If you know me at all you would know that my two favorite bands tied for the number one spot on my list are Nirvana and Blind Melon. Even though they were out during the same time, and that Blind Melon gets lumped in with the grunge bands, they are nothing a like. While Nirvana and Kurt Cobain was the poster child and voice of grunge, Blind Melon was better classified as a psychedelic alternative rock band.
Shannon Hoon was born Richard Shannon Hoon on September 26, 1967. He stated using Shannon as his first name because his father’s name was Richard as well and did this to avoid confusion. He had a half-sister, Anna, and a half-brother, Tim. During his high school years he was quite athletic and played football, wrestled, and was a pole vaulter.
Shannon’s musical influences included The Grateful Dead, The Beatles, John Lennon, and Bob Dylan. After graduating high school in 1985, he joined a glam metal band called Styff Kytten as the frontman and lead singer of the band. Around this time is when he wrote the song “Change.” He was also a member of the Lafayette band Mank Rage, during this time.
In 1985 the 18 year old Shannon left Indiana for Los Angeles. While at a party he met fellow musicians Brad Smith and Roger Stevens. They had seen Shannon perform an acoustic version of his song “Change” and invited him to play with them. Christopher Thorn and Glen Graham were brought into the mix and the five members decided to start a band.
The band was established in Los Angeles in 1990 after two Mississippi transplants, Roger Stevens (guitarist) and Brad Smith (bassist) met Shannon Hoon who was from Lafayette, Indiana. Christopher Thorn (guitarist) from Pennsylvania was added shortly after and the four of them were able to talk another Mississippi native, a drummer, Glen Graham, into relocating to LA and be in their band. This happened because the first four members failed to find a suitable drummer in LA.
The name “Blind Melon” came from a nickname Smith had heard among the Mississippi hippies. The name was also derived from a 1920s blues artist Blind Lemon Jefferson as well as the Cheech and Chong character “Blind Melon Chitlin’.”
The band’s four song demo was recorded in 1991 and was called Goodfoot Workshop. Tim Devine who was Capitol Records A&R executive signed Blind Melon and oversaw the production by famed producer, David Briggs. The unreleased EP was called The Sippin’ Time Sessions but the project was abandoned because the band was displeased with the recording quality.
However, Hoon had a relationship with mega star Axl Rose as he was friends with Hoon’s sister, Anna. At this time Guns N’ Roses had released Use Your Illusion 1 and 2 and Hoon had done back up vocals on several GNR songs such as “Don’t Cry.” This proved quite helpful as it provided extra exposure for Blind Melon. Later in 1991, Blind Melon embarked on a tour supporting the grunge band Soundgarden.
Blind Melon released two albums with Capitol Records. The first was their self-titled album Blind Melon (1992) and the second album was Soup (1995).
Capitol Records encouraged the band to relocate and they ended up in Durham, NC. They were working on what would become their self-titled album with producer Rick Parashar who produced Pearl Jam’s Ten album. The album was mostly recorded live and had very few overdubs. The record was released in September 1992 and sold very poorly even after two singles “No Rain” and “Tones of Home” were released. However due to MTV playing the quirky video for “No Rain” featuring a young girl dressed as a tap dancing bee trying to find her place in the world premiered, it catapulted Blind Melon into mainstream recognition. The video became an MTV staple by the next July and propelled Blind Melon into stardom. The band achieved international recognition as well as their first album achieving quadruple platinum status. They debuted on the Billboard Top 40 in October 1993 and peaked at number 11 on the Hot 100.
The band toured like crazy in support of their debut album and went to Europe and Mexico supporting acts such as Neil Young and Lenny Kravitz in late 1993. The following year they performed an amazing set at the 1994 Woodstock Festival in August as well as securing a supporting slot on The Rolling Stones Voodoo Lounge tour.
Although the band was growing in popularity, they had trouble brewing within the band. They had numerous legal and personal issues dealing with drugs and alcohol abuse. Hoon ended up doing several stints in rehab for his substance abuse problems.
in 1994, Blind Melon relocated again this time to New Orlean, LA and began to work on their second album Soup. The album was released in 1995 and had shorter songs with a less conventional psychedelic rock feel as they infused NOLA jazz style instrumentation through out the entire album. Their lead single “Galaxie” debuted at number 25 on the Billboard charts but the album failed to meet their sales expectations.
Blind Melon contributed to the Led Zeppelin cover album Encomium with their rendition of “Out On the Tiles” which I personally think is the best cover on the entire album. They also covered the Schoolhouse Rock! song “Three Is a Magic Number” on a compilation album. Their version never became a single but did become a fan favorite and was featured in several films.
Although Hoon was going through drug rehab, he decided to go on the Soup tour anyway against the better judgement of his councilor. Initially Hoon was accompanied by a drug councilor while on tour, but he eventually let the councilor go and went on with the rest of their tour.
Several weeks into the Soup tour, Hoon’s manager went to the tour bus to wake Hoon for sound check. Unfortunately, Hoon would never make it as he was found unresponsive and eventually proclaimed dead due a cocaine overdose on October 25, 1995. This was only 13 weeks after his girlfriend gave birth to their daughter, Nico Blue.
The band was distraught over Hoon’s overdose death at the young age of 28. The remaining members decided to keep the band going and went on a search for a lead singer who could come somewhat close to filling Shannon Hoon’s proverbial shoes. This would take over a decade to find the right lead singer for the band. During this time the members of Blind Melon created an album of outtakes and demos and named it Nico after Hoon’s infant daughter. This album contained unreleased tracks from Soup, as well as several songs recorded with minimal instrumentation. The final track on the album “Letters From a Porcupine“ was recorded from a telephone message left on Thorn’s answering machine. The album also included covers of both Steppenwolf and John Lennon songs. The profits from this album went to a program for musicians with substance abuse addictions.
Gia DeSantis, former KROQ DJ, producer, and host at KDOC was quoted saying “Shannon had a magnetism. You couldn't take your eyes off him. They knew to bring in a new singer to sing his lyrics would not have had the same magnetism." The band knew that since Hoon was the face and voice of Blind Melon, it would be very difficult to go on without him singing, especially on “No Rain” as it was their video that made the Top 100 Videos of All Time.
During the time the band was searching for a new frontman, the relationships within the band became very strained. After years of searching for Hoon’s replacemen, the band officially called it quits on March 4, 1999.
In 2002, Capitol Records released a “Classic Masters“ album that featured 12 Blind Melon songs. The album had much stronger sales than expected and due to this, the band released The Best of Blind Melon album in 2005. It was a CD-DVD combo that featured a live performance from a 1995 show in Chicago. On December 15, 2006, a tribute album was released by Yakmusic in New Zealand and featured bands from all over the world covering Blind Melon songs. In 2006, Capitol Records released the Live At the Palace album.
On September 15, 2006 the four remaining members announced that they would once again be a recording band as they had finally found a new lead singer, Travis Warren. The band released three new Blind Melon songs on November 9, 2006 and on October 7, 2007 they performed their first live show in 12 years.
The song “Wishing Well” was the first single off of the band’s third studio album titled For My Friends. The full album was released on April 22, 2008 on Adrenaline Records.
Unfortunately, on November 6, 2008, Blind Melon announced the departure of Travis Warren. Initially the band planned on finishing their tour and announced Chris Shinn as their lead singer. This was later retracted and the remainder of the tour was officially cancelled. Travis Warren did return to join the band on what was announced as his final performance on December 31, 2008 in Michigan.
On September 17, 2008, the biography “A Devil On One Shoulder and an Angel On the Other: The Story of Shannon Hoon and Blind Melon” penned by author Greg Prato was published.
While the band took hiatus from 2009-2010, Capitol Records released a four track EP entitled Deep Cuts as a digital download in April 2009. The remaining original members of Blind Melon did continue with individual side projects and remained active in the music industry.
Then on November 2. 2010, the band announced the return of Travis Warren and the reformation of the band. Their first performance was on November 27, 2010 with a free concert in Boulder, Colorado. They continued to play sporadic shows over the following months.
A South American tour began in 2012 and ended in Western Europe. In regards to the status of the band, Graham stated “Blind Melon is still a functioning entity; Travis Warren is our current vocalist as he has been since 2007; however, we are only doing the occasional one-off and currently have no plans to record full length CDs.”
In December 2015 on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, Blind Melon performed back to back shows in Lafayette, IN (Hoon’s hometown) where Hoon’s mother was present and his daughter Nico took the stage to sing “Change“ with the band.
By 2018, the band had spent a few years working on new music for the follow up album to For My Friends. In July 2018 during an interview with Thorn, he announced “I've been mixing the new single or the new song, I could say ... the new song for the next Blind Melon record. We've been writing a bunch, and we have a song and a video done, so we just mixed the new song last night actually." There was no release date confirmed for the new album.
A documentary about Shannon Hoon called All I Can Say was premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. It contains mostly footage from a handheld camera that Hoon recorded from 1990 - 1995. The film was finally released on both DVD and Blu Ray on November 24, 2020. I actually just borrowed my friends copy of this film yesterday but have not watched it yet. I will report back with my feelings and comments as soon as my husband and I watch it. My friend said it is excellent, so I hope she is right. It supposedly has footage up until two days before he passed away. I imagine it will be a sort of emotional roller coaster since I am such a huge Blind Melon fan.
Thorn also stated that they expected to release their fourth studio album in 2020, but during a February 2021 interview with Guitar World, Thorn said the band expects to release singles every few months and once they have released ten or twelve singles, they will press the vinyl and sell it to however wants it. (ME! ME!! OVER HERE!! PLEASE ME!) Thorn was asked if we could expect an album by the end of this year, and Thorn is quoted as saying “We’ve got to get a record out this year. For sure.”
Shannon Hoon was not only a talented singer and song writer, but his stage presence and performance was what really made people gravitate towards him. His free spirit persona and as a stellar lyricist were like no one before or after him. He was a blazing star who unfortunately burned out at way too young of an age. He was defiantly meant to become a musical entertainer and lived up to every aspect of that title in his 5 years as the lead singer of one of the most underrated bands, not only from the 90s, but of all time. His music is timeless and sounds better to me every time I pop in one of their albums.
While their self titled debut album and Soup are both outstanding albums, Nico is my personal favorite as it shows the less known side of Shannon. The album is funny at times and heartbreaking at other times. The song ”Soul One” is a personal favorite of mine as is the second version of “No Rain” that is on this album.
If you are familiar with Blind Melon simply because of “No Rain” from their self titled album, do yourself a favor and check out both Soup and Nico along with the other albums released posthumously as well as the albums with Travis Warren.
In no way will anyone, including Warren, ever replace Shannon Hoon’s charisma and musical talent, but he does a good job with the new version of Blind Melon.
Ok, I’m going to go talk my husband into putting All I Can Say on and hope that it doesn’t make me bawl like a baby. I will update this post with my critique of this film once I have finished watching it.
Put on some Blind Melon and rock out with me. I promise you’ll love the music and will be in a much happier state of mind after listening to the magnificent Shannon Hoon and the other members who are massively talented. Shannon will bless your ear drums and soul with his outstanding lyrics and melodies.
RIP SHANNON HOON! GONE BUT NEVER EVER FORGOTTEN! ✌🏼💛🎶
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