At their last Fourth of July party before graduating in 1991, Neil Gust and Elliott Smith were discussing their futures. “We looked at each other and said: ‘Why don’t we start a band?’” Gust recounts. The pair resolved to move to a new city and pursue music together. “I realised I had to come out of the closet. I told him at this party, and everything just blew up inside of me – he was the best friend you could possibly have in that moment,” Gust said.
Smith would go on to be nominated for an Oscar and become a darling of US indie rock whose haunting songs remain celebrated 20 years after his death at the age of 34. But his band Heatmiser – initially a Fugazi-esque post-hardcore group – are comparatively unknown.
