BELOVED musician Mojo Nixon, best known for his comedic single Elvis Is Everywhere, died at age 66 shortly after performing on a cruise.
Nixon, born Neill Kirby McMillan Jr., died on Wednesday onboard the annual Outlaw Country Cruise, where he regularly performed and co-hosted.
“How you live is how you should die,” Nixon’s family wrote in a statement released on Facebook, where they announced the musician’s death.
“Nixon was full-tilt, wide-open rock hard, root hog, corner on two wheels + on fire.
“Passing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar, taking no prisoners + a good breakfast with bandmates and friends.
“A cardiac event on the Outlaw Country Cruise is about right… & that’s just how he did it, Mojo has left the building.
“Since Elvis is everywhere, we know he was waiting for him in the alley out back. Heaven help us all.”
Nixon was best known among his fans for his celebrity spoofs of Don Hanley, Debbie Gibson, and, most famously, Elvis.
At a young age, Nixon was drawn to music, and during the 1980s, he began performing with Richard Banke, better known as Skid Roper, in San Diego.
The pair released three albums together, including Bo-Day-Shus!!!, Which made the national charts thanks to their satirical song Elvis is Everywhere.
The comedic single portrayed the King of Rock and Roll as responsible for everything from building the pyramids to the disappearance of cargo ships in the Bermuda Triangle.
The single’s video even garnered plays on MTV.
In 1983, he told The New York Times that he came up with the name Mojo Nixon while drinking at a bar during a bicycle trip across the United States.
He said he chose the name because the “two words shouldn’t be together.”
“I just want to be a tiny piece of the great American crazy myth, not the story they tell in schools, not the story they tell in the movies, but the wild, crazy, free, nutjob on the outskirts of town story,” he told The New York Times in 2017.
Nixon is survived by his wife, Adaire, and his sons, Rafe Cannonball and Ruben.
