Who Is Grant Hart? Twitter Mourns Death Of Husker Du Drummer
Grant Hart, drummer of influential punk band Husker Du, died at the age of 56, Thursday according to initial reports. Prayers began pouring in on Twitter after reports surfaced about his death.
Even though there has been no confirmation from either the band or his family regarding this news, it was initially reported by Variety after a black and white picture with no caption was posted on his Facebook page around 2 a.m. EDT.
Hart had formed the band Husker Du with bandmates Bob Mould and Greg Norton in 1979. He is often credited to have revolutionized punk music by making it melodic and digestible without losing the hard core element that the brand of music is known for. The group broke up in 1987 after which Hart launched his solo career, according to his biography on Billboard.
His last solo album was “The Argument” and was released in 2013. His type of music is said to have inspired Foo Fighters frontman and former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl.
The news of Hart's death went viral on social media which ushered in an array of condolences and tributes from people:
In July, Hart received a big surprise from his close friends from the music industry when they secretly organized a party for him at the Hook & Ladder in Minneapolis, to celebrate his journey. Among the people who turned up on the occasion to pay their respects to the Twin Cities rock hero were members of Rank Strangers, Hüskers bassist Greg Norton, Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner, Run Westy Run’s Kraig Johnson, Arcwelder, and Babes in Toyland’s Lori Barbero.
Hart admitted later on that he was “truly surprised and flabbergasted,” and quite “astonished” when he was beckoned onto the stage to deliver a solo performance to end the night, Star Tribune reported.
Barbero, who had organized the entire event, stated that she wanted to “have everybody come out and show their love for Grant at a time he could really use it.”
In January 2011, Hart had his house burn down which had left him temporarily homeless. The tragedy was followed by another just two months later in March when Hart’s mother died in a care facility. "She had a good run," Hart told Star Tribune in an interview at the time. "This woman, she attended all sorts of punk-rock events. It was all thanks to her Hüsker Dü got its first 7-inch out."
In a separate interview in 2011, Hart said ever since those back-to-back tragedies happened, his life had never been the same. He shared that continuing his music career also got tougher by the day.
“It's been kind of a rough time since then," Hart told Westword. "I had gotten home from a disastrous tour. I did not grow up using a computer, and the guy who was promoting the tour said, 'We've got to advertise by starting up a Facebook site, and we've got to expand your web presence.' In the meantime, things like the van to get to the shows and the actual details that are more important were f----- — but, oh, we have some web presence. He made sure we had an in-store for every city we were playing, and people would come to see the in-stores for free, but then the same number of people weren't showing up when there was a payout expected."
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