Marcie Free, an acclaimed metal singer and trans icon, has died. She was 71.
On Friday, Free’s longtime friend and drummer, Jay Schellen, confirmed the news of her passing. “Marcie was a marvel to behold. A voice that had no limits and no equal, a truly singular talent and one of the most open and beautiful souls I have ever known,” Schellen wrote, per Cleveland.com. “I’m gutted and can’t say much more.”
Free was born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1954. She first rose to fame more than 40 years ago as Mark Free, after connecting with former Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Carmine Appice and joining his band, King Kobra. Free performed on a few of their albums in the mid-80s: Ready to Strike and Thrill of a Lifetime.
She later went on to sing in the band Signal, as well as pursue solo projects, and then formed Unruly Child in the early 1990s with guitarist Bruce Gowdy and keyboardist Guy Allison. It was after the band’s first, self-titled, album that Free publicly came out as a transgender person and announced that her name was Marcie.
After coming out as a trans woman, Free is quoted as saying that her career suffered and “[her] whole musical world quickly fell apart.” Unruly Child went on a hiatus after their second album, Tormented (1995), with Free reportedly citing her transition struggles as being a main cause for the dissolution.
She also reportedly stated that she was shunned by many people in the music industry for coming out as trans, which led her to step away for a while. In 1995, she moved back to Michigan to be close to her family and “[lived] life and [worked] as a normal person does every day,” until Unruly Child reformed in 2009.
At this time, no cause of death has been publicly shared.
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