Blind Melon on purevolume™

Rock / Alternative

Richard Shannon Hoon was born on September 26, 1967 in Lafayette, Indiana. His father was a construction worker and a big sports lover and pushed Shannon to follow in his footsteps. Shannon excelled in karate (becoming a black belt at just age nine), wrestling, pole vaulting, and all the usual sports but he just made the bare minimum grades to stay on the teams. He was also a trouble maker and had many run-ins with local police. Mostly fighting and breaking in and messing up the house of a teacher who had crossed him. He got a fish tattoo on his back which covered the scar from where once he had been stabbed by having been thrown onto a car radio antenna.

In March of 1990, he got on a Greyhound bus and went to Los Angeles with $800 to his name. After being there less than a month he met Rogers and Brad at a party and the three began jamming and discovered they had something in common: none of them wanted to have anything to do with the citys metal circuit. "We hated the whole LA glam scene," says Brad. "It was just disgusting and we rebelled against that so heavily that we had something really unique."

Blind Melon signed to Capitol Records in 1991 and recorded an unreleased demo. Frontman Shannon Hoon and Axl Rose (who was a friend of Hoon's sister) re-met, and Hoon sang back-up on several Guns N' Roses tracks, including "Don't Cry". The band's self-titled debut album, produced by Rick Parashar (Pearl Jam), sold poorly until the single and music video for "No Rain" hit the airwaves and became a smash success, along with the popular video which featured the equally popular "Bee Girl" (played by Heather DeLoach). Subsequently, Blind Melon went platinum four times. After opening for Neil Young, Lenny Kravitz, Soundgarden and The Rolling Stones.