Colton Austin Dunwoody, 46
A visitation for Colt Dunwoody of Eau Claire will take place at the Everlasting Life Prayer Center in Madison Acres beginning at 6:00 p.m. Friday, May 19th. A graveside service for the beloved father, brother, son and uncle commences at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 20, at Oak Grove Cemetery on South Hastings Way. A memorial luncheon organized by Colt’s fellow band members immediately follows the burial ceremonial at the Nuclear Armadillo nightclub.
Mr. Dunwoody leaves behind an ex-wife, daughter, son, two sisters and both parents.
Colton Austin Dunwoody was born July 23, 1977, in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, to Merle and Scarlett (Raeburn) Dunwoody. They gave him a cowboy name, dressed him in cowboy outfits and took him to see horses. But it was music that caught the attention of Colt Dunwoody and never let go. Having convinced his farming parents to save up for a drum kit for him in the fourth grade, Colt launched into his musical career. This acquisition necessitated his father’s building of a makeshift drum studio for his son in the barn. The ruckus upset the cows and chickens to such a degree, they refused to supply milk and eggs. The kit was moved to the storm cellar, then the tractor shed, then a treehouse on the far end of the property and finally Hagerman Hill landfill once young Colt tired of the instrument, having failed to master it. Colt’s older sister, Lila, remembers these clamorous times.
Colt was a little devil. His idea of music was pounding on them drums till they was nearly busted. I’d be trying to listen to my Banarama and Cyndi Lauper CDs and alls I could hear was crash, crash, boom bam crash. I’d have to give him my allowance to make him stop.
–Lila Gilchrist (nee Dunwoody), sister
Though the family worshipped regularly at Chippewa Valley Community Church, Colt’s teen years saw his adolescent angst arise. His rebellion against his elders led him down the dangerous path of heavy metal music. After school would see Colt and his buddy Lendell listening to CDs and learning about the darker side of this form of music.
Colt and me used to hang out at the Stomping Grounds Music in the mall and spend hours at the listening stations. Metallica, Sepultura, Type O Negative, Bolt Thrower. We couldn’t get enough. I’ll never forget the time Colt decided he wanted to write his own metal song. So he tore a page out of his little sister’s Hello Kitty notebook and told her to yell at him so he could get good and riled up to write a flamethrower of a ballad. And that’s how our song “Get the F*** Out of My Life” was born.
–Lendell K. Moody, friend and bandmate
After the drum fiasco, Mr. and Mrs. Dunwoody were none too willing to buy their son an electric guitar, so Colt waited until graduation and used the money his relatives gifted him to buy a used guitar and amplifier from a pawn shop. Colt convinced Lendell to buy a used bass and soon the duo formed a band that summer. In no time, a record deal, radio airplay, a world tour and millions of adoring fans failed to materialize because the guys hadn’t taken the time to learn how to play their instruments or study the first thing about songwriting. The friends parted ways, Lendell to the Air Force and Colt to community college and a job as a weekend tour guide at the Chippewa Valley Museum. But in their spare time, they took lessons and practiced. In an English class, Colt met Rusty Pedroia, a guitarist with long hair, beard, demonic tattoos and threatening piercings.
Colt was pretty green when we first met. I was renting an out-building behind an industrial fittings factory and invited him to bring his rig and jam a bit. Guy didn’t have much in the way of chops at first and his sound was way too clean. I was like, Dude, are you playing metal or practicing for Aunt Lucy’s tea party? I introduced him to his first distortion pedal and the rest was history. Had no clue what a little overdrive could do.
–Rusty Pedroia, bandmate
When Lendell returned home in 1999, the two grew their hair out, resumed their friendship and their love of metal music. Jamming with Rusty, the trio soon recruited a drummer from the halfway house on Craig Road, and the backlog of songs Colt had accumulated from jamming with Rusty served as a robust catalog. Now the band needed a name. The members threw out suggestions but none seemed to personify the power, the stealth and the exotic mystery as that of Colt’s idea: Saigon Panther.
I’m not sure the guy even knew where Saigon was. I didn’t. Sounded cool though.
–Rex LaBlatt, bandmate
It wasn’t long before Saigon Panther was earning a name for itself and playing regular gigs and enjoying some success on the nightclub scene in cities as far as Madison and Milwaukee. The dark, driving rhythms of this hypersonic quartet garnered new fans and allowed them to record their first record, 2000’s Unconsecrated. With Colt on lead vocals and rhythm guitar, Lendell on bass, Rusty on lead guitar and Rex on drums, Saigon Panther became the stars of Eau Claire’s thriving metal scene, expanding their fanbase, touring regionally and even headlining Hayward Hellfest 2002, “Headbangin’ fun and musky fishing on the banks of the Namekagon River.”
Relationships came and went for Colt. He was forever searching for the missing piece, the part that could complete the puzzle that was Colton Dunwoody’s life. That all changed when Colt met Sienna Forster at the Eau Claire County Fair in the spring of 2005. Things weren’t exactly perfect for the couple at first. Sienna’s father was the Lead Pastor at the Crown and the Cross Worship Center in Chippewa Falls and found Colt’s long hair, tattoos and taste in music offensive. But Sienna’s charm convinced the thrash metal rocker to cut his hair, lose the piercings, and trade his leather and spandex for sensible polos and khakis. There was nothing Colt wouldn’t do for Sienna. The two were married at the Worship Center by Pastor Forster on March 11, 2006, and their first child, Tory Nicole, was born in November of that year.
Nobody was happier than me and his father when Colt finally gave up the long hair and rock music nonsense when he met Sienna. We’d always encouraged our kids to be who they was gonna be and express theirselves creatively. But that band stuff was…well, it was embarrassing. We’d be hosting Thanksgiving dinner with the extended family and here’d be Colt sitting at the table with his aunts and uncles and cousins looking like some longhaired circus freak and showing everyone his latest piercing. Enough to put you off your green bean casserole.
–Mrs. Scarlett Dunwoody, mother
Colt became born again and was baptized at the Crown and the Cross Worship Center by his father-in-law. Soon, he was studying the Bible and leading men’s discussion groups. He traded his classic Flying V electric guitar for a practical and sweet-sounding acoustic and worked his way into the worship band.
It was weird seeing my big brother cut off his hair and go from black leather [behind]-kicker to clean-cut church goober practically overnight. I think he was totally brainwashed or something but I’m not a churchy person so I don’t know how all that [stuff] works. I just know, one day my brother’s a righteous metalhead whipping his long, wild hair all around from the stage at Killigan’s and the next, he’s Mister Rodgers, singing about how God is an awesome god.
–Riley Dunwoody, sister
I’m not gonna lie. Those were dark days for me. Seeing my best friend get totally turned inside out by this chick and settle down was not on my radar. Dude totally became a different person. Couldn’t talk to him anymore. Needless to say, the band dissolved. Good metal drummers are always in demand so Rexie got on with Anna Philaxis and the Choke Artists pretty fast. Rusty lined himself up with some tutoring jobs, taught teens to play guitar when he wasn’t working at the fittings factory. But I was just lost. And pissed. I didn’t talk to Colt Dunwoody for sixteen years after he told me I was a sinner and a bad influence on him. I was like, whatever, dude.
–Lendell K. Moody
With his traditional ways, it wasn’t easy to convince Pastor Forster to make the worship music set part of the service and not just Wednesday night fellowship meetings, but when Pete Brunansky moved to Minneapolis, Colt took over as Musical Director and shifted the worship band from the rec room to the altar. The birth of their second child, Mitchell Merle Dunwoody, in 2010 didn’t slow God’s ambitious disciple one bit. Colt arranged Chippewa County’s first Faith Fest: A Celebration of Music and Worship. That event was notable for being the first music festival where the attendees had to tell the musical acts to turn up the volume instead of down.
The gathering years saw Colt’s role in the church explode with possibilities, and by 2017, the Crown and the Cross Worship Center acquired the Nexus Journey Christian Church in nearby Menomonie. His father-in-law entrusted the satellite church to the leadership of Colt Dunwoody, who recruited younger families into the fold and grew the congregation.
That was about the time I hit a low point in my life, dealing with crazy-[behind] changes of my own. Had to ask big brother if I could live with him and his family for a while till I got [stuff] sorted out in my [messed]-up life. He let me stay in their basement for a couple months and I was grateful. One night, Colt and I had a little sit-down over a midnight snack. I said, “I love you, bro, but how’d you go from being a big [personality] rock star to the Vanilla King of Chippewa County?” What he told me blew my mind. I’m not about to repeat it here. Let’s just say we all have our personal demons we have to deal with. And sometimes those demons come wearing haloes.
–Riley Dunwoody
Pastor Forster’s ambitious plans for his son-in-law saw Colt splitting his time between the two churches and scouting for a third. Leading two worship bands, organizing Bible study classes and curriculum, overseeing the youth ministry, editing his father-in-law’s sermons, organizing fellowship events and holiday programs, as well as serving as the accountant-bookkeeper for the churches began to take its toll on Colt. These work commitments led to tension in his marriage to Sienna, not because it was taking him away from his family duties, but because Sienna felt Colt wasn’t devoting enough time to her father’s ministries. In the midst of the burnout, Colt was able to convince his father-in-law that he needed some time off for a spiritual pilgrimage to “reset his soul,” as he said. Colt Dunwoody then disappeared for five months in the fall of 2019.
There were all kinds of rumors then. From nervous breakdown to alien abduction. They were all [baloney]. I knew where he was. And I wasn’t talking.
–Riley Dunwoody
When Colt Dunwoody resurfaced the following spring, he was a changed man. He’d been to the mountaintop, to the edges of sanity, he said, where angels fear to tread, looked death in the face and laughed, danced on a razor’s edge, whirled with the dervishes, turned on, tuned in, dropped out, expanded his consciousness, tamed the dragon, bucked the system, tripped the light fantastic and knocked knees with bowlegged women. Most importantly, he had ridden the panther.
Well, I was floored. I mean, my jaw must’ve dropped to the ground when Colt Dunwoody showed up at my house looking like a hermit who’d spent the last decade living in a cave. Beard. Crazy hair. Said he had atoned for his sins and come to his senses. Renouncing the church and all that. I know. Mind-blowing, right? Midlife crisis maybe? Said his father-in-law was a tyrant and involved in some questionable practices, his marriage was a sham and there was only one thing that could restore his soul and give him a sense of redemption.
–Lendell K. Moody
The reformed Saigon Panther made its triumphant return with a surprise appearance at the Nuclear Armadillo, more than twenty years after first forming. Colt, Lendell, Rusty and Rex had recaptured the power and glory of their youth with a performance full of high-octane thrash and take-no-prisoners attitude. No one in attendance had to tell the band to turn up.
Yeah, that reunion was righteous times a thousand. Colt borrowed one of Rusty’s electrics and you could positively feel the energy. It was like twenty years of bottled-up frustration came erupting out of that guitar like a heavy metal monsoon. To hell with [fouled]-up worship songs. Just red-hot rock god intensity. Totally unconsecrated.
–Riley Dunwoody
It was Pastor Forster himself who delivered his daughter’s divorce papers and presented Colt with an ultimatum: either renounce his wicked, worldly ways and repent for his sins or lose his job, his wife and his family.
Some believe Colt Dunwoody was not able to make that commitment. He’d been to that mountaintop and liked the view too much. Meanwhile, without Colt’s leadership and multifunctional responsibilities, the pastor’s churches began to fail.
I was in a position to return the favor and let my brother stay at my place while he transitioned away from the church and his [freaking] Nazi father-in-law. Heard they had to close the Menomonie church and they couldn’t get anyone to lead the main location so they started to lose their congregation to other churches.
–Riley Dunwoody
When the inaugural Panther Palooza brought a dozen of the region’s top thrash bands to the Eau Claire County Exposition Center fairgrounds, headliners Saigon Panther took the stage for a raucous set of metal melodies to close out the night.
As the band played, a white cargo van pulled onto the field and rolled up to the stage front. A loudspeaker mounted to the roof blared the Christian anthem “Our God is an Awesome God,” as concertgoers threw beer bottles and debris at the van.
That was some crazy [stuff] right there. Didn’t stop us from playing our set, but we couldn’t imagine what kind of lunatic would do this. And it didn’t stop Colt from screaming his lyrics even louder and more aggressively.
–Lendell K. Moody
I guess it didn’t surprise me that it was that freak Pastor Forster in the piece of [stuff] van. Got out with a bullhorn. Announced that everyone there was going to hell. Said something about Colt being the first to go and pulled out this [freaking] shotgun from the van and aimed it at my brother.
–Riley Dunwoody
I didn’t know what was happening from behind my drum set. Heard a bunch of screaming and people scattering and saw some [individual] pointing a shotgun. Next thing I know, Colt’s stage-diving into the pit. Only it wasn’t a stage dive.
–Rex LaBlatt
Law enforcement agents were able to subdue the assailant before he could inflict further harm. Colton Dunwoody was pronounced dead at the scene by EMS responders. Pastor Donald D. Forster is currently being detained at the holding facility in the Eau Claire County Government Center pending further investigation. In lieu of flowers, Colt’s parents request donations be made in their son’s name to the Children’s Music Education Program at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
I won’t ever be able to accept this. Life won’t ever return to ’normal.’ My brother’s gone and nothing’s gonna bring him back. The only consolation I have is knowing that Colt went out of this world doing what he loved: riding the [freaking] panther.
–Riley Dunwoody
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L.J. O’Neal is the author of several stories appearing in literary journals such as The Louisville Review, Book of Matches, East of the Web (UK), Swamp Ape Review, NUNNUM, In Parentheses, Stonecrop, and others. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Lindenwood University and a BA from Webster University. As a singer-songwriter, O’Neal’s humorous, absurdist songs are available online. He’s worked as a creative writer for toy, gaming, amusement and water park companies such as Build-A-Bear Workshop and Great Wolf Lodge. For more information, visit www.ukularry.com.