Williamsburgh Bridge and became stuck on a freight elevator between the fourth and fifth floors around 12:30 a.m., according to the New York Times.
While trying to jump from the elevator to the fourth floor opening, his jacket snagged and he missed, plunging to the bottom of the shaft. He was later pronounced dead at Bellevue Medical Center. Another passenger in the elevator was able to make the jump safely.
Alex Frankel, Fuch’s roommate and bandmate in Holy Gost!, said he heard someone had fallen when he arrived at the party about half an hour later and found a someone lying in the elevator shaft when he went to investigate.
“We flipped him over and it was Jerry,” Frankel told the Times. “When we found him he was not able to talk.”
Fuchs began his musical journey in Marietta, Ga., graduating from the University of Georgia in Athens before migrating to NYC in 1995 to drum for Vineland. Other bands who benefited from the drummer’s impressive range of skills include Turing Machine, Maserati, !!! and MSTRKRFT.
Business Week columnist and fellow Vineland bandmember Jon Fine told the Times Fuchs’ was infinitely adaptable in his musical ability.
“He could play metal,” Fine explained. “Prog Rock with multiple time signatures, aggressive indie disco.”
LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy described Fuchs to the Times as “one of the only people we all knew who was literally great at what he did” and said he was “incredibly generous with his talent.” Turing Machine’s Scott DeSimon told the paper he was unchanged by his many successes.
“At the root of it, he was always that sweet 20-year-old who moved here from Athens.”