Elliott Smith, a singer/songwriter, committed suicide Wednesday, according to news reports. Smith, whose deep, self-deprecating songs earned him critical acclaim and an Academy Award nomination, was just 34.
The Associated Press reported that Smith’s girlfriend had discovered the body and that it had sustained a single knife wound to the chest – appearing to be self-inflicted.
Smith was best known for his contribution to the Gus Van Sant movie “Good Will Hunting” with the song, “Miss Misery.” It was nominated for an Oscar in 1998.
Smith’s label Dreamworks issued a statement saying, “We are deeply saddened by Elliott Smith’s tragic death and send our condolences to his friends and family. He was perhaps his generation’s most gifted singer-songwriter. His enormous talent could change your life with a whisper. We will miss him.”
Although Smith’s record sales were modest, he released five studio albums that received rampant praise from rock critics and his peers. He eventually emerged as one of this decade’s premier musical talents.
Smith’s songs often were bleak, littered with references to drug addiction, distressed relationships, depression and loneliness.
Being “emo” before it was even a term, Smith tried to distance himself from the stamp of being a confessional songwriter.
“I don’t feel like my songs are particularly fragile or revealing,” he said in a 1998 interview with the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not like a diary, and they’re not intended to be any sort of superintimate confessional singer-songwriterish thing.”
In a 2000 interview with Rolling Stone magazine Smith spoke about the labels critics and fans have given his music over the years.
“The tags are there in order to help try to sell something by giving it a name that’s going to stick in somebody’s memory, but it doesn’t describe it,” Smith said. “So ‘depressing’ is not a word I would use to describe my music, but there is some sadness in it – there has to be, so that the happiness in it will matter.”
In more recent interviews Smith spoke out about his struggles with alcoholism, revealing he had undergone treatments to clear his bloodstream of toxins.
“When I lived in New York I was really a bad alcoholic for a few years,” he told Under the Radar magazine in an interview published in June 2003.
Born Steven Paul Smith in Omaha, Neb. in 1969, Smith spent his formative years in Dallas with his mother and stepfather.
He moved to Portland, Ore. while in high school to live with his father.
As a child Smith studied piano and guitar and began composing his own music by 13.
While in middle school, Smith began calling himself Elliott, because as he later told a reporter, Steve sounded too “jockish.”
After graduating from Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., Smith joined Portland punk band Heatmiser.
While in the band, Smith released his own solo albums – “Roman Candle” (1994), “Elliott Smith” (1995) and “Either/Or” (1997) – on independent music labels that garnered him a sizable underground following.
In 1997, he moved to New York, where Van Sant – a huge fan of Smith’s music – approached him with an offer to use several of his songs for the movie soundtrack to “Good Will Hunting.”
The film broke big at the box office that year bringing Smith’s music to a mainstream audience and earning him an Oscar nomination.
Amidst all the hype from the movie, Smith signed with major music label Dreamworks Records and produced two albums – “XO” (1998) and “Figure” (2000).
The critical praise continued and took him well within the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.
On being remembered as the “Good Will Hunting” guy, Smith told AP Radio in 2000 he did not mind the notoriety from the project.
“I liked that movie,” he said. “I though it was really nice that Gus put my songs in it. There’s always some sort of name tag on any band, any person, so if that’s the one I have, that’s great.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story.