Singer-Songwriter Elliott Smith Dead At Age 34

10/22/2003 1:00 PM, Yahoo! Music
Associated Press

(10/22/03, 1 p.m. ET) -- Singer-songwriter Elliott Smith, best known for his dark songs on the 1997 soundtrack to the film Good Will Hunting, died Tuesday (October 21), an apparent suicide at the age of 34. Smith was pronounced dead at the Los Angeles County University of Southern California Medical Center, after sustaining an apparently self-inflicted knife wound in the chest. A spokeswoman at the Los Angeles County Coroner's office said that Smith was found in his Los Angeles apartment by a live-in girlfriend, who took him the hospital. He was pronounced dead within an hour.

Smith released five critically-acclaimed solo albums, and his song "Miss Misery," featured in the film Good Will Hunting, was nominated for a best song Academy Award in 1998. The Oscar that year went to Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" from the film Titanic.

Smith was born as Steven Paul Smith on August 6, 1969, in Nebraska. While growing up in Dallas and Portland, Oregon, he played both piano and guitar, and began writing songs when he was 13. Smith attended Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and graduated with a degree in philosophy. After joining Portland-based punk band Heatmiser, Smith began recording solo. In 1994, he released his debut album Roman Candle, followed by a self-titled LP in 1995, and 1997's album titled Either/Or.

In 1997, film director Gus Van Sant asked Smith to contribute several of his songs to the film Good Will Hunting, which starred Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Robin Williams. The film won two Oscars (out of nine nominations) and earned over $100 million at the box office. The wider exposure for Smith's songs allowed him larger production budgets for his next two albums, XO in 1998 and Figure 8 in 2000. Both releases reached the middle of the Billboard's Top 200 albums chart.

According to Billboard, Smith was recently working on a sixth studio album, to be called From A Basement On The Hill. He recently released a limited-edition single featuring two songs, which quickly sold out. He was scheduled to perform in November at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival in Los Angeles, along with acts Built To Spill and Sonic Youth.

Smith struggled with addiction to drugs and alcohol. Last June, the singer-songwriter told Under The Radar magazine about his struggle with alcoholism. He said, "When I lived in New York I was really a bad alcoholic for a few years." Smith told the magazine that he underwent treatment at the Neurotransmitter Restoration Center in Beverly Hills.

Smith talked to LAUNCH in 1998, shortly after receiving an Academy Award nomination for "Miss Misery," from the Good Will Hunting soundtrack. Smith told LAUNCH that he was completely surprised when he found out he'd been nominated for an Oscar. "I was asleep and my manager Margaret called me up and woke me up," Smith said. "I was at my hotel in L.A. and I was shocked."

Smith told LAUNCH that, besides "Miss Misery," the rest of the tracks on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack were written before the movie came out, and were featured on his previous albums. He told LAUNCH about his first time meeting actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. "I sort of met Matt and Ben after all the shooting was done and Matt came by while I was singing a song that didn't make it into the movie, but it's on the soundtrack," Smith said.

Smith, who had a devoted following, told LAUNCH that his fans attended his concerts because they liked his music, not because of any hype. "So, it's not gonna be like billions and billions of people coming to see me because I'm like the thing that's going on," Smith said. "People seem to come and see me play because they actually like what I'm playing, which is cool."

Smith told LAUNCH that he can't just pick a topic and write a song about it: "Some people, I guess, can write songs because they pick something to write about then they do it, but I can't get anything done like that," Smith said. "So, I never know what I'm talking about until there's a version of the song and then I look at it and go 'Oh, OK, I'll change this and change that.'"

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