Mike Starr Dead

Mike Starr in 1991

Michael Christopher "Mike" Starr was an American musician, prominent as the original bassist in Alice in Chains, with whom he played from the band's formation in 1987 until 1993. In the mid 1980s, Jerry Cantrell started a band called Diamond Lie which included drummer Sean Kinney and Starr on bass. Cantrell's roommate, singer Layne Staley, also agreed to join while having Cantrell join his funk project which ended shortly thereafter. Diamond Lie gained attention in the Seattle area and eventually took the name of Alice in Chains. The band was later signed to a record deal with Columbia Records and enjoyed extensive success via record sales and radio play in the grunge rock movement of the early 1990s. Starr was with the group for the Facelift and Dirt albums and the Sap EP. He was most often seen playing several variations of a Spector NS-2 bass guitar through an Ampeg SVT all-valve head and Ampeg 8x10" speaker cabinets.

Starr departed the group while it was touring behind the album Dirt. According to former singer Layne Staley, in a Rolling Stone article from February 1994, Starr's departure from Alice in Chains stemmed from "just a difference in priorities. We wanted to continue intense touring and press, Mike was ready to go home." Starr, however, mentions on an episode of Celebrity Rehab that he was kicked out of the band due to his budding drug addiction.

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Starr later played bass for the band Sun Red Sun, which featured Ray Gillen and Bobby Rondinelli, both former members of Black Sabbath. The project was cut short by Gillen's death in 1993. On March 8, 2011, Mike was found dead in Salt Lake City. No details have  found yet as to the cause of death.