A drummer for a popular indie-rock band yesterday plunged to his death after trying to leap from a stuck elevator at a Williamsburg fund-raiser, police said.
Jerry Fuchs — who had drummed for the dance-punk bands LCD Soundsystem, !!! (pronounced “chk, chk, chk”) and The Juan MacLean and had just finished touring with the psychedelic ensemble Maserati — tumbled five stories shortly after 12:30 a.m. at 338 Berry St., cops said.
Sources said Fuchs, 34, was in the freight elevator with another male guest when it stopped three or four feet above the fifth floor. He and the man opened the door and attempted to jump out.
The other man landed safely, but Fuchs’ clothing caught on the elevator as he was jumping, yanking him back into a space under it.
Fuchs’ roommate, Alex Frankel, 27, said the drummer had called pals minutes before he fell to tell them he was stuck in the elevator.
“We found him in the elevator shaft,” a distraught Frankel said. “He was no longer able to speak.” Fuchs died at Bellevue Hospital at 3:30 a.m.
The musician’s mom, Joy, said, “He touched lives. His gift for music touched many lives.”
The Georgia-born drummer had been attending a benefit for The Uniform Project, designed to help the children of India’s slums.
Fuchs is the second !!! drummer to meet a tragic end. In 2005, Mikel Gius was mowed down as he rode his bike in Sacramento.