As the news sank in this week that Gregory Slay had died on New Year’s Day, it quickly became clear that he’d hadn’t wasted much of his 40 years.
I can’t say I knew him well. Slay spent most of his childhood in Mobile before moving away and joining Remy Zero. That group, his best known for the “Smallville” theme song “Save Me,” played here only twice.
The second time, in 2002, was a benefit concert at the Saenger for cystic fibrosis research. Slay talked to the Press-Register at length about the illness he’d struggled with since childhood, and which would eventually be blamed for his death.
The foundation of his wellness regimen, as he described it, seemed to be keeping so busy and so focused that CF couldn’t catch up with him.
He consumed vast quantities of coffee, he said, and slept little. He described himself as a voracious news-reader who liked to stay keenly aware of world events, but who avoided taking many calls, to keep distractions down. And he immersed himself in the daily business of making music.
He wasn’t one to crank out replicas of “Save Me” or “A Perfect Lie,” the Emmy-nominated “Nip/Tuck” theme that he also co-wrote. His approach to music was experimental, collaborative and intense.
“You follow a dream, it keeps you alive,” he said. “When you have something that’s exciting to you ... anything that helps you wake up in the morning keeps you going,” he said.
That apparently held true right up until the end. Jeffrey Cain, a fellow Remy Zero alumnus and a collaborator since their high school days, told me that Slay had been active as a studio and touring musician in recent weeks.
“We just mastered a new record for Gregory,” Cain said. Music from that project can be heard at http://horsethiefbeats.bandcamp.com; Cain said the work would be released posthumously on CD and vinyl.
Among other activities, Slay had also been playing drums for O+S, a collaboration between Orenda Fink and Cedric LeMoyne, another of his Remy Zero bandmates. (Tributes are posted at www.opluss.com.)
“He had been in good health, and this hit us all by surprise,” Cain said.
But an unexpected health crisis had recently hospitalized Slay, Cain said. He made it out of the hospital and “was in a peaceful place and surrounded by his family at the time of his death,” according to a statement released by Cain and other former bandmates.
“In the end, on his own terms, he dealt with it,” Cain said.
Cain said that a Facebook group, “In Memory of Gregory Slay,” will update friends on further plans. He said he thinks a musical memorial service will take place in New Orleans, probably close to Slay’s May 10 birthday.
“We’ve had such an outpouring of love,” Cain said. “It really shines a light on how much Gregory inspired people and affected people.”