Steve Clark...suicide?

[JD]

Rumor has it that Def Leppard's guitarist Steve Clark's death was a
suicide. It seems he was depressed because he felt that Phil Collen was
"taking over" as the main guitarist. Steve hardly played on Hysteria
because of his drinking problem. Needless to say, Def Leppard isn't the
same. The band's best material was written by Steve. Instead of Vivian
Campbell, they should have replaced Steve with original guitarist Pete
Willis. Then Leppard would be able to continue in the same vain. They have
definitely wimped out. Does anyone feel the same?

[Alexa Reynolds]

JD wrote:
>
> Rumor has it that Def Leppard's guitarist Steve Clark's death was a
> suicide. It seems he was depressed because he felt that Phil Collen was
> "taking over" as the main guitarist. Steve hardly played on Hysteria
> because of his drinking problem.

<snip>

Here's an article that appeared in Rolling Stone Magazine in 1991 - it
clearly states the cause of death - i.e. NOT suicide.

Alexa

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Steve Clark Autopsy:

Alcohol, Drugs, Cited In Leppard Guitarists's Death

by David Fricke

Def Leppard Guitarist Steve Clark died of a fatal mixture of alcohol and
drugs, according to the coroner's report released in London on February
27th. The report said Clark died of respiratory failure due to a
compression of the brain stem resulting from excess quantities of
alcohol mixed with antidepressants and painkillers. The Westminister
Coroner's Court issued a verdict of accidental death caused by
non-dependent use of drugs and alcohol, with no evidence of suicidal
intent. The thirty-year-old guitarist was found dead in his London home
on January 8th.

According to the report, Clark fell asleep on a sofa after drinking
heavily in a local pub with a friend. The coroner disclosed that the
alcohol level in Clark's blood was three times the British legal limit
for driving. Clark had battled alcoholism for several years and had
undergone clinical treatment during the past year and a half. The
autopsy revealed traces of valium and morphine along with a fatal
quantity of codeine. Clark had been taking painkillers as a result of a
back injury. Although some British newspapers reported that traces of
heroin had been found as well, the coroner found no evidence of the
drug.

The members of Def Leppard made no public comment on the coroner's
report. They have resumed work on their follow-up album to 1987's
Hysteria, with Leppard guitarist Phil Collen playing all of the guitar
parts.

[Scott or Lisa Mader]

JD wrote:
>
> Rumor has it that Def Leppard's guitarist Steve Clark's death was a
> suicide. It seems he was depressed because he felt that Phil Collen

(snip)

I don't. I really feel that it was a big fat chemical accident. I
mean, the guy was on painkillers and had nine shots of hard liquor in 30
minutes. I don't feel so much that Steve wrote all the songs. I think
he just wrote those killer hooks. Eventually they were going to have to
change direction with or without Steve. I personally think this is the
hardest album they've done in a long time.

Lisa (a giant Steve Clark fan from Halifax, NS)

[Trevor Ray]

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[jonr...@yahoo.com]

On Friday, 13 December 1996 08:00:00 UTC, JD wrote:
> Rumor has it that Def Leppard's guitarist Steve Clark's death was a

> suicide. It seems he was depressed because he felt that Phil Collen was
> "taking over" as the main guitarist. Steve hardly played on Hysteria

> because of his drinking problem. Needless to say, Def Leppard isn't the
> same. The band's best material was written by Steve. Instead of Vivian
> Campbell, they should have replaced Steve with original guitarist Pete
> Willis. Then Leppard would be able to continue in the same vain. They have
> definitely wimped out. Does anyone feel the same?

What anyone else feels is 100% irrelevant. Only the band and the people close to them know what really happened. Anything else is pure conjecture, rumour mongering and tabloid like speculation that's best left to the gutter press.

The coroner's report and interviews with Phil and Joe are consistent and make zero mention of suicide. On the contrary, the coroner's inquest report explicitly excludes that possibility. And if you knew the first thing about the band, you'd know that Steve replaced Pete because Pete was incapable of functioning due to alcohol abuse. Do you genuinely think that anyone in their right mind would replace someone who's died of alcohol abuse with another alcoholic who they have already parted ways with? Think of alcohol as a highly addictive drug that changes the behaviour of people and you'll gain a better perspective of how naive your proposition sounds.

Alcoholics are drug specific drug abusers, and their drug of choice is alcohol. Spend a night in any A&E ward and you'll swiftly find out how many people are admitted due to alcohol dependency and withdrawal. It's a problem drug we sweep under the carpet because it's licensed for sale and taxes worth billions for government are raised by it, and campaign funds for politicians are donated by the alcohol industry to keep its nice cosy monopoly.
Steve was sadly another victim of that societal acceptance, and his use of excess doses of codeine, which can kill by itself, with an equally lethal dose of alcohol is what inadvertently killed him and made him incapable of functioning consistently, as he'd built up a tolerance to both. Plain and simple.

[Andrea Gonzalez]

no, phil replaced pete willis

[A Guy Called Tyketto]

Agreed. And I'm absolutely shocked that people are trying to
bring this up again, and this is despite the fact that the original post
was made 24 years ago, and 5 years after Steve died. But if it has to be
said, Steve didn't feel like Phil was taking over; Steve lost his
drinking buddy. Back in the Pyromania days, everyone was drinking.
That's why Pete was sent home, and Phil was brought in. But the drinking
hit its peak during the early Hysteria sessions, where Joe said it best:
"we'd go into the studio, record for a bit, get drunk, think it sounds
great, go to bed, wake up the following morning, listen to it, and
realize it was bloody awful."

Then to get things right, especially after Rick's accident, Phil
had to quit drinking full stop, because he couldn't have one drink. one
glass of wine went to another, then to a shot of whiskey, and gradually
got worse. So he quit full stop. Those were his exact words (VH1 Rock
Docs: Def Leppard). Lorelei went into that further: "When Phil quit
drinking, Steve didn't know what to do, because he lost his drinking
buddy." That and his anxiety about playing live got to him. Joe stated
that prior to the first show of that tour, Steve tried to break his
hands so he wouldn't have to play. But as long as the got through that
first show, the rest of the tour was fine for him. But while the band
thought everything was okay, Steve's drinking got worse.

We know the story from there. In short, all of this is clearly
not only documented from the coroner's reports plus interviews, but the
band has come out and said what happened on 2 highly public
documentaries: VH1 Rock Docs: Def Leppard, and VH1 Classic Albums:
Hysteria. Why this is brought up constantly, I have no idea.

BL.
--
Brad Littlejohn | Email: tyk...@sbcglobal.net
Unix Systems Administrator, | tyk...@ozemail.com.au
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