The guitar player for the former Neo-Nazi, skinhead Oi! band Skrewdriver, Merv Shields, aka “Big Merv” has passed away from COVID-19. Sheilds died on New Year’s Day and, according to multiple reports was in failing health as he died from complications of COVID-19.
Although Skrewdriver broke up in 1993 after the death of frontman Ian Stuart Donaldson, their music has not only been inspirational to the modern neo-nazi movement but in the decades since Stuart’s passing hundreds of other Neo-Nazi skinhead bands emulating them have formed.
Shields whose band often targetted Jews, blacks, immigrants, communists, socialists and other perceived enemies of the Neo-Nazi movement ironically believed COVID-19 was a Jewish plot against society and manipulated by the left.
He was a father of two in his late 50s.
Skrewdriver’s hits included songs with names like “White Power”, “White Rider” and an anthem idolizing Adolf Hitler entitled “And the snow fell”.
In one song, entitled “When the boat comes in”, the lyrics are “N—r, N—r, get on that boat, N–r, N—r, row, row, row.”
While many celebrated the death of Skrewdriver frontman Ian Stuart Donaldson, today the band remains a symbol of the facist, Neo-Nazi skinhead movement worldwide.