This is an archival story that predates current editorial management.
This archival content was written, edited, and published prior to LAist's acquisition by its current owner, Southern California Public Radio ("SCPR"). Content, such as language choice and subject matter, in archival articles therefore may not align with SCPR's current editorial standards. To learn more about those standards and why we make this distinction, please click here.
Mikey Welsh, the one-time bassist for Weezer who later turned to a career in the visual arts, was found dead in his hotel room yesterday.
It is suspected that Welsh, 40, died of a drug overdose in his Chicago hotel room yesterday, according to the Chicago Tribune.
After Welsh failed to check out from his room at the Raffaello Hotel, staff checked up on him and found him unresponsive. He was declared dead at the scene around 3 p.m. yesterday. News of his death came through his twitter account.
Welsh joined Weezer after the original bassist Matt Sharp left in 1998. He played on the "Green Album." Welsh moved on from Weezer and music after suffering from a mental breakdown and attempting to commit suicide in 2001. He moved on to the visual arts.
“Basically, a lifetime of doing drugs and being undiagnosed as having disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder finally caught up with me when I was 30 years old,” Welsh said in a 2007 interview. “At the beginning of a 3-month European tour with Weezer, I started slowly falling apart.”
