


The public nature of Zevon’s final months with terminal cancer forever changed how his life and work were perceived, softening his rough edges and sentimentalizing an artist who could be brutally un-sentimental. In the end, Zevon outlasted his initial prognosis by 10 months - long enough to witness the birth of his twin grandsons, Gus and Max, as well as the unlikely renaissance of his career and reputation. Almost immediately, he began assembling the songs that composed his elegiac swan song, The Wind, one of the most commercially successful and lauded releases of his 34-year recording career, released just two weeks before his death at age 56 on September 7, 2003. Doctors gave him just three months to live. Two months earlier, Zevon announced to the world that he had been diagnosed with pleural mesothelioma, a form of cancer that affects the membrane surrounding the lungs and chest. I went from super excited to really sad.” “He was moving slow, and you could tell he didn’t feel good. “I remember I went, ‘Oh my God, that’s fucking Warren Zevon,’” Gorman recalled 16 years later. music legend recently brought down to human scale by a terminal illness. Late that Sunday night, an unexpected guest stopped by - a larger-than-life L.A.

Eventually, they would stumble into the Snakepit each night for a session that lasted until dawn.īut Gorman wasn’t awed by the presence of the Sling Blade star. (Thornton’s house had previously been owned by Slash of Guns N’ Roses.) But for most of the time, the assembled musicians hung out, drank, and watched the hometown Anaheim Angels finish off the San Francisco Giants in the World Series. The then-37-year-old drummer spent the last weekend of October 2002 at Billy Bob Thornton’s Beverly Hills home with the ostensible purpose to lay down tracks for the Academy Award winner’s prospective solo album, down in his Snakepit recording studio.
