Gin Blossoms singer Robin Wilson has vivid memories of former bandmate,
guitarist Doug Hopkins, who took his own life 10 years ago this week.

“I still see him in Long Wong's, right there in my face, singing
‘Sugar, Sugar’ with me in that drunken, glorious place that
we were all at in 1989,” Wilson says. “It was perfect.”

But it wouldn't last.

While the Blossoms would go on to become the most commercially successful
band the Valley has ever produced — with a pair of million-selling
albums and a handful of Top 40 singles in the ’90s — they
parted company with Hopkins over his alcohol problem before fame came
calling.

“It's so hard for anyone outside of five or six people to have any
understanding how his role in the Gin Blossoms came to an end and how
that all fell apart,” Wilson says. “So many people think they
know what happened and it's a drag, but I'm glad we're at the point now
where it seems that people are more comfortable enjoying his music and
not dwelling on these other things.”

Hopkins’ songs — especially the hits “Hey Jealousy”
and “Found Out About You,” which launched the Gin Blossoms
from local heroes to the national stage — are still heard frequently
on the radio airwaves. The band's 1992 breakthrough album, “New
Miserable Experience,” which contains both songs, was re-issued
in a “Deluxe Edition” package to mark its 10-year anniversary
last year.

Following his dismissal from the Gin Blossoms, Hopkins sank deeper into
alcohol abuse and a depression that was part of his personality even while
in the group. He forged on musically, however, forming The Chimeras with
brothers Lawrence and Mark Zubia, but it just wasn't the same.

“Post-Blossoms it was all a rough road,” singer Lawrence Zubia
says. “During the Blossoms years, my brother and I were playing
in Live Nudes and opening shows for them and we'd all come back to our
house and party until the sun came up. Watching those guys make that rise
(to signing their major label record deal) and being close to them while
it happened were the best times I remember.”

Hopkins stay in The Chimeras was brief and he parted company with the
group about six months before his death. Still, his shadow loomed large
as three years later the band — renamed The Pistoleros — signed
their own major label record deal and scored a radio hit with Hopkins’
tune “My Guardian Angel.”

“We just played at Long Wong's last weekend and playing some of
those songs are just mile markers for us,” Lawrence says. “There's
a particular song called ‘Southbound Train,’ which was one
of the last songs he wrote and had a lot of himself in it. It's classic
Doug, it's like he was writing one of his last songs and knowing it.”

Following his departure from The Chimeras, the Zubias remained close
to Hopkins. Lawrence, a one-time roommate, found his friend's body following
his suicide by gunshot.

“He was definitely on a downward spiral for the last two months
of his life with depression and alcoholism,” he says. “I'd
been checking on him regularly because I felt like something bad was going
to happen. It was during the Tempe Arts festival and the parking was atrocious,
so I thought I'd kill two birds with one stone: I'll park at Doug's place,
check on him and go to the fair. I checked on him and he was dead on the
bed.”

The discovery haunted him for some time.

“It was rough for several years after he killed himself because
finding a suicide victim is really rough on a person's psyche,”
Lawrence says. “Now, for the last couple of years, I can look at
it from an outside point of view and be clinical about it.”

A decade after Hopkins took his own life, friends prefer not to dwell
on the suicide.

“As time's gone on, I think more about his life and less about his
death,” guitarist Mark Zubia says. “Of course, his death and
the way he chose to end his life creeps in there, but more often than
not I think about his life.”

So does former girlfriend Sandra Quijas, 37, of Tempe, who lived with
Hopkins for three years.

“It doesn't seem like 10 years have passed,” she says. “What
will always stick in my mind was how he transformed from his usual loud
self to speaking in almost whispers when we were together. I've never
felt so loved as how he made me feel. I couldn't forget him even if I
wanted to.

“I'm still mad that he left. I grew up a Catholic girl and never
even thought of suicide and never knew anyone who thought of that.”

Quijas used to mark the anniversary of his death with a personal ritual.

“For a few years, I would go to what's left of the Ash Avenue bridge
and have a beer there and dump a beer there. We scattered the majority
of his ashes off that bridge,” she says. “I don't do that
anymore. I'd probably be arrested if I tried it.”

Sara Cina, general manager and music booker at Long Wong's where she's
worked for 13 years, is constantly reminded of her former friend.

“For me, Doug is still present,” she says. “I'm still
friends with the same circle of people that were his friends and especially
being at Long Wong's — he was a huge part of its heyday.”

Lawrence Zubia remembers two very different sides of Hopkins’ personality.

“Doug was a quintessential rock ’n’ roll guitarist,
on- and offstage,” he says. “But there was another part of
him that people rarely saw, like he was very domesticated. He'd sit at
home with his glasses on and watch his favorite TV programs and be very
normal. Then he'd annihilate that sort of thing with two nights in a row
of drinking until dawn.”

While the Gin Blossoms split up for a few years in the late ’90s,
the band is now playing together again and Hopkins’ music is still
featured in their concert sets.

“We play his songs and we keep that alive and we do it with pride,”
Robin Wilson says. “We're also pissed that he's not here. So much
has changed in ten years and Doug's missed out on a whole lot. I wonder
what he would think of (bandmates) Bill (Leen) and Jesse (Valenzuela)
and I with kids.”

Hopkins’ legacy also lives on with The Pistoleros.

“We still play some of the songs we wrote with him and some of the
songs he wrote,” Mark Zubia says. “He's never far from our
memories, that's for sure.”