Doug hopkins cause of death

A slew of talented artists from the '90s rock doug hopkins cause of death died too young. The Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman was found unresponsive in his Detroit hotel room on May 17, ; his death was ruled a suicide. A family attorney released a statement implying it may not have been deliberate, however. It stated: "Chris, a recovering addict, had a prescription for Ativan and may have taken more Ativan than recommended dosages.

I didn't get the chance to find that out; I never met Hopkins. But in the days since Hopkins took his own life, I've learned a lot about him from a lot of people: He was a very talented musician. He was a very funny guy. He was a very big drunk. Someone who had been wrestling with various demons for a long time and not winning. A huge chunk of the local music community holds a great deal of affection for him, yet no one I've talked to has expressed any surprise over his death.

Doug hopkins cause of death

No one knows exactly when Doug Hopkins ended his life; most accounts of his demise center on a few known facts: First, that on Friday, December 3, , he bailed an intake consultation at a Phoenix, Arizona detox center; second, that he proceeded to purchase a. As they toured, did television appearances, and began to reap the fruits of six years of kicking around Tempe trying to get noticed, Hopkins returned home to figure out what to do next. On Sunday afternoon, December 5, , twenty-five years ago today, a friend found his body in his apartment. As it turned out, as the s turned into the s, misery packaged in an appealing package had become all the rage. As the variant strains of post-punk caterwauling coalesced into a frightening market force in the ultimate decade of the millenium, tastemakers throughout sought songs that could both prove emblematic of the anger and ennui of the times and still conform to the strictures of radio formatting. The problem was finding a way to get the song in front of a willing audience: By late , the album had pretty much flopped, or at least stalled, with the post-Hopkins Gin Blossoms touring the nation in relative penury while the label flailed around trying to figure out what to do with this group of Arizona nobodies in shorts and floppy hair. He became fast friends with Lawrence Zubia, then of Nudes Live, and they tossed together the Chimeras, a slightly bluesier outfit that quickly became the talk of Tempe. But as soon as Hopkins began to find his footing in his new project, he tanked it, walking offstage mid-song during a local festival set in April. He begged to rejoin after the debacle, but the rest of the Chimeras declined; they eventually changed their name to the Pistoleros and have continued, off and on, straight through to the present. Hopkins, however, continued marinating in his anguish. In the original version of the song, before it was cleaned up for major label prime time, Hopkins penned this desperate stanza:. A Rashomon-esque experienced ensued wherein Hopkins underwhelmed his band and producer John Hampton, as precious time on the clock was whittled away either waiting for Hopkins to show or for him to be able to lay down a competent take of one of his guitar parts. After a week or so of drunken failure, Hopkins himself asked Hampton to find someone else to play his parts. Writing catchy songs about being an untrustworthy alcoholic had been one thing; being one in the band non-stop for years had reached a breaking point as the band watched Hopkins flail around in Memphis.

Family members had been trying to have Hopkins committed for treatment, Bennewitz said, but he wouldn't cooperate. Laurie Notaro.

By Associated Press. But Hopkins was fired from the group in April because fellow band members said his drinking hindered his performance at recording sessions. Hopkins killed himself by putting a. After being kicked out of the group, Hopkins formed a band called Chimeras, but that broke up. At the time of his death, he had been performing locally as a soloist or with other bands. For some who knew Hopkins, his suicide came as no surprise. It was his sixth attempt in 10 years.

Filed under: s , alternative rock , doug hopkins , gin blossoms , hey jealousy , music , new miserable experience. It lent itself to Top 40 radio play as a result. But lyrically, the tune did not come from a good place. Hopkins was a member of the band until the middle of , just before the completion of this album, when his alcoholism became so out of control that he was fired from the band, which continued to perform his songs. Not that they ever felt very comfortable with that fact. The band, full of lifers in the Tempe, Arizona music scene, were about to see major success. Hopkins' bandmates were basically forced into a bad situation by their record label. His band mates were, to me, total bastards then—but kids, really; at least emotionally. The label mandate was dump Doug—get rid of the guy who built the band and whose songs got the band the record deal—or else. The label had already spent a small fortune recording a first album, which was scrapped.

Doug hopkins cause of death

It's been 30 years since Gin Blossoms released the album that continues to define their place in music history, "New Miserable Experience. That has given Robin Wilson 30 years to wrap his head around the truly miserable experience surrounding the creation of the quadruple-platinum triumph that nearly destroyed them. Midway through tracking in Memphis, the Tempe rockers parted ways with guitarist Doug Hopkins, the founding member who'd written the songs that would become the album's most successful calling cards, "Hey Jealousy" and "Found Out About You. His former bandmates were still touring on the album in December when Hopkins died by suicide at 32 shortly after receiving a gold record for the writing of their breakthrough hit, "Hey Jealousy. We didn't really want to talk about just how messed up the whole thing was. How screwed up the band was. How precarious our situation was.

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Calendar Events Lists. In the original version of the song, before it was cleaned up for major label prime time, Hopkins penned this desperate stanza:. He had terrible pain, God knows where he got this pain, this quiet pain that kills him, but he used alcohol as the medicine. Things To Do. Ten different substances were found in a preliminary urine toxicology test , according to the Attorney General's Office of Colombia. Things To Do. I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. In those last five days, he said that it was his God-given American fucking right to take his life, and that's all he wanted to do and that's all that people should let him do. He was supportive of everyone in his life. Viewed one way, his pain was enveloped by the culture, fed into the machine, his misery doing its part to form the lattice of unhappiness that was s pop sentiment; viewed another way, however, he played music until he could not anymore, and his unhappy life reaped eternal reward with the gift of the joy of popular song, with melodies that have long outlasted the man and his memory. A family attorney released a statement implying it may not have been deliberate, however. Switch edition between U.

The sun was shining but patches of dirty snow blanketed the hills surrounding the parking lot. Once inside, I grabbed my stuff and put it on the counter.

Expand the sub menu Global. Hopkins' dry wit and wide-reaching vocabulary created songs like The Moral Majority's musical tribute to Jerry Falwell, "Jerry Doesn't Like It" and was the endless entertainment of his friends. On Sunday afternoon, December 5, , twenty-five years ago today, a friend found his body in his apartment. I didn't get the chance to find that out; I never met Hopkins. I stayed with my friend, Wes, the only person in town I knew, in his apartment on University Hopkins was kicked out of the Gin Blossoms, while they were recording their first major-label album, "New Miserable Experience. But being sacked from the Chimeras clearly underlined the helplessness at the core of his muse; his misery fueled his art but his ability to succeed as an artist was stymied by his misery. Use profiles to select personalised advertising. Create profiles for personalised advertising. It had twin arpeggio clean-tone verses leading to power chord bursts, it was propulsive and melodic and utterly creepy, whispers at the bus stop and nights out in the school yard. We take our pain and we mould it into something that we can put our name on, and if we do it every day and make a ritual of this process, then maybe, maybe, we can make it through this thing called life with some sense of accomplishment, however small. Things To Do.