Todd Crew (1965-1987) - Bassist for Jetboy

Jetboy & Todd Crew

Todd Crew was the bassist for the bands "Jetboy" and "The Drunk Fux." The group Jetboy was a hard rock or “glam rock” band formed in 1983. Around 1984 Jetboy was regularly playing at The Rock on Broadway Street in San Francisco. The band went on to a moderately successful career playing in Los Angeles, particularly on Sunset Strip and signed a record deal with Elektra in 1986. Elektra dropped them before releasing an album and they were signed by MCA. Crew was fired from the band in 1987 due to his excessive drinking and became a “guitar roadie” for Slash and Guns ‘n’ Roses.

Things deteriorated rapidly for Crew after his dismissal from the band. His drinking became worse and friends began to worry about his well-being when drugs also began to take their toll. Crew ended up dying at the Milford Plaza Hotel in New York of a drug overdose after partying with Slash and porn star Lois Ayres.

Crew's grave across the street from the Garden Mausoleum II

There has be a lot of dispute surround Todd Crew’s death. Some people maintain that Slash was with Crew when he died, but freaked out and left him in the room to die. In fact, some accounts have Crew actually dying in Slash’s arms. Slash has acknowledged shooting him up with heroin, but claims it wasn’t a strong enough dose to kill him. A few things have not been disputed, mainly that Crew was on a downhill drug/alcohol spiral and that he had been drinking for 18 hours straight, much of the time with Slash. Also, Slash was the person who eventually called 9-1-1, allegedly after calling a and saying that Crew was turning blue.

Slash and members of the band maintain that when they returned to their room they found Crew unconscious and called promptly called 911. 

Jetboy’s greatest success came in 1988 with “Feel the Shake,” which reached #135 on the Billboard charts.