Brian Jones, Alan Wilson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison died between 1969 and 1971, although a possible connection between their same death-age was not reported in the public press. Although some relations were occasionally noticed,[5][6] those rather remained a side note. It was not until the death of Kurt Cobain, about two and a half decades after the last occurred, that the first idea of a "27 Club" was spread in the public perception.[3]

According to Hendrix and Cobain biographer Charles R. Cross, the growing importance of the media — internet, television and magazines — and the response to an interview of Cobain's mother were jointly responsible for such theories. An excerpt from a statement that Cobain's mother, Wendy Fradenburg Cobain O'Connor, made in the Aberdeen, Washington newspaper The Daily World — "Now he's gone and joined that stupid club. I told him not to join that stupid club." — referred to Hendrix, Joplin, and Morrison dying at the same age, according to Cross.[7] Other authors share his view.[8]On the other hand, Josh Hunter and Eric Segalstad, writer of The 27s: The Greatest Myth of Rock & Roll, assumed that Cobain's mother referred to the death of his two uncles and his great uncle, who all committed suicide.[9] According to Cross, the events have led a "set of conspiracy theorists [to suggest] the absurd notion that Kurt Cobain intentionally timed his death so he could join the 27 Club".[3]

In 2011, seventeen years after Cobain's death, Amy Winehouse died at the age of 27, and there was a large amount of media attention devoted to the club once again. Three years earlier, she had expressed a fear of dying at that age.[10]

The 27 Club