http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/asiapcf/03/28/hester.suicide.ap/index.html

I really liked this band - this is a dog-gone shame!!!

Dave

:( Why is it the good guys that try to make the world a great place, die so easily and the ones that try to make the world shitty, keep on living?

Excellent musician. He knew what to play and when. Never overplayed like so many drummers today and had great taste. Very sad news.

Personally, I never liked Crowded House. WAY too 80's for me, even during the 80's! Adult contemporary crap.

I choose to remember him for his work with Split Enz.

This is very sad news indeed. Crowded House was one of the few 1980s bands that actualy played good music. From everything I've read over the years Paul Hester was a very good person. I feel for his family, friends and fans.

Crowded House has always been a favorite of mine, and Paul one of my favorite drummers. though there was never any chance of a Crowded House reunion, i will dearly miss him.

I loved Crowded House...

I worked at a mom & pop record shop in high school and college and I remember very clearly the day a promo of their debut album showed up at the store. I recognized Neil Finn's name from Split Enz so I opened it right away and played it several times. I was blown away. It was the Summer of 1986 and college radio was in its prime.

In the Spring of 1987 my buddies and I travelled from Elgin, IL to Daytona Beach, Crowded House was playing at a outdoor pavilion that week. They had pretty good attendance, but "Don't Dream Its Over" was just hitting on the radio, so the pavillion was not packed and it was raining. MTV was there filming for one of their Spring Break specials. I managed to get up to the front row and I sang along with every song. Some beautiful young woman I did not know was singing next to me. She knew every word as well. Somehow, the MTV cameras found us... I had a blue bandana tied around my head and a Stevie Ray Vaughn t-shirt on. They played the concert several times on MTV and you can see me singing in the rain and dancing with that very pretty young lady.

After the show ended, I was still standing there just watching the MTV crew pack up. Paul Hester yelled something that I could not make out. I turned to see if he was yelling at someone behind me and I get hit in the back of the head by the drum stick he was throwing at me. It bounced off my head on to the ground and up into my arms. I turned back and thanked him. He just stood there laughing. It was pretty funny. I still have the drum stick.

I managed to see them a few years later during the Woodface tour at the Georgia Theater in Athens, GA (when I was in grad school). Paul was getting a drink at the bar and I walked up and told him he had hit in the head with a drum stick several years ago. He said he remembered it and we laughed. After the show, instead of throwing his drum stick at me, he threw me a box of Ritz Crackers.

Paul will be missed.

Pretty big news over here. Front page of the Sydney Morning Herald (very respectable broadsheet) with colour photo and two page story. Also the story spawned the Herald to write an editorial.
I imagine this has been an even bigger story on the other side of the ditch (that's NZ).
A great loss to the world.
(PS there were some Crowded House re-unions, but very sporadic, a lot of mess was never fully cleaned up)
Tony

Great memories there Johncan :thmbsp:

-dave

So he did play with Split Enz? ha, I thot so.
It's sad.

Jace,

Paul was the drummer for Split Enz on their last two studio albums. He joined in 1983 as the Enz where begining to split up because Tim Finn wanted to do solo work. He did not play drums on any of the Split Enz North American "hits."

John

This is very sad news indeed. Crowded House was one of the few 1980s bands that actualy played good music. From everything I've read over the years Paul Hester was a very good person. I feel for his family, friends and fans.

Probably the saddest news in music down under since Michael Hutchence. As a father myself, It sorta pisses me off as much as it makes me sad. I just can't imagine intentionally leaving my children behind like that. :wtf:

What a sad story. I am a big fan of their debut album.