The bassist for psychedelic rock band Iron Butterfly, Lee Dorman, has died aged 70. He passed on Friday, December 21st, the Associated Press reports. 

Although a coroner's investigation is under way, and foul play is not suspected, Orange County Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Gail Krause says Dorman was found dead in a vehicle Friday morning. There are reports that Dorman was in fact on his was to the doctors before he died. Douglas Lee Dorman was born in September 1942 and spent his final years living in Laguna Nigel, an affluent coastal city in Southern California. Dorman was involved in Iron Butterfly from the very beginning. The band's website features a tribute: a simple black background with a white cap, featuring a butterfly on its front. Written below the cap are the words, "Lee Dorman 1942 - 2012".

The band's popularity peaked in the late-1960s, and its second album, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, sold more than 30 million copies around the world. "In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida," was a 17-minute heavy metal track that "was nothing short of a pop monument," The Times said in 1988, it was "the song of the moment" that caught the attention of the counterculture market. The album stayed on the national sales chart for 2-1/2 years and a three-minute version was a top 40 hit.