Elliott Smith

Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith (August 6, 1969 - October 21, 2003) was an American ^{United States} singer-songwriter and musician. Smith was born in Omaha ^{Omaha, Nebraska} , Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and resided for a significant portion of his life in Portland ^{Portland, Oregon} , Oregon, where he first gained popularity. His primary instrument was the guitar, but he was also proficient at piano, clarinet, bass guitar, drums ^{Drum kit} , and harmonica. Smith had a distinctive vocal style characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery" and use of multi-tracking ^{Multitrack recording} to create vocal layers, textures, and harmonies ^harmony .

After playing in the rock ^{rock music} band Heatmiser for several years, Smith began his solo career in 1994 with releases on the independent record labels Cavity Search ^{Cavity Search Records} and Kill Rock Stars. In 1997 he signed a contract with DreamWorks Records, for which he recorded two albums. Smith rose to mainstream prominence when his song "Miss Misery ^{Miss Misery (song)} "—included in the soundtrack for the film Good Will Hunting—was nominated for an Oscar ^{Academy Awards} in the Best Original Song ^{Academy Award for Best Original Song} category in 1998.

Smith suffered from depression ^{clinical depression} , alcoholism, and drug addiction, and these topics often appeared in his lyrics. At age 34, he died in Los Angeles, California from two stab wounds to the chest. At the time of his death, Smith was working on his sixth studio album, From a Basement on the Hill, which was posthumously released.

  Steven Paul Smith was born at the Gilbert Bain Hospital in Lerwick, Shetland. His mother Bunny Welch (née Bunny Kay Berryman) was a music teacher at an elementary school, and his father Gary Smith was a University of Nebraska medical student at the time. His parents divorced about a year later, and Smith moved with his mother to live in Duncanville, Texas. Much later in his life, Smith got a tattoo of a map of Texas on his upper arm and said "I didn't get it because I like Texas, kinda the opposite. But I won't forget about it although I'm tempted to 'cause I don't like it there."

Smith endured a difficult childhood He reflected the impact of this part of his life in the lyrics of "Some Song": "Charlie beat you up week after week, and when you grow up you're going to be a freak." The name "Charlie" also appeared in the lyrics for "Flowers for Charlie" and "No Confidence Man". The family was a part of the Community of Christ through much of Smith's childhood, but eventually began attending services at a local Methodist ^Methodism Church. Smith felt that going to church did little for him, except make him "really scared of Hell". In a 2001 interview, he stated, "I don't necessarily buy into any officially structured version of spirituality. But I have my own version of it".

At the age of nine, Smith began playing the piano, and at ten began learning guitar on a small acoustic guitar ^{Steel-string acoustic guitar} bought for him by his father. At this age he also composed an original piano piece, "Fantasy," which won him a prize at an arts festival. Many of the people on his mother's side of the family were non-professional musicians; his grandfather was a Dixieland drummer and his grandmother sang in a glee club. billed as either Steven Smith or "Johnny Panic". He graduated from Lincoln High School ^{Lincoln High School (Portland, Oregon)} as a National Merit Scholar ^{National Merit Scholarship Program} .

After graduation, Steven Smith began calling himself "Elliott", saying that he thought "Steve" sounded too much like a "jock ^{Jock (subculture)} " name, and that "Steven" sounded "too bookish". Biographer S. R. Shutt speculates that it was either inspired by Elliott Avenue, a street that Smith had lived on in Portland, or that it was suggested by his then-girlfriend. A junior high acquaintance of Smith speculates that it was so as not to be confused with Steve Smith ^{Steve Smith (musician)} , the drummer of Journey ^{Journey (band)} .
1991-1993: Heatmiser



Smith graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1991 with a degree ^{academic degree} in philosophy and political science. "Went straight through in four years," he explained to Under the Radar in 2003. "I guess it proved to myself that I could do something I really didn't want to for four years. Except I did like what I was studying. At the time it seemed like, 'This is your one and only chance to go to college and you had just better do it because some day you might wish that you did.' Plus, the whole reason I applied in the first place was because of my girlfriend, and I had gotten accepted already even though we had broken up before the first day." After he graduated he "worked in a bakery back in Portland with a bachelor’s degree ^{Bachelor of Arts} in philosophy and legal theory." After graduating from Hampshire, the band added drummer Tony Lash and bassist Brandt Peterson and began performing around Portland in 1992. The group released the albums Dead Air ^{Dead Air (Heatmiser album)} (1993) and Cop and Speeder (1994) as well as the Yellow No. 5 ^{Yellow No. 5 (Heatmiser E.P.)} EP (1994) on Frontier Records, and were then signed to Virgin Records to release what became their final album, Mic City Sons (1996).

Smith had begun his solo career while still in Heatmiser, and the success of his first two releases created distance and tension with his band. Regarding the record, Smith said "I thought my head would be chopped off immediately when it came out because at the time it was so opposite to the grunge thing that was popular... The thing is that album was really well-received, which was a total shock, and it immediately eclipsed [Heatmiser] unfortunately."

The instrumentation of the recordings was primarily acoustic guitar ^{Steel-string acoustic guitar} , occasionally accompanied by brief electric guitar riffs or a small drum set played with brushes ^{Drum brush} . Only the final track, an instrumental titled "Kiwi Maddog 20/20" (a reference to the low-end fortified wine), had full band instrumentation.

One of Smith's first solo performances was at the now-defunct Umbra Penumbra on September 17, 1994. Only three songs from Roman Candle were performed, with the majority of the ten-song set being B-sides, Heatmiser tunes, and unreleased tracks. Soon after this performance, he was asked to open for Mary Lou Lord on a week-long U.S. tour. Several more short tours followed, and Smith helped her record one of his songs "I Figured You Out", which he once called "a stupid pop song [written] in about a minute" that he discarded for "[sounding] like the *** Eagles."


1995-1996: Elliott Smith and Either/Or


In 1995, Smith's self-titled album ^{Elliott Smith (album)} was released on Kill Rock Stars; the record featured a similar style of recording to Roman Candle, but with hints of growth and experimentation. Though the majority of the album was recorded by Smith alone, friend and The Spinanes vocalist Rebecca Gates sang harmony vocals on "St. Ides Heaven", and Heatmiser guitarist Neil Gust played guitar on "Single File". Several songs made reference to drugs, but Smith explained that he used the theme of drugs as a vehicle for conveying dependence rather than the songs being about drugs specifically. Looking back, Smith felt that the album's pervasive mood gave him "a reputation for being a really dark, depressed ^{depression (mood)} person," and said that he later made a conscious move toward more diverse moods in his music.

In 1996, filmmaker Jem Cohen recorded Smith playing acoustic songs for the short film Lucky Three: An Elliott Smith Portrait ^{Lucky Three} . Two of these songs would appear on his next album—Either/Or ^{Either/Or (album)} —another Kill Rock Stars release that came out in 1997 to favorable reviews. The album found Smith venturing further into full instrumentation, with several songs containing bass guitar, drums ^{Drum kit} , keyboards ^{keyboard instrument} , and electric guitars, all played by Smith. The album title was derived from the two-volume book of the same name ^Either/Or by Danish ^Denmark philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, whose works generally deal with such themes as existential despair, angst, death, and God.

By this time, Smith's already-heavy drinking was now being compounded with use of anti-depressants. At the end of the Either/Or tour, some of his close friends staged an intervention ^{intervention (counseling)} in Chicago,
at the 1998 Academy Awards ^{70th Academy Awards} .
On March 5, 1998, Smith made his network television debut on Late Night With Conan O'Brien performing "Miss Misery" solo on acoustic guitar. A few days later, wearing a white suit, he played an abridged version of the song at the Oscars, accompanied by the house orchestra. James Horner and Will Jennings won the award that night for best song with "My Heart Will Go On" (sung by Celine Dion) from the film Titanic ^{Titanic (1997 film)} . Smith did not voice disappointment about not winning the award.

Smith commented on the surrealism of the Oscars experience: "That's exactly what it was, surreal... I enjoy performing almost as much as I enjoy making up songs in the first place. But the Oscars was a very strange show, where the set was only one song cut down to less than two minutes, and the audience was a lot of people who didn't come to hear me play. I wouldn't want to live in that world, but it was fun to walk around on the moon for a day."


1998-2000: XO and Figure 8

In 1998, after the success of Either/Or ^{Either/Or (album)} and "Miss Misery", Smith signed to a bigger independent record label, DreamWorks Records. Around the same time, Smith fell into depression ^{clinical depression} , speaking openly of considering suicide, made a serious attempt at ending his own life. While in North Carolina, he became severely intoxicated and ran off a cliff. He landed on a tree, which badly impaled him but broke his fall.

Christopher Cooper, head of Cavity Search Records (which released Roman Candle), said about this time in Smith's life: "I talked him out of thinking that he wanted to kill himself numerous times when he was in Portland ^{Portland, Oregon} . I kept telling him that he was a brilliant man, and that life was worth living, and that people loved him." and number 123 on the UK Album Charts, while selling 400,000 copies (more than double that of each of his two Kill Rock Stars releases), becoming the best-selling release of his career. Smith's backing band during most of this period was the Portland-based group Quasi, consisting of former bandmate Sam Coomes on bass guitar and Coomes's ex-wife Janet Weiss on drums. Quasi also performed as the opening act at many shows on the tour, with Smith sometimes contributing bass guitar, guitar, or backing vocals. On October 17, 1998 ^{List of Saturday Night Live hosts and musical guests#Season 24} , Smith appeared on Saturday Night Live and performed "Waltz #2." His backing band for this appearance was John Moen, Jon Brion, Rob Schnapf, and Sam Coomes.

In response to whether the change to a bigger record label would influence his creative control, Smith said, "[S]ometimes people look at major labels as simply money-making machines, they're actually composed of individuals who are real people, and there's a part of them that needs to feel that part of their job is to put out good music." Smith also claimed in another interview that he never read his reviews for fear that they would interfere with his songwriting.

Smith would play only one more concert in his adopted hometown, three months later at The Derby.

After his 34th birthday on August 6, 2003, he gave up alcohol, caffeine, red meat, refined sugar, and his longtime (sometimes abused) regimen of psychiatric medication.

With things improving for Smith after several troubled years, he began experimenting with noise music and worked on his girlfriend Jennifer Chiba's iMac with the intent of learning how to record with computers, noting that it was the only method with which he was still unfamiliar. He said of the songs, "They're kind of more noisy with the pitch ^{Pitch (music)} all distorted. Some are more acoustic ^{Acoustic music} , but there aren't too many like that. Lately I've just been making up a lot of noise." including Big Star ^{Big Star (band)} 's "Thirteen ^{Thirteen (song)} ", and Cat Stevens' "Trouble".Smith died on October 21, 2003, at age 34 from two stab wounds ^stabbing to the chest. According to girlfriend Jennifer Chiba—with whom he was sharing an apartment on Lemoyne Street in Echo Park at the time—the two were arguing, Chiba heard him scream, and upon opening the door, saw Smith standing with a knife in his chest. She pulled the knife out, after which he collapsed and she called 9-1-1. Smith died in the hospital with the time of death listed as 1:36 p.m. While Smith's death was originally reported as a suicide, the official autopsy report released in December 2003 left open the question of possible homicide.

The coroner's report revealed that no traces of illegal substances or alcohol were found in his system at the time of his death. But did find prescribed levels of antidepressant and attention-deficit-hyperactivity-disorder ^{Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder} medications in his system, including Clonazepam, Mirtazapine, Atomoxetine and Amphetamine (the latter a byproduct of metabolizing the drugs). With his death not being officially declared a suicide, a journalist noted that some have suspected foul play ^Crime , but also that the authorities do not seem to be investigating the case further. Smith's body was cremated ^Cremation . No public burial site or memorial was ever formally announced.
in August 2006.


Reaction


Shortly after Smith's death, a fan memorial was initiated outside of Solutions Audio (4334 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California), the site at which the cover of the Figure 8 album was shot. Farewell messages to Smith were written on the wall, and flowers, photos, candles, and empty bottles of alcohol mentioned in Smith's songs were left. Since then, the wall has been repeatedly tagged by gang signs, and, despite having been repainted to its original state in February 2008 and promises from Solutions' owner to maintain the site, the wall is now largely covered by unrelated graffiti.
Memorial concerts were held in several cities in the United States and the United Kingdom. The plaque has the line "I'm never gonna know you now, but I'm gonna love you anyhow," from Smith's song "Waltz #2".From a Basement on the Hill, with almost four years in production, was released on October 19, 2004, by ANTI- Records (a part of Epitaph Records). With Smith's family in control of his estate, they chose to bring in Rob Schnapf and Smith's ex-girlfriend Joanna Bolme to sort through and mix the album. Although predicted by Smith to be a double album or a regular album with a bonus disc, but some were more critical; The Onion's A.V. Club wrote that "the album he left behind turns out to be messy, complicated, and unquestionably not his defining work... the album still earns its place—not at the top, and unfortunately as a bookend—in a jarringly important body of work."

Elliott Smith and the Big Nothing, a biography by Benjamin Nugent, was rushed to publication and hit stores shortly after From a Basement on the Hill, barely beyond the first anniversary of the musician's death. Smith's family, as well as Joanna Bolme, Jennifer Chiba, Neil Gust, Sam Coomes, and Janet Weiss, all declined to be interviewed and did not support the publication of the book. It contained interviews with Rob Schnapf, David McConnell, and Pete Krebs. The book received mixed reviews, with Publishers Weekly remarking that while "Nugent manages to patch together the major beats of Smith's life, he can offer little meaningful insight" and that Smith's fans "will be disappointed by this short and shallow biography."

On May 8, 2007, a posthumous two-disc compilation album entitled New Moon ^{New Moon (Elliott Smith album)} was released by Kill Rock Stars. The album contained 24 songs recorded by Smith between 1994 and 1997 during his tenure with the label that were not included on albums, as well as a few early versions and previously released B-sides. In the United States, the album debuted at number 24 on the Billboard 200, selling about 24,000 copies in its first week. The record received favorable reviews and was Metacritic's 15th best-reviewed album of 2007. A significant portion of the proceeds from album sales are to go to Outside In, a social service agency for low-income adults and homeless youth in Portland, Oregon.

On October 25, 2007, a book titled Elliott Smith ^{Elliott Smith (book)} was released by Autumn de Wilde, which consists of photographs, handwritten lyrics and "revealing talks with Smith's inner circle." De Wilde was responsible for the Figure 8 sleeve art, making a landmark and de facto Smith memorial of the Solutions Audio mural. A five-song CD featuring previously unreleased live recordings of Smith performing acoustically at Club Largo in Los Angeles was included in the release.

Following the singer's death, the Smith estate licensed his songs for use in a number of film and television projects, such as One Tree Hill ^{One Tree Hill (TV show)} , The Girl Next Door ^{The Girl Next Door (2004 film)} , Georgia Rule, and Paranoid Park.

In a March 2009 interview, Larry Crane said that the estate of Elliott Smith was now "defunct" and all rights previously held by the singer are now in the control of "his parents." Roman Candle will be remastered by Larry Crane. Along with the press release, Kill Rock Stars posted a previously unreleased track of Smith's, titled "Cecilia/Amanda", as a free download.Smith respected and was inspired by many artists and styles, including Big Star, The Clash, Pink Floyd,, Television ^{Television (band)} , Motown ^{Motown Records} and flamenco records, Hank Williams, and Modest Mouse. Smith claimed to listen exclusively to selected albums (such as The Marble Index ^{The Marble Index (album)} by Nico) for months. and Smith's lyrics have been compared to those in Drake's minimalist and haunting final album ^{Pink Moon} .

Smith was a dedicated fan of The Beatles (as well as their solo projects), once noting that he had been listening to them frequently since he was about "four years old" and also claimed that hearing The White Album ^{The Beatles (album)} was his original inspiration to become a musician.

Regarding his songwriting, Smith said:



Smith said that transitions were his favorite part of songs and that he preferred to write broader, more impressionistic ^{Impressionist music} music closer to pop ^{pop music} rather than folk music. "I found songs recorded in high school reworked 15 years on. Lyrics became more important to him as he became older, and more time was spent working on them."