Paul Hester.rip

[oxx]

Can someone please fill me in on the circumstances of his death.

I know he was found in he park by walkers but was there depression and addiction involved?

Apparently he found it hard adjusting to life away from the stage,which in itself is a type of psychosis,be it silently,
.??

 

[Roddy]

Depression yes, addiction not sure, but wouldn't be surprised. DID apparently have trouble adjusting to life out of the limelight, and there was at least one broken relationship involved too, I think.

My sister lives in Elwood. She said she regularly saw him walking through that very park. She was a huge CH fan. Very sad loss....

 

[danielcan]

Paul Hester - rest in peace - we miss you.

We should be more understanding of depression and mental illness. Please don't think badly of Paul.

from The Age

Vale Paul Hester
March 30, 2005

The sudden death of a celebrated musician stirs powerful emotions, writes Alan Atwood.

I never met him. Didn't know him personally. Yet still the death of Paul Hester, the musician, has hit me harder than I would have expected. I've been trying to work out why. It can't just be that, like a great many people, I have a couple of Crowded House CDs lying around the house.

Perhaps it's because I take the dog for a walk early most mornings in Elsternwick Park - a tranquil place where Hester ended his life on Friday night. He went out with his dogs and never came home. Perhaps it's because I'm just a little bit older than Hester, who was 46. The 40s, it is clear, can be a perilous place for an awful lot of men.

Perhaps it's because I inadvertently witnessed the aftermath to this personal tragedy.

It was around lunchtime on Saturday; we were driving back from the market. Up ahead, on the road next to the park, we saw flashing lights: a police car and an ambulance. We idly wondered why they were there - maybe a kid injured on play equipment. I turned right so as not to get caught up in anything.

Didn't think any more about it until Monday morning. That's when I saw the headline: "Crowded House drummer dies". Forgive me, my initial reaction was that perhaps there was another one. But not Hester. Surely not the guy with the big goofy grin. Not Hessie of the transient yet inspired TV music show Hessie's Shed, which produced some memorable moments, including a reunion with his Crowded House colleagues.

It was him, of course. I had only ever seen one side, the amiable public face, of a middle-aged man as complex as the rest of us.

On Monday night I raised Hester's death with an old mate of mine. He appeared surprised that I was brooding about it. "But he wasn't well," he said. "He was ill. Depressed." He said this as if it explained everything. I'm not sure it does. Reports I've read and seen suggest that even people who knew him well are stunned that he took this last step.

It reminds us how little we can know someone we might regard as a friend. For this wasn't a tragic accident, like the death of another former rock star, Shirley Strachan. And I wouldn't presume to speculate about causes. All I'd suggest is that it's well past time to shelve jokes about midlife crises. They're real. And not funny at all.

It's obvious now that there's many people like me, strangers to Hester, who have been moved by his death. A lovely notice in one of yesterday's papers began: "Although I never knew you personally, I still feel deep, deep loss and grief." It came from a woman who described herself as "a lifelong fan and admirer". That's the thing about a medium as powerful and pervasive as music: performers can end up with a lot of fans they never meet. Yet still a personal connection has been forged.

I've just spent some time digging out and flicking through those Crowded House recordings. As I'd suspected, it was Hester who wrote the loopy Italian Plastic on the Woodface CD. Call it a love-song from left field: "I'll be your piggy in the middle, stick with you till the end." He also wrote Skin Feeling on Together Alone, released in 1993, his last recording with the band. A couple of lines leap out: "I like kids when they're asleep/ Their little arms around you." And this: "I'm looking old, I'm feeling young . . . . My second life has just begun."

Now it is over. I can only offer clumsy condolences to his family and friends. Perhaps they have been surprised by the ripples spreading far beyond the lake in Elsternwick Park, where life went on early yesterday morning: a group of guys playing hockey; joggers puffing; dog-walkers with bags and balls.

But maybe those closest to Paul Hester knew all along how many people he touched. For that's a marvellous aspect of music captured in recordings and concerts. Some of the rhythm, the harmonies, and the joy lasts forever.

Alan Attwood is a Melbourne journalist and author.

 

[SorryIHammerChicken]

Can someone please fill me in on the circumstances of his death.

I know he was found in he park by walkers but was there depression and addiction involved?

Apparently he found it hard adjusting to life away from the stage,which in itself is a type of psychosis,be it silently,
.??

2nd anniversary of his death trigger that thought? Such a sad story.

 

[oxx]

2nd anniversary of his death trigger that thought? Such a sad story.

I didn't even realise it was

Thanks for the info guys.