After a prolonged battle with throat cancer, Soul Asylum bassist and founding member Karl Mueller passed away on Friday. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune reports that Mueller died on Friday at his Minnesota home. Mueller helped form the first incarnation of Soul Asylum, then called Loud Fast Rules, with Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy in the early ’80s. The band reached its pinnacle of success in the early ’90s with “Runaway Train” off the album Grave Dancers Union. Last October, fellow hometown brethren like Paul Westerberg of the Replacements and Bob Mould of Husker Du organized a benefit concert to help Mueller pay for his cancer treatment. Mueller leaves behind a wife, Mary Beth, and Pirner, Murphy, and former Soul Asylum road manager Bill Sullivan were listed as his “brothers” in a printed obituary.
