UPDATE, 5:41 P.M., AUGUST 12, 2011: Sebastian Bach has issued a response. Check it out after the jump.
ORIGINAL POST, 10:40 P.M., AUGUST 11, 2011: TMZ has reported that Jani Lane, former lead singer of the glam metal band Warrant, was found dead at a Woodland Hills Comfort Inn on Thursday evening.
No official cause of death has been released yet.
Lane, 47, wrote Warrant's hits “Heaven,” “Cherry Pie” and “I Saw Red” in the late 1980s. Eventually he left the band to pursue a solo career. In 2005 Lane joined VH1's Celebrity Fit Club. He rejoined Warrant in 2008 only to leave it again months later, for good.
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Lane, born John Kennedy Oswald in Akron, Ohio on Feb. 1 1964, adopted his stage name in the early '80s before he moved to LA and forming Warrant. The albums Dirty Rotten Filthy Stinking Rich (1989) and Cherry Pie (1990) went double platinum.
Celebrities reacted to his death on Twitter: Dane Cook said, “RIP Jani Lane your music was my youth.” From glam rock contemporary Bret Michaels: “We'd like to offer our deepest condolences to the family of Jani Lane regarding their loss,” wrote the Poison singer.
Jani Lane: His Only Real Friend… That Killed Him in the End RIP
People have been asking me about Jani Lane & I really don't know what to say. Picturing him by himself in a Comfort Inn in Woodland Hills with a bottle of vodka & a bottle of pills is so typical of what a rock musicians life actually is. It is a life marked by extremes. Extreme attention from people you don't know, while all the work & travel takes you away from those you actually do know. Playing to thousands of people & then going back to your hotel room & shutting the door. When the door shuts… the quiet is the exact opposite of the volume of the concert. The solitude of the empty hotel room becomes the diametric parallel of the adulation of strangers. For some, the bottle of vodka or whatever becomes a friend that is always there for you while others come & go. Yes I have felt these emotions myself. If you see me going head over heels over a girl, it's because all I have ever wanted is to have a girl to love & share my life with, & for the one I love to be with me wherever I'm at, travel with me to distant locales & stay in nice kick ass hotel suites & have fun & sing & dance & see the world. But so far this is a fantasy. Just like Jani, I spend most of my time alone in a hotel room dreaming of a girl I love who is somewhere else. I bet Jani Lane felt exactly what I feel. How could he not?
I remember decades ago being invited to Janis house for a barbeque, which we went to. But Jani didn't show up. So I spent the afternoon with Janis dad cooking burgers & steaks & having a wonderful day with his family. My condolences to his family & especially Janis children who now only have memories of their dad to hold on to. That is truly heartbreaking. Let this be yet another lesson to tell someone some kind words sometimes… before it's too late… while they are still alive. I can guarantee Jani Lane would not have anticipated everyone coming out of the woodwork extolling the life & times of Jani Lane. Which is why he probably died alone. In a hotel room. With his only real friend…that killed him in the end.
–Sebastian Bach, via Facebook
