79 Facts About Elliott Smith

Steven Paul Smith, known professionally as Elliott Smith, was an American musician and singer-songwriter.

Elliott Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived much of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he gained popularity.

Elliott Smith had a distinctive vocal style, characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery", and often used multi-tracking to create vocal layers, textures, and harmonies.

Elliott Smith was a heavy drinker and drug user, and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and depression.

At the time of his death, Elliott Smith was working on his sixth studio album, From a Basement on the Hill, which was posthumously produced and released in 2004.

Steven Paul Elliott Smith was born on August 6,1969, at the Methodist Hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, the only child of Gary Elliott Smith, a student at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, and Bunny Kay Berryman, an elementary school music teacher.

Elliott Smith's parents divorced when he was six months old, and Smith moved with his mother to Duncanville, Texas.

Elliott Smith endured a difficult childhood and a troubled relationship with his stepfather Charlie Welch.

Elliott Smith wrote about this part of his life in "Some Song".

For much of his childhood, Elliott Smith's family was a part of the Community of Christ but began attending services at a local Methodist church.

Elliott Smith felt that going to church did little for him, except make him "really scared of Hell".

Elliott Smith began playing piano at age nine, and at ten began learning guitar on a small acoustic guitar bought for him by his father.

At fourteen, Elliott Smith left his mother's home in Texas and moved to Portland, Oregon, to live with his father, who was then working as a psychiatrist.

Elliott Smith began experimenting with recording for the first time after borrowing a four-track recorder.

At high school, Elliott Smith played clarinet in the school band and played guitar and piano; he sang in the bands Stranger Than Fiction and A Murder of Crows, billed as either Steven Elliott Smith or "Johnny Panic".

Elliott Smith graduated from Lincoln High School as a National Merit Scholar.

In 1991 Elliott Smith graduated from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts with a degree in philosophy and political science.

Elliott 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.

In 1995, Elliott Smith's self-titled album was released on Kill Rock Stars; the record featured a style of recording similar to Roman Candle, but with hints of growth and experimentation.

Several songs made reference to drugs, but Elliott Smith explained that he used the theme of drugs as a vehicle for conveying dependence rather than the songs being about drugs specifically.

The album found Elliott Smith venturing further into full instrumentation, with several songs containing bass guitar, drums, keyboards, and electric guitars, all played by Elliott Smith.

Shortly after, Elliott Smith relocated from Portland to Jersey City, New Jersey, and later Brooklyn, New York.

In 1997, Elliott Smith was selected by director and fellow Portland resident Gus Van Sant to be a part of the soundtrack to his film, Good Will Hunting.

Elliott Smith recorded an orchestral version of "Between the Bars" with composer Danny Elfman for the movie.

Elliott Smith contributed a new song, "Miss Misery", and three previously released tracks.

The film was a commercial and critical success, and Elliott Smith was nominated for an Academy Award for "Miss Misery".

On March 5,1998, Elliott Smith made his network television debut on Late Night with Conan O'Brien performing "Miss Misery" solo on acoustic guitar.

Around the same time, Elliott Smith fell into depression, speaking openly of considering suicide, and on at least one occasion made a serious attempt at ending his own life.

Elliott Smith landed on a tree, which badly impaled him but broke his fall.

Elliott Smith's familiar double-tracked vocal and acoustic guitar style were still apparent while his somewhat personal lyrical style survived.

Elliott 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 performed as the opening act at many shows on the tour, with Elliott Smith sometimes contributing bass guitar, guitar, or backing vocals.

On October 17,1998, Elliott Smith appeared on Saturday Night Live and performed "Waltz No 2 ".

Elliott Smith's backing band for this appearance was John Moen, Jon Brion, Rob Schnapf, and Sam Coomes.

Elliott Smith relocated from Brooklyn to Los Angeles in 1999, taking up residence at a cabin in the Silver Lake section of town, where he would regularly play intimate, acoustic shows at local venues like Silverlake Lounge.

The final album Elliott Smith completed, Figure 8, was released on April 18,2000.

Album art and promotional pictures from the period showed Elliott Smith looking cleaned-up and put-together.

However, Elliott Smith's condition began to deteriorate as he had become addicted to heroin either towards the end of or just after the Figure 8 tour.

Around the time he began recording his final album, Elliott Smith began to display signs of paranoia, often believing that a white van followed him wherever he went.

Elliott Smith would have friends drop him off for recording sessions almost a mile away from the studio, and to reach the location, he would trudge through hundreds of yards of brush and cliffs.

Elliott Smith would go without sleeping for several days and then sleep for an entire day.

Elliott Smith began distancing himself from manager Margaret Mittleman, who had handled him since the Roman Candle days.

Elliott Smith finally began recording a new album with only himself and Jon Brion as producers sometime during 2001.

Elliott Smith was just helping me record the songs and stuff, and then the friendship kind of fell apart all of a sudden one day.

When Brion sent a bill for the abandoned sessions to DreamWorks, executives Lenny Waronker and Luke Wood scheduled a meeting with Elliott Smith to determine what went wrong with the sessions.

Elliott Smith complained of intrusion upon his personal life from the label, as well as poor promotion for the Figure 8 album.

The talks proved fruitless, and soon after, Elliott Smith sent a message to the executives, stating that if they did not release him from his contract, he would take his own life.

In May 2001, Elliott Smith set out to re-record the album, mostly on his own, but with some help from David McConnell of Goldenboy.

Elliott Smith was originally supposed to contribute a cover of The Beatles' "Hey Jude" for the film, but when he failed to do so in time, Anderson had to use The Mutato Muzika Orchestra's version of the track instead.

Anderson would later say that Elliott Smith "was in a bad state" at the time.

Elliott Smith was onstage for nearly an hour but failed to complete half of the songs.

Elliott Smith claimed that his poor performance was due to his left hand having fallen asleep and told the audience it felt "like having stuff on your hand and you can't get it off".

On November 25,2002, Elliott Smith was involved in a brawl with the Los Angeles Police Department at a concert where The Flaming Lips and Beck were performing.

Elliott Smith later said he was defending a man he thought the police were harassing.

Elliott Smith's back was injured in the incident, causing him to cancel a number of shows.

Elliott Smith was needy, he was grumpy, he was everything you wouldn't want in a person.

Elliott Smith had attempted to go to rehab several times, but found that he was unable to relate to the popular treatments for people with substance use disorder that used a twelve-step program basis for treatment.

Two sold-out solo acoustic concerts at Hollywood's Henry Fonda Theater, on January 31 and February 1,2003, saw Elliott Smith attempting to reestablish his credibility as a live performer.

Elliott Smith jokingly labeled his experimental way of recording "The California Frown".

Elliott Smith was in the process of recording songs for the Thumbsucker soundtrack, including Big Star's "Thirteen" and Cat Stevens's "Trouble".

Elliott Smith's final show was at Redfest at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City on September 19,2003.

On October 25,2007, a book titled Elliott Smith was released by Autumn de Wilde, which consists of photographs, handwritten lyrics, and "revealing talks with Smith's inner circle".

Elliott Smith was released in November 2010 by Domino Records and Kill Rock Stars.

In 2014, the director Paul Thomas Anderson posted a video of the pilot episode for a show called The Jon Brion Show, featuring an acoustic set by Elliott Smith including accompaniment by Brion and pianist Brad Mehldau.

On July 17,2015, a documentary about Elliott Smith's life titled Heaven Adores You saw a limited theatrical release.

The final track on the new Figure 8 edition is Elliott Smith's cover of the Beatles' "Because", originally featured on the 1999 American Beauty soundtrack.

Elliott Smith died on October 21,2003, at the age of 34 from two stab wounds to the chest.

Chiba heard him scream and upon opening the door saw Elliott Smith standing with a knife in his chest.

Elliott Smith's remains were cremated, and his ashes were divided between his mother, father, and half-sister Ashley.

Farewell messages to Elliott Smith were written on the wall, and flowers, photos, candles, and empty bottles of alcohol mentioned in Elliott Smith's songs were left.

Sean Croghan, a former roommate of Elliott Smith's, said that Elliott Smith "listened almost exclusively to slow jams" in his senior year at college.

Elliott Smith liked classic literature, especially Samuel Beckett, T S Eliot, and Russian novelists such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

Elliott Smith mentioned his admiration for Bob Dylan in several interviews, citing him as an early influence.

Elliott Smith has been compared to folk singer Nick Drake, due to his fingerpicking style and vocals.

Darryl Cater of AllMusic called references to "the definitive folk loner" Drake "inevitable", and Elliott Smith's lyrics have been compared to those in Drake's minimalist and haunting final album.

Elliott Smith was a dedicated fan of the Beatles, once noting that he had been listening to them frequently since he was about "four years old" and claimed that hearing The White Album was his original inspiration to become a musician.

In 1998, Elliott Smith contributed a cover of the Beatles song "Because" to the closing credits and soundtrack of the film American Beauty.

Elliott Smith said that transitions were his favorite part of songs and that he preferred to write broader, more impressionistic music closer to pop rather than folk music.

Elliott Smith compared his songs to stories or dreams, not purely confessional pieces that people could relate to.