Nick Traina

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Nicholas John Steel Traina (May 1, 1978 - September 20, 1997) was an American singer, who for a time was a member of the punk rock band Link 80.

The son of the famous American romance writer Danielle Steel, Nick Traina's last name comes from his adoptive father, John Traina. He was raised in San Francisco where he attended Town School but owing to his mother's enormous success in writing numerous romance novels, the family also maintained an estate in the south of France. His biological father was Steel's third husband, William Toth, a burglar and heroin addict whom his mother later divorced. [1]

He started his first band at age thirteen. He joined Link 80 at age sixteen and played with them for three years, touring extensively.

Because of the many problems Nick Traina exhibited from childhood, his life included a number of psychiatric hospitalizations for drug abuse and for treatment of bipolar disorder. While his mother wrote that she tried everything at her disposal to get him the proper medical help, Nick Traina stopped taking his medication and on his fourth suicide attempt succeeded at age nineteen in taking his own life . At the time, Traina had recently formed a new band called Knowledge and had recorded a demo, which has since been released on Asian Man Records.

Nick Traina was interred in Cypress Lawn Memorial Park cemetery in Colma, California. His mother told his life story and of the struggles with his illness in her 1998 book titled "His Bright Light: The Story of Nick Traina."

In addition to his mother's book, a handful of songs have been written about Nick, including Link 80's "Unbroken" by former bandmate Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, All Bets Off's "Catharsis" by best friend Sammy Winston, and "Hey, Nick!" by the White Trash Debutantes.

On May 16th, 1998, Danielle Steel hosted a memorial show for Nick at Slim's in San Francisco, featuring Link 80, Mu330, the Bruce Lee Band, Powerhouse, the Hoods, Subincision, All Bets Off and the Blast Bandits.

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