THE former singer of the House of Freaks rock band, who turned his back on fame, has been found dead with his family in his burning house in Virginia in a quadruple murder that has baffled police.

Bryan Harvey, half of the rock duo that won critical acclaim with albums such as Tantilla (1989) and Cakewalk (1991), was killed with his wife, Kathryn, and two daughters — Stella, 9, and Ruby, 4 — at their home in a suburb of Richmond.

Detectives said that all four had been bound with tape in the basement and had their throats cut before their home was set ablaze.

Their bodies were discovered when the first guest arriving for the family’s New Year’s Day meal found the house on fire.

Mr Harvey, 49, won a following with five albums as singer and guitarist for the House of Freaks between 1987 and 1995.

He and his partner, drummer Johnny Hott, left Richmond to seek success in Los Angeles in 1987 with their combination of folk and rock. But the pair soon decided to spurn the hype of the music industry and returned home.

“I just wrote what I felt. Basically for myself,” Mr Harvey has said.

“Johnny did the same. But all along we fought the record biz and tried to do it all just for ourselves.

“We probably could have been bigger had we played the game, but I suppose we just didn’t want all that crap. I’m happy we did connect with some people out there. It’s nice to be remembered and appreciated. I sometimes forget that I was once a musician.”

Mr Harvey took a technology job with the local education department and devoted himself to his family.

On New Year’s Eve he played a four-hour gig for a crowd of 200 at a nearby airport hotel with NrG Krysys, his current band, which specialised in soul cover tunes.

At about 10am on New Year’s Day the Harvey’s elder daughter, Stella, was dropped off at home after a sleep-over at a friend’s house.

Detectives told the Richmond Times-Dispatch newspaper that the friend’s mother noticed that Kathryn Harvey seemed ashen and nervous and complained that she did not feel well. At about 1.40pm, Mr Hott arrived with his daughter to help the family to prepare for its New Year’s Day meal. He found the house ablaze and shouted for a neighbour to call for help.

Other guests arrived to find the two-storey, red-brick corner house crawling with police, and their hosts dead in the basement.

A police spokeswoman said that officers had yet to identify any suspects or a motive for the crime. One detective said that the crime scene was the most upsetting he had ever seen and that colleagues had been moved to tears by the wounds inflicted on the family.

Neighbours described their shock at discovering the Harveys had been murdered. “They were perfect. There was not a bad bone in their body,” Manny Mendez, 43, said. “How is it that the sweetest people in the world have something heinous happen to them?” Harvey had ruminated about his mortality in the track Remember Me Well on the Freaks’ final album, Invisible Jewel (1994).

“When I’m gone from this world, please remember me well,” he sang.

“You can dance on my grave, you can ring out the bells, after all’s said and done, please remember me well.”

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