Shannon Hoon 1967-1995
SHANNON HOON 1967 - 1995 by Jim DeRogatis
Born in Lafayette, Ind., Shannon Hoon launched his musical career from
Los Angeles, but New Orleans was the city where he felt most at home in
recent years. "[Its's] a city where one's will power is tested daily,"
Hoontold the New Orrleans Times-Picayune newspaper in September.
It was a test Hoon did not pass. Blind Melon were scheduled to perform at
the famous Crescent City nightclub Tipitina's on Saturday, Oct. 21. But
when the soundman climbed into a tourbus parked on ST. Charles Avenue too
wake Hoon for an afternoon soundcheck, he found the singer dead of an
apparent drug overdose. Hoon was 28.
I'm walking aroun New Orleans in nothing but complete shock," Says Blind Melon
guitarist Rogers Stevens the following Monday. "This city got him every time - the
minute he got here. It got him this time.
"He didn't want to die," Stevens continues. "He was always sticking one
toe in the gutter, and it just caught up with him this time. The guy was
definitely ecessive. He was excessive in his love for people and
excessive
in his violent tendancies and excessive in the good things he did and
excessive in all areas of his life. In the five years that we were best
friends, there was never a day that went by that he didn't do something
that I thought was completely extraprdinary."
Hoon was an addict who had been through two month - long rehab programs,
in May 1994 and again in June 1995. When Blind Melon started thier fall
tour, the band employed a watchdog to keep Hoon away from
drugs,according to the group's manager, Chris Jones.But that person was sent packing
after a week on the road. The New Orleans police say No drug paraphernalia were
found near the body, But Jones called the death an overdose without specifying the drug
(it's rumored to be heroin),"I've spent an enourmous amount of time trying to get him
sober working with him and other people trying to get him sober, trying to get him
into rehab," Jones says. "I was behind him on everything he wanted to do, and
he had the right intentions. He really cared and loved his little baby daughter, and that
inspired him the second time he went into rehab to get straight and to try to accept the
role of father." (Daughter Nico Blue was born to Hoon and Lisa Crouse, Hoon's girlfriend
of 10 years, in July.)As a hyperactive child growing up in the midwest, Hoon initially
channeled his energy into sports. But as in the classic rock & roll story,he rebeled as a
teenager and turned to music. "By the time I was 17, I freaked out because I didn't have an
identity of my own," Hoon told Rolling Stone in 1993. "I realized I'd wasted years trying
to be what my parents wanted me to be." He began began hanging out with stoners, and
he started to sing: "Singing made me feel good, and finally I was around people who
thought it was alright to sing." In March 1990, Hoon left Lafayette for Los Angeles on a
Greyhound bus. He linked up with guitarist, Stevens and bassist Brad Smith, and they
bonded over a mutual hatred of Los Angeles' prevailing glam-rock scene. They
called their band Blind Melon and signed with Capitol in 1991 on the strength
of a four song demo. Recording their first albumwas a labored process,though,
as they struggled to write enough songs to fill out the disc. Hoon also
took time out to appear in Guns n' Roses' video for "Don't Cry" at the
invitation of Axl Rose, apal from Indiana. (rose refused to comment for this
story.) The resulting publicity prompted Capitol to applyt more pressure on
Blind Melon for their debut, but when it was finally released in Spetember
1992,sales were sluggish. Then came the Bee Girl. Sam Bayer, the director of Nirvana's
"Smells Like Teen Spirit" video, crafted a charming clip for the folk-tinged existentieal
tune "no Rain." Cutting between shots of Hoon and the band performing in a
field, the video told the story of a young misfit (10-year-old Heather
Deloach) in a goofy black and yellow costume, and it struck a chord with
the alternative nation. MTV gave the clip heavy play, the album went
platinum a year after its release, and the members of Blind Melon spent alot of
time trying to distance themselves from Deloach and denying that their band
was a one-hit-wonder.Fans drawn to Blind Melon's concerts by the catchy single
discovered a group that favored more drawn-out jams on stage, echoing classic rock
influences from Pink Floyd to the Allman Brothers Band. This side of
Blind Melon came further to the fore on their second album, Soup. Released in
mid-August of this year, the disc was harshly criticized and a comercial
disappointment. "[Hoon] and I grew close durring the making or the
record,"producer Andy Wallace says. "There's no denying that he liked to party,
but it was not a major issue in the recording. Drug use was not an
obstacle." "I was aware of his drug use," says Tim Devine, vice president of A&R at
Capitol. "[His death] suprised me because I had spoken to him two days prior. Although
he was depresed about the record falling off the chart, we talked about hanging in there,
staying on the road and that this was a long process. He seemed OK and ready to go for
it." Friends and band mates describe Hoon as a hypersensitive person who was often hurt
by things that were written about him. He was quick-tempered
and subject to intense mood swings, and rock stardom had a bad effect on his personality.
"I saw him at Woodstock, and I'd just gotten married, and I was like `Oh, wow, there's my
good old friend Shannon,'" says former MTV VJ Rikki Rachtman, a close friend from the
early days in Los Angeles. "he just looked at me and was glazed and just walked right by.
I was pissed. I thought, `He's got the full rock-star thing going. He's fucked up out of
his head'" Longtime friends of Hoon's say they barely recognized him in recent months.
"Shannon and I were best friends; we lived together," says Howdy Boschan, a Los
Angeles musician who was an early member of the band and co-wrote "tones of Home."
(He left after a car accident injured him in1991.) "And the last time I talked to Shannon
over the phone, I called him a fucking asshole, sellout fucking poseur. He called about
`Tones of Home' royalties and was threatening me with attorneys. It just made me feel
like crying because he wasn't the same person." Hoon is the latest casualty on the sad list
of alternative rockers struggling with drugs. Others who have had recent, well publicized
problems include Layne Staly of Alice in Chains, Scott Weiland of Stone Temple
Pilots and Al Jourgensen of Ministry. "WhenI heard the news about Shannon,"
says Ed Kowalczyk of Live, who performed with Blind Melon on MTV's 120 Minutes
tour in 1992, "my first thought was, `Here we go again, the big H is back.
Would somebody please tell me what the fuck is so great about this drug?'"
As with every overdose, the saddest part is the loved ones who are left behind to grieve.
"I feel sorry for that little girl," Stevens says."Someday I'll be telling her what her daddy
was like."
Courtesy of Rolling Stone November 30, 1995
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