{"id":911475,"date":"2026-09-27T10:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T10:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/911475\/"},"modified":"2026-09-27T10:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T10:22:12","slug":"doug-donut-proulx-dies-leaving-behind-a-legacy-as-a-vancouver-punk-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/911475\/","title":{"rendered":"Doug “Donut” Proulx dies, leaving behind a legacy as a Vancouver punk legend"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Friends and fans are reporting the passing of Douglas Proulx tonight. Vancouver music fans knew the local punk rock legend best as the drummer for the hugely influential Death Sentence. No cause of death has been given.<\/p>\n

Known by his stage name Doug Donut, Proulx also sat behind the kit for West Coast bands that included the Pasties and Mr. Pink, as well as doing session work for artists ranging from Mudgirl\u2019s Kim Bingham to former Age of Electric frontman Todd Kerns.<\/p>\n

In addition to his work as a musician, Proulx\u2014who was of Lakota M\u00e9tis descent\u2014also worked in TV and film, hosting and producing the 2009 series Beyond Words, which spotlighted First Nations artists from multiple disciplines.<\/p>\n

But it was his hard-hitting and inventive work with Death Sentence that first put the drummer on the map in Vancouver. Bridging metal and punk at a time when fans of the genres normally didn’t mix, the group quickly became one of the most influential bands in the city. <\/p>\n

When the Straight did its list of 50 albums that shaped Vancouver <\/a>back in 2017, Death Sentence’s Not a Pretty Sight was hailed as nothing short of monumental with the following: “Vancouver punk changed in the middle of the \u201980s, when the city\u2019s original fast-and-loud scenemakers died off to be replaced by a second wave that was heavier, uglier, and unflinchingly more nihilistic. Leading the way was Death Sentence, who, amid serious drugging and drinking, got it together enough to record a metal-strafed smart bomb with monsters like \u201cIn Flames\u201d and \u201cDawn of the Dead\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mourning his passing tonight, Vancouver author Chris Walter wrote on Facebook: “You never knew who you’d get when you talked to Doug Donut, but he was a fine musician and never, ever boring. My interactions with the man over the decades have been equal parts hilarious, confusing, and sometimes difficult, but always interesting and memorable. I’m gonna miss that rocksteady pirate and his crazy grin. Somewhere a band is missing its Mad Hatter.”<\/p>\n

While acknowledging Proulx as someone who could be polarizing, Billy Hopeless of the Black Halos fame remembered the drummer as a powerhouse musician, noting on Facebook, “You were an exceptionally unique, relentless non-conformist drummer and a very uncontrollable force.”<\/p>\n

Promoter Wendy “Thirteen” Forsythe, who booked Death Sentence many times at the Cobalt, chipped in with, in all CAPS, “YOU WERE A CHARACTER. CANTANKEROUS FUCKER \/ AMOROUS TRICKSTER OR WHATEVER PERSON YOU WERE ON ANY GIVEN DAY\u2026RIP.”<\/p>\n

More than most Vancouver musicians,\u00a0Proulx left a mark. Here he is, beating the shit out of the drums in the most beautiful of ways with Death Sentence in the video for “In Flames”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Video of IN FLAMES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get the best of Vancouver in your inbox, every Tuesday and Thursday.\u00a0Sign up for our free newsletter. \u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[76,49,48,8497,569,16291,75,1048,1187,1554,2998,890,341,13117,3560,404,348,55],"class_list":["post-911475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-arts","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-city","tag-culture","tag-dining","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-fashion","tag-film","tag-food","tag-lifestyle","tag-music","tag-nightlife","tag-restaurants","tag-shopping","tag-tv","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}