Blind Melon frontman Shannon Hoon was no stranger to the law as he would be arrested
for various offences while the band was at the peak of their popularity. Today we’re going to
talk about his multiple arrests including the time he relieved himself on stage in Canada,
the time he arrested while on tour with Guns N’ Roses,
and the time he got thrown out of the American Music Awards as well his final arrest.
I first want to let you guys know i did a pretty in depth video about blind melon’s
career sometime last year and i think to date it’s either my
longest or second longest video I’ve ever done. The link is down below.
The members of Blind Melon all hailed from small town’s and were generally considered outsiders
to the people they grew up with. Frontman Shannon Hoon hailed from Lafayette, Indiana,
the same town Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose came from. Their paths would cross once again
in Los Angeles and we’ll talk about it later on in the video. When he was a teenager Hoon often
got into trouble with the law. His mother Nel Hoon would tell Rolling Stone that the singer
stopped being a good kid at the age of 17 and soon found drugs, booze and crime. Nel would
tell the magazine that she at one point was carrying four bail bonds for Shannon saying
"When he got into drugs, I just gave up hope," "He just turned 26, and there were times I
didn't think he'd live that long" she'd say. Blind Melon would form in Los Angeles in 1990
and sign a deal with Capitol Records. The band would make a name for themselves thanks
to their debut album, which was released in 1992 and went quadruple platinum producing
the hugely popular single No Rain. The band also toured extensively
to support the record opening for the likes of Guns N’ Roses and Lenny Kravitz,
but as the band’s popularity grew, so did Hoon’s drug dependency and volatile behaior.
For part of 1992 and 1993 Blind Melon opened for Guns N’ Roses who were literally one of
the biggest bands in the world. During a June 1993 concert in Switzerland,
Blind Melon and the Quireboys were opening cats. When Guns N’ Roses were on stage during that leg
of the tour known as “Skin N’ Bones” Tour, they would have a man dressed as a dominos pizza guy
come and deliver a pie on stage during the band’s acoustic set and the delivery guy
would play the conga drums. Usually the delivery guy was one of the band’s stage crew members,
but that night in Switzerland Hoon decided to stick around and watch the band’s set.
According to the book Welcome to My Jungle, which was written by Axl Rose’s personal assistant
he would remember Hoon walking on stage nude during Guns N’ Roses set carrying a pizza.
He would sit next to Rose, and shake his hand and play the congas.
Following the performance he got up waved to the crowd and walked backstage where
police officers were waiting to arrest him for indecent exposure.
Canadian Arrest
On Halloween in 1993, Blind Melon was in Vancouver, Canada
opening for Lenny Kravitz at the Pacific Coliseum. Towards teh end of Blind Melon’s set Hoon stripped
naked on stage and started relieving himself on stage and on the first row of the audience.
The vancouver police didn’t find it a laughing manner and after the show hoon reportedly ran from
cops and ended up being arrested on top of the band’s tour bus. Almost a month after the incident
happened, Blind Melon was back in vancouver to play a concert as part of the singer's plea deal.
About a month ago i did a video on the 1990 American Music Awards where a very drunk Slash
and Duff of Guns N’ Roses gave a profanity that landen acceptance speech, wihch got them in a lot
of trouble. The Link to that is down below, but in today's video we're going to talk about the
1994 American Music Awards. Blind Melon were nominated for favourite pop/new rock artist
along with stone temple pilots and a hip hop group named SWV. STP ended up winning the award and my
favourite moment is when the presenter couldn’t even say STP’s name correctly. The nominees for
favourite new pop rock artist are stone temple According to the Associated Press,
after Blind Melon lost the award, Hoon allegedly became disruptive to the ceremony
and had to be escorted out of the venue. When guards came to remove the singer, it
was alleged he hit one of the guards in the face. When he was taken to the back of a police cruiser
it was alleged that he kicked out the rear window and according to one of the arresting officers
Hoon also tried to kick out the partition between seats in the car he narrowly missed
the head of an officer. Once Hoon arrived at the police station, he allegedly took the payphone
and allegedly ripped it off the wall and spat in the face of a detective who was interviewing him.
The charges laid against the singer would include battery, two counts of battery on a
police officer, one count of assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, disturbing the peace
and destroying telephone equipment. He would be released on $6,000 bail and the incident would be
briefly shown in the Shannon Hoon documentary All I Can Saya which came out last year or so
When the band was in New Orleans to record what would be their final album with hoon Soup,
there was an incident at a local bar where Hoon was angered by his tab he had racked
up and got into a physical altercation with the bartender. An off-duty police officer
intervened and arrested the singer. It would be his final brush with the
law prior to his death. This scene is also dealt with in his documentary.
By the spring of 1994 Hoon was interviewed by the Orlando Sentinel and talked about his
trouble with the law revealing "I am hotheaded sometimes
"I've got a lot of bad elements inside of me, I'm trying to control them."
At the time he would tell the newspaper he was reading The Art of War.
Sadly, Hoon would pass away in late 1995
during the band’s tour for Soup when he was found dead in Blind Melon's tour bus which had
just pulled into New Orleans. His cause of death would be a heart attack due to a drug overdose.
Following his death the members of blind melon would take a hiatus before reconvening in 2006
with a new singer. That does it for today's video guys, thanks for watching. Be sure to hit the like
button and subscribe and we'll see you again on rock n' roll true stories. Take care.