DETROIT — Chris Cornell, whose band Soundgarden was one of the architects of grunge music, was found dead at midnight in his MGM Grand hotel room in Detroit.
Police told the Associated Press the 52-year-old musician’s death was being investigated as a possible suicide.
A spokesman for the Detroit Police Department told the Free Press that Cornell was found unresponsive on the floor of his hotel room with a band around his neck.
A representative for Cornell, Brian Bumbery, said in a statement that the death was “sudden and unexpected.” He added that the family would be “working closely with the medical examiner to determine the cause of death.”
The group played at Detroit’s Fox Theatre hours before his death.
Cornell took to Twitter Wednesday night announcing that the group had just arrived in Detroit, and a clip of the groups 2012 release “By Crooked Steps” was posted to his official Facebook page before he was later found in his hotel room, the New York Times reported.
Dontae Freeman, media relations manager for the Detroit police department, told the Free Press that Cornell’s body was discovered after his wife called a family friend and asked him to check on Cornell.
That family friend went to the door, forced himself into the room and found the victim unresponsive.
“He was found in his room with a band around his neck, but it (report) doesn’t say if it was attempted suicide or not,” Freeman said.
The New York Times reported that Cornell had admitted in interviews to struggling with drug use throughout his life.
In a 1994 Rolling Stone article, he described himself as a “daily drug user at 13,” who had quit by the time he had turned 14.
After the band broke up in 1997. Cornell returned to heavy drug use, he told The Guardian in a 2009 interview. He described himself in that article as a “pioneer” in the abuse of the opiate OxyContin, saying he had gone to rehab.