At some point, he left a thirty-five-second voice mail for a drug dealer asking for marijuana, which was later posted on the Web site TMZ.15
The Meekses were up all that night packing to leave for a road trip the next day. At around midnight, Micaela went upstairs to use the bathroom next to Mike’s bedroom. She saw him listening to music and trying to go to sleep.
According to the police report, Travis tried to wake Mike up between 5:00 and 7:00 A.M. the next morning to leave for the trip. He was described as “sleepy but responding to Travis.” That was the last time anybody saw him alive. A driver was supposed to pick them up that morning but didn’t show up. They never left for the trip and fell asleep instead. Micaela estimates that she and Travis slept from 8:00 A.M. until 1:00 P.M. At some point in the early afternoon, the Meekses found Mike, wearing a T-shirt and gym shorts, lying in his bed near a laptop computer, unresponsive. They called Spencer Roddan, the owner of the house. Roddan arrived a few minutes later, and at 1:42 P.M. he dialed 911.16
Salt Lake City police and fire department personnel arrived shortly after. Fire personnel concluded he was dead and there was nothing more they could do. He was forty-four years old. The police officers interviewed Mike’s housemates. Travis Meeks told them Mike was a recovering addict but speculated the pressure to get back into music and go on the road may have been too much for him. He also said Mike had been using benzos—mixing methadone and diazepam. Roddan told police Mike was using Percocet, methadone, and, according to the police report, “others including one [Roddan] described as Opana, a hard opiate.” Officials also found empty prescription pill bottles in Mike’s name and unidentified white pills.17
One of the officers called Gayle Starr to inform her of her son’s death. She told the officer that Mike had had “very high anxiety and back problems” but was not aware of any other health issues. She also said he’d had a drug problem for years.18
Alice in Chains posted a statement on its Web site that read, “Jerry and Sean are mourning the loss of their friend and ask that the media respect their privacy—and the privacy of the Starr family—during this difficult time. Their thoughts & prayers are with the Starr family.” On his public Facebook page, Mike Inez wrote, “R.I.P. Michael Christopher Starr. I’m gonna play your great bass lines with integrity and truth. You kicked ass. Period.”
Other musicians took to Twitter to offer their condolences and pay tribute to Mike, including former Guns n’ Roses members Steven Adler, Matt Sorum, and Slash; former Dream Theater drummer Mike Portnoy; and Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx. Two of Mike’s Celebrity Rehab castmates Mackenzie Phillips and Lisa D’Amato also paid their respects, as did Dr. Drew Pinsky and Jennifer Gimenez, the house manager on Sober House.19
According to his will, Mike appointed his mother, Gayle, as executrix of his estate and his sister, Melinda, as a backup in the event their mother would not be able to serve in that capacity. The will states Mike intended to make a list of items from his personal property to be given as gifts at a later time. The rest of his assets and estate were to be distributed equally among his parents and sister. According to a court document, Mike’s assets were valued at in excess of $350,000—primarily future royalty payments—and his debts at not more than $240,000, meaning his estate was solvent.20 There are no publicly available estimates for the current value of Mike’s estate three years after his death.
A private memorial service was held at Experience Music Project on March 20, 2011, followed by a public service at the International Fountain immediately after.21 Photos were compiled into a slide show, which was projected on-screen as people spoke. Mike’s white Spector bass, his signature instrument, was displayed onstage. Mike’s friends and family shared memories from elementary school up until his final days.
“Really hard” is how Buttino described the service. “Kathleen [Austin] walked up to me and just hugged me for a while and hung out with me, and she knew it was hard for me. I hadn’t really talked to Gayle in a while, and it was hard for me to walk up to her. She just gave me a big hug, and I told her I loved her and sorry and I tried, and we both about burst into tears, so I walked away. [It was] the hardest thing I ever went through.”
Dr. Drew Pinsky and Mike Bloom, the cofounder of the Pasadena Recovery Center, sent videotaped statements offering their condolences. The statements were included with a montage of Mike’s highlights from Celebrity Rehab and Sober House.
SATO guitarist Ken Kramer said, “I just remember him as an unconditionally loving person. It didn’t matter, any of you guys, whoever you were, if you knew him, he loved you unconditionally, no matter what.”
Andrew Wood’s fiancée, Xana La Fuente, recalled, “The last time I saw Mike, I told him I wouldn’t give up on him even if I was standing over his grave. Yesterday marks twenty-one years, sixteen hours, and … well, you guys know [Wood’s death]. The people that were there for me during that were Jerry, Mike—you guys made all that a lot better for me. We don’t say good-bye to Mike. We say hello to heaven.”
Happenin’ Harry, a Los Angeles show promoter and musician, said that when they lived together, Mike walked out of Harry’s closet wearing his clothes because he wanted to dress up as Harry for Halloween. He also recalled Mike’s giving out hundred-dollar bills at shows to starving guitar players who didn’t have enough gas to get home. Harry once went over to Mike’s house when Mike was “so proud” he had gotten a new car. “Dude, check it out!” Harry thought he would get a ride, but Mike got in the car by himself and drove it around the block.
Jerry and Sean were in attendance. Jerry said, “Looking at all those pictures is amazing. It made me think about the first time I met him, which was in Burien, I guess. My mother and my grandmother had just passed, and I didn’t really have anywhere to go. I had met this guy Tim Branom, and he had invited me to come to his house and to stay for a couple of days. I was kind of camped out in his basement, and he said this guy was coming over to play bass with us to try out for Gypsy Rose, I guess. Mike cruises up on a motorcycle, and he just looked really cool, man. He was a great guy. We got to spend about a week together. I didn’t make the band, actually. Brock [Graue] did. I got cut. I think Mike lasted a little longer than I did.”
“I met Layne … very shortly after that,” Jerry explained. “He introduced me to Sean, and we were talking about maybe getting together and jamming. He’s like, ‘Do you got any ideas for a bass player?’ I was like, ‘I met this guy Mike Starr, who’s really cool.’ He’s like, ‘That’s really weird, because he’s my friend and I’m dating his sister. I think I can make that happen.’ So he brought him down, and that’s how everything started for us.”
“I’m just thinking about all the good stuff, and there was a lot of it. We created some really amazing music together. That will always continue to live. We’re in the process of playing that, and still living that. That part is always alive, and Mike was a big part of that. We were a bunch of rat kids, man. We kind of bonded together; we lived under a wharf at the Music Bank. We ran keys—Layne and I ran keys for TV dinners. Mike and Sean and I, we’d go to 7-Elevens at four o’clock in the morning to get the old dried-up food to eat. We relied on each other and we were a family. Gayle gave us a place to live, and we lived in that house for a long time. John lived with us for a while. Mel was part of the family. He was a good man. He had a good soul. He had a big heart. I heard a very good friend of mine, who’s not here anymore, say that the best that we can hope for is to be human, and Mike most certainly was that. He was my friend. I love him and I’ll miss him.”22