Derrick Plourde (October 17, 1971 – March 30, 2005)

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Originally from Goleta, CA, Plourde was active in the Southern California punk scene and known for his fast and accurate style of drumming. In addition to being the original founding member and drummer for Lagwagon, he also drummed for Bad Astronaut, Jaws, Rich Kids on LSD, Mad Caddies, and The Ataris.

It is unclear if Plourde was diagnosed with bipolar disorder or depression as I have found varying accounts of both on multiple websites. 


In an interview with Lollipop, an online music magazine with Joey Cape, the former singer of Lagwagon, he stated,  “[Derrick] always had issues…I’m not going to go into specifics about them, but he definitely had underlying problems that, as he got older, started to surface…Derrick was having a real hard time coping…he started to use drugs. It got pretty bad. He was in rough shape. It got to the point where we had to cancel the tour while we were in Florida and send him to detox. He got clean, but not completely clean, so we had to give him an ultimatum. It was either get off the drugs completely or we had to move on without him. Unfortunately he chose the latter.”  Plourde was found dead of a self inflicted gunshot wound in his parent’s bedroom.


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