Shannon Hoon - Personal Life and Death

Personal Life and Death

In July 1995, Hoon and his girlfriend, Lisa Crouse, had a daughter named Nico Blue. Before the birth of his daughter, Hoon entered rehab again. In August, Blind Melon planned to tour to support their album Soup, so Hoon allowed a drug counselor to accompany him on the road. The counselor was unable to keep Hoon from falling back into a pattern of drug use and was dismissed days before Hoon's death.

After a performance in Houston, which Hoon was not proud of, he launched into an all-night drug binge. The next day, on October 21, 1995, Blind Melon was scheduled to play a show in New Orleans at Tipitina's. The band's sound engineer, Owen Orzack, went to the tour bus to wake up Hoon for a sound check but was unable to wake him. An ambulance was summoned, and Hoon was pronounced dead on the scene, at the age of 28. The cause of death was attributed to a cocaine overdose.

Hoon was buried in Dayton, Indiana. His grave is inscribed with a line from Blind Melon's song "Change," the first song he wrote:

On November 12, 1996, Blind Melon released their final album featuring Hoon, Nico, as a tribute to him with all proceeds going to his daughter and to programs helping musicians deal with drug problems. The band also released a video called Letters From A Porcupine that was nominated for 'Best Long Form Music Video' at the Grammy Awards on February 25, 1998. On September 17, 2008, the book A Devil on One Shoulder and an Angel on the Other: The Story of Shannon Hoon and Blind Melon by Greg Prato was published. In 2003, Pearl Jam released a song recorded in 1993 called "Bee Girl", written by vocalist Eddie Vedder about the girl in the No Rain video, although many have suspected that the lyrics actually refer to Hoon.