On the day his band planned to celebrate its major-label debut, Tickle Me Pink bassist Johnny Schou was found dead early Tuesday in the Fort Collins home he shares with his bandmates.
Schou was 22. His body was discovered about 8:30 a.m. in his bedroom at 830 Wagon Wheel Drive by band frontman Sean Kennedy.
Police said CPR was performed, but Schou was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators do not suspect foul play, but the coroner is investigating the cause of death, according to police Sgt. Jon Holsten.Toxicology reports could take several weeks.
Tickle Me Pink, the latest Colorado band to sign to a major label, unveiled the full-length disc “Madeline” on Wind-up Records on Tuesday. The band immediately canceled all its obligations, including a morning interview at The Denver Post and an afternoon in-store performance at Independent Records on East Colfax Avenue.
“I was talking to him on Sunday at the Warped Tour, and he was roaming around saying how nice it was to be back home, saying how excited he was to be selling their CD at the Warped Tour,” said Nerf, program director at KTCL-FM (93.3), the radio station that helped launch Tickle Me Pink’s career by playing the single “Typical.”
“It chokes me that he never got to see (the record’s release) happen.”
The band wasn’t granting any interviews Tuesday. Edward Vetri, president of Wind-up Entertainment, said, “Johnny was a young man with unbelievable talent and passion. This is so difficult because today should have been the first day of the next phase of his life.”
While his fellow band members are known extroverts, Schou was quieter, his friends said. In a meet-the-band video on the group’s MySpace page, Schou shows off his modest room by pointing to a wall-mounted acoustic guitar, a drawing given to him by bandmate Kennedy and a Canadian platinum award for another band’s record,”The Sufferer & the Witness” by Rise Against. Schou had worked on that album while interning at the Blasting Room Studio in Fort Collins.
Rise Against was Schou’s favorite band, and his mentor, Bill Stevenson — owner of the Blasting Room — learned of Schou’s death while he was in Los Angeles mixing a new Rise Against record.
“He was a fresh face,” said Stevenson, “very bright, very insightful, very levelheaded and a pleasure to have around.”
Schou also suffered from heavy mood swings, Stevenson said.
“Johnny struggled with his moods a lot,” he said. “I think he was trying to get that part of his life ironed out. I saw him struggle with that a lot.”
Schou was definitely the “brooding artist type,” according to Nerf.
“Johnny was the quietest member of the band,” Nerf said. “But he still had a great sense of humor. He was also the technical guy in the band.”
The mood at the Denver location of Independent Records on Tuesday was described as “really weird” by store manager Caitlin Negley.
Fans trickled through the store all day long, with most of the early-afternoon crowd hearing about Schou’s death for the first time. The store held an evening memorial at 5 p.m., the scheduled time for the band’s in-store performance, and about 25 fans showed up with bouquets of flowers to listen to “Madeline” and share their thoughts. KTCL printed out a large picture of Schou, which fans were signing as they swapped stories and shed tears.
“They’ve obviously touched a lot of people’s lives,” Negley said.
The band’s next scheduled show is July 14 at the Black Sheep in Colorado Springs. The band is also prepping for a mammoth, two-month national tour with Scary Kids Scaring Kids and Finch, stretching from July 18 to Sept. 19. Wind-up Records said no decisions had been made regarding those dates.
“The irony is choking,” Nerf said. “Just as everything was taking off, that was the moment it all crumbled.”
Ricardo Baca: 303-954-1394 or rbaca@denverpost.com
