Richard Shannon Hoon (1967-1995)
Richard Shannon Hoon (1967-1995)
Richard Shannon Hoon was born on September 26th, 1967 in Lafayette, Indiana, but was raised in Dayton, Indiana with his half-siblings. In high school, Richard, was involved in many sports which included football, wrestling, and pole vaulting. Fe graduated from Mccutcheon High School in 1985 and afterwards he joined Styff Kitten, a local glam metal band, which he was the frontman and lead singer of. He was also a member of Mank Range. At age 18, Hoon, left Indiana and moved to California where he was performing his song, “Change” acoustically and was invited to play music with others. In 1990 five guys including Hoon decided to form the band Blind Melon and later that same year they were signed to a $500,000 contract with Capitol Records. Blind Melon had much success and even went multi-platinum and played many big concerts /venues with many well-known bands such as Ozzy Osbourne, Guns N’ Roses and Soundgarden. Hoon and his girlfriend, Lisa Crouse, had one daughter together on July 11th, 1995 named Nico Blue, during this time he was getting help and in and out of rehab for drug addiction.
Achievements:
The band debuted with a four-song demo, The Goodfoot Workshop, in 1991. Capitol Records A&R executive Tim Devine signed Blind Melon later that year and oversaw sessions with famed producer David Briggs for an unreleased EP to be titled The Sippin' Time Sessions. The recordings were abandoned due to the band's dissatisfaction with the production quality, which they felt resulted in "slick and doctored" results. Hoon's friendship and association with Guns N' Roses frontman Axl Rose accrued additional industry attention for the group, as he provided backing vocals on several Guns N' Roses tracks on 1991's Use Your Illusion I and II albums, including the single "Don't Cry".
Blind Melon embarked upon a tour supporting Soundgarden late that year.
At Capitol's suggestion,the band relocated to Durham, North Carolina, while beginning work on what would become their self-titled debut album with producer Rick Parashar, known for producing Pearl Jam's Ten Sessions were held in London Bridge Studio in Seattle, Washington, and the album was recorded mostly live with minimal overdubs. The record was released in September 1992, and initially sold poorly behind its lead singles, "Tones of Home" and "No Rain", until the latter became an MTV staple the following July. Promoted by a successful music video featuring Heather DeLoach playing the "Bee Girl", "No Rain" helped the band achieve international recognition. The band pioneered their double-guitar techniques on this album. The two guitarists would often play the same chords but in different octaves, one track with distortion and one without. Both guitarists frequently used the muted 'chuk' technique to accent the spaces between chords, a funk-rock guitar technique. The album eventually attained quadruple-platinum status, debuting in the Billboard top 40 on October 9, 1993 and peaking at No. 11 on the Hot 100.
Charities:
November 11th, 1996: Blind Melon released final album with Hoon and all proceeds went to Hoon’s daughter, Nico, and to programs to help musicians struggling with drug addiction.
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