I had just seen he was in hospice, that was fast.
People often don’t enter hospice until the very, very end. My sister is a director at a hospice, she has told me quite a few people only spend a couple days in hospice even if they could have entered one sooner.
Just last night I saw a story that he had “less than a week” to live. They weren’t kidding.
Yeah my wife’s cousin went in last Fall. Didn’t even make it a full day. It was about 23 hours.
Wasn’t a fan of Smash Mouth. “Walkin’ on the Sun” was an interesting bit of retro rock, if massively overplayed, but the rest of their output was not for me.
But I respect anyone who has a dream and goes all-in after it, and I applaud that he made it. Rest in peace, buddy.
I met Steve briefly may years ago when my wife worked for his business manager. He was a big guy, full of energy, always with a beer in his hand. I enjoyed watching him perform, even for a small crowd when the band was between hit records. He spent money wildly at that time and never saved up for his old age. I’m sorry to hear he died.
Well. I guess the years do stop coming.
A story I read was that he lost a child to cancer when the baby was 6 months old, and that led to decades of hard drinking, until this.
Other than that, the only thing I got was that, at a college party in the late 90s, some guy we didn’t know partied with us. The next day, a guy who lived downstairs told me that the stranger was actually the “dude from Smash Mouth.” And it did kinda look like him.
But the guy who told me that was always full of shit. So, nahhh….
It appears that his death was due to the aftereffects of alcoholism. Losing a child at 6 months of age, especially from a disease that is usually curable, could do that to anybody. (I wondered if Presley had Down syndrome; children with that are more prone to leukemia that can be very challenging to treat, but he didn’t.)
It ain’t no joke. So don’t delay. Act now. Supplies are running out.
Some great songs and good memories.
All Star even makes a pretty good noir film. RIP. I can’t post it but it’s on Youtube under All Star Noir.
He was a big drinker before the death of his son, but I am hearing he spiraled into daily heavy drinking for 20+ years, gradually killing himself.