Paul Hester - Split Enz and Crowded House Drummer - Suicide
Frank Spancer
Former Crowded House and Split Enz drummer and TV personality Paul
Hester committed suicide on Saturday after a long battle with depression.
Police reportedly found his body in Elsternwick Park near his home.
A message, sent to Crowded House and Split Enz fan club email lists
said: "Everyone, sitting here in the office trying to figure out what to
write, we are a bit messed up at the moment. Last night, our mate, and
Crowded House drummer Paul Hester, took his own life.
"Over the years Paul has swung the extremes of happiness and sadness,
but none of us ever thought this would happen. He loved life too much .
. . "
Crowded House was one of Australia's most successful bands of the late
1980s and early '90s. Formed out of the ashes of New Zealand's Split Enz
in 1985, it featured Hester on drums, Neil Finn on vocals and guitar,
and Nick Seymour on bass.
Guitarist Kev Garant, who played with Hester in the Bay of Pigs, said:
"He was considered an absolute world class drummer in the pop field."
As recently as two weeks ago, Hester, 46, was at the Espy in St Kilda to
appear in the SBS music quiz show, RockWiz.
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RockWiz's Brian Nankervis said: "He could be everything and anything in
one go. He had a lightning wit, he could be wonderfully sensitive,
clever and unpredictable."
Hester lived in Elwood - a fashionable bayside suburb of Melbourne -
with his girlfriend Mardi Sommerfeld and their two daughters aged eight
and ten.
Bob Feigel
<noe...@noemaiol.com> wrote:
>http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2005/03/28/1111862285896.html?from=top5&oneclick=true
>
>
>Former Crowded House and Split Enz drummer and TV personality Paul
>Hester committed suicide on Saturday after a long battle with depression.
>
<sad news snip>
>
>Crowded House was one of Australia's most successful bands of the late
>1980s and early '90s. Formed out of the ashes of New Zealand's Split Enz
>in 1985, it featured Hester on drums, Neil Finn on vocals and guitar,
>and Nick Seymour on bass.
Because Australia has a much larger population (eg: bigger market,
etc), many New Zealand performers & artists head across "the ditch" to
seek success. Crowded House might have been based in Australia (and
Lost Angeles) and Paul an Australian, but they were still a Kiwi band
... just like the Beatles would have been a British band regardless of
where they were based or had Ringo had been replaced by an American.
Sort of like calling successful Canadians, such as Donald Sutherland,
an American actor.
Photos and story of Crowded House (Paul Hester is a the bottom right):
or: http://makeashorterlink.com/?A22D412CA
A larger photo of Paul Hester:
http://www.frenz.com/16min/2002/8jul-21jul02.html
Short bio: http://www.etext.org/Mailing.Lists/house/paul-bio.html
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens." - Woody Allen
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Wax-up and drop-in of Surfing's Golden Years: <http://www.surfwriter.net>
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Topic Cop
Big Mongo
> On Sunday, March 27, 2005 at 5:51:01 PM UTC-8, Bob Feigel wrote:
> > On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 08:09:46 +1000, Frank Spancer
Of course, they don't... The links are 18 years old!!!! You might find them in the
Wayback Machine located at: https://archive.org/web/