Drugs in music

[SteveXFR]

In the past, drugs were a big thing in music. I don't want to get in to whether thats good or bad but it certainly influenced the creative process. 

Is that still a thing? Now that bands don't have huge piles of excess cash and they have to treat it as a business rather than a long party, are they being more sensible and sober about it? 

Edited 15 hours ago by SteveXFR

[Lozz196]

I suppose that’s inevitable, less cash means treat it a bit more seriously, or maybe just a case of if they can’t afford ‘em they can’t buy ‘em. I’m sure there will be bands out there that still partake - I’ve seen a good few on the punk scene - but whether or not they do it all the time or just when gigging I couldn’t say. Never been my bag though.

[Boodang]

Well, i can't speak for myself but a friend on mine, his son is in a reasonably successful band (headline the odd small festival) and they hire a small workforce to keep it rolling... engineer, roadies, driver, social media manager.... so these jobs rely on their performances, so they, quite rightly, take it seriously indeed. Compared to the weekend warrior, quite the responsibility. 

[Boodang]

7 minutes ago, Lozz196 said:

I suppose that’s inevitable, less cash means treat it a bit more seriously, or maybe just a case of if they can’t afford ‘em they can’t buy ‘em. I’m sure there will be bands out there that still partake - I’ve seen a good few on the punk scene - but whether or not they do it all the time or just when gigging I couldn’t say. Never been my bag though.

It's interesting that just because you're a musician in a band it's assumed you're into drugs. Most musicians I know are stoned cold sober and it's the audience who are stoned. As you say, not everyone is into it. 

[itu]

What I have seen through the years I'd say that for most the drugs and booze didn't do good. I knew very few that could be stoned and creative but very very few. Most of the users had serious problems after some time. Even the ones who survived hard use, seem to be teetotallers more or less. 

 

This creative thing has some sort of aura in many art circles, although the hardest working successful groups did really much work, ABBA, Beatles, Rolling Stones... The drug use has been, shall I say, glorified like creativity, but are the amounts that big after all? Can you do lots of work if you are stoned all the time, I doubt that. One record is most likely a nice accident, but five or more requires organized work for a long time. 

[Lozz196]

As you say, sometimes it works. I look at clips of bands like Motley Crue back in the 80s when they were drunk/drugged to the eyeballs and they were great. Look at clips since they’ve gotten sober and, well not so good would be diplomacy at work. 

[SteveXFR]

Creativity probably depends a lot on the drug. Maybe mushrooms or LSD could help the creative process while crystal meth or heroin probably won't.

Im no expert on this. I smoked the odd joint in my early twenties and thats the limit of my experience. 

[Mediocre Polymath]

I generally don't subscribe to the idea that substances do anything for creativity or the like, but it's a fact that The Faces in live recordings – with a line of liquor bottles set up on the organ and the band giggling and jeering – were an absolute racous powerhouse, while The Faces in the studio were always a bit underwhelming.

[super al]

I was in a covers band, bit of a vanity project for the singer/guitarist. He liked a lot of the same music as myself and the drummer though...blues, early ZZ Top, Little Feat, Zappa, sometimes punk, reggae and country...a real mixed bag, gigs were few and far between.

 

We'd usually rehearse in his shack/shed home in his parents meadow (they had a garden and beyond that was where he 'lived')

 

Most rehearsal nights were accompanied by a spliff going round the 3 of us, our rehearsals were great! Everything sounded wonderful, we were tight...our actual gigs were proper ramshackle though, I guess we missed the spliff when performing 😄

 

I can't believe we played Salisbury Arts Centre and a similar size venue in Stroud with that band but probably the least organised band I've played with due to the smoke, I remember getting stuck in a loop playing American Idiot cos he couldn't remember the song structure (damn that Green Day for writing complex songs 😄) .. I think I miss a bit of that haziness sometimes 

 

Stay off drugs, kidz!

 

 

Edited 12 hours ago by super al

[AndyTravis]

Found some old cassettes from late 90’s “hazy” jam sessions - we thought it was the peak of finding the new sounds (Maaaahn!)

 

In reality it was a sloppy noodle fest…awful unlistenable turd.

 

🫣

[SteveXFR]

28 minutes ago, AndyTravis said:

Found some old cassettes from late 90’s “hazy” jam sessions - we thought it was the peak of finding the new sounds (Maaaahn!)

 

In reality it was a sloppy noodle fest…awful unlistenable turd.

 

🫣

 

I went to a jam session once where three of the guitarists and a drummer were on cocaine. The noodling was never ending. Solos that went nowhere and drum beats that made no sense in the context of what everyone was playing. It was like YouTube playing taken to the extreme. 

[NancyJohnson]

Over the years been around an awful lot of drugs but never felt the pull of taking anything, so didn't.  Never really felt that whatever these people were taking particularly enhanced playing or performance.

 

Considering my exposure, I'm pretty proud of that, too.  My parents instilled the "drugs = bad" thing from an early age and I've stuck with that.  I've never smoked or even tried smoking.

 

Interestingly, over the last 15 years or so, the musicians in my circle are incredibly clean.  No drugs, no smoking, the odd beer.  I only know of one guy that enjoys weird beers.  That's it.

 

 

 

[prowla]

Me, I just never liked it.

I used to play in a band where the other guys smoked weed; I remember one of them saying "This sounds great!" but it sounded an absolute mess to me.

On my daily walk I chat with some folks who do smoke the stuff; I'm cool with them doing what they want to, but I've no interest in participating.

OTOH, a lot of my favourite music appear to have been written & perfomed under the influence if various substances, so maybe it does enhance the "creative" gene.

It's not for me though.

My vice is coffee and, at this time of the year, mince pies.

I'm also going to pop an ibuprofen for some aches and pains.

Rock-and-roll man!

[kodiakblair]

1 hour ago, AndyTravis said:

Found some old cassettes from late 90’s “hazy” jam sessions - we thought it was the peak of finding the new sounds (Maaaahn!)

 

In reality it was a sloppy noodle fest…awful unlistenable turd.

 

🫣

Aye, that was my thoughts too.

 

Couple of year back some 'singer' from the early 90's got in touch, said he'd found a tape and if convert to MP3 would I like a copy.  Out of politeness I said OK.

 

Wished I hadn't , awful fails to describe how bad it was🤣

 

Crazy thing, by the early 90's I'd a serious alcohol problem. OK my playing on the tape wasn't great, pretty shite, but compared to the hash head guitars and drums it was acceptable 😀

[Bassybert]

1 hour ago, SteveXFR said:

 

I went to a jam session once where three of the guitarists and a drummer were on cocaine. The noodling was never ending. Solos that went nowhere and drum beats that made no sense in the context of what everyone was playing. It was like YouTube playing taken to the extreme. 

There were three guitarists AND they were on coke...

 

I just shuddered thinking of the sheer amount of egocentric fretboard w**kery going on in that room 😁

[Cato]

Personally and with some personal experience I'd say the link between creativity and drugs is mostly nonsense. People with the creative spark have it whether they are taking substances or not.

 

Just because in previous decades a lot of successful and creative bands were known to take drugs it does not mean that that the drugs made them succesful and creative, it's just a classic example of correlation does not equal causation.

 

Although the myth that drugs were responsible for the creativity probably encouraged more musicians to experiment to see if they could unlock some sort of hidden potential.

 

In fact generally when you look more closely at the history of a lot of these bands the excessive lifestyles were far more disruptive than they were positives for the careers concerned and in many cases were directly responsible for bands either breaking up or members being sacked or, in the worst cases, band members not living to make more music.

Edited 48 minutes ago by Cato

[TimR]

Funnily enough I watched an interview of a Bass player by a drummer. Both professional players. The drummer's aim of the series of interviews was to find out what musicians wanted from drummers and various general tips.

 

The bass player pointed out there was a difference between substance use and substance abuse. And that it's a fine line. He'd never seen anyone fired for not having a beer on stage with them, but seen plenty not hired again for just having a single beer. This was the US though and they can have very puritanical views.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by TimR

[Crusoe]

11 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

As you say, sometimes it works. I look at clips of bands like Motley Crue back in the 80s when they were drunk/drugged to the eyeballs and they were great. Look at clips since they’ve gotten sober and, well not so good would be diplomacy at work. 

40 years and the after effects of the drugs probably haven't helped.

[TimR]

3 minutes ago, Crusoe said:

40 years and the after effects of the drugs probably haven't helped.

 

When you're a millionaire sticking it to the man becomes harder to carry off.

[NancyJohnson]

11 hours ago, Lozz196 said:

As you say, sometimes it works. I look at clips of bands like Motley Crue back in the 80s when they were drunk/drugged to the eyeballs and they were great. Look at clips since they’ve gotten sober and, well not so good would be diplomacy at work. 

 

Early Motley were fantastic.  To be honest though, beyond Too Fast For Love they was always going to be going downhill.  

 

A slight spike to proceedings being when Corabi replaced Vince Meal.

[Lozz196]

Vince Meal, love it 🤣

[Mykesbass]

12 hours ago, SteveXFR said:

Creativity probably depends a lot on the drug. Maybe mushrooms or LSD could help the creative process while crystal meth or heroin probably won't.

 

Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Joe Pass, Chet Baker and a whole host of other great Jazz performers would like a word!

[ra0ulduke]

Drugs were important for music. Without them, many things simply wouldn't exist. But this shouldn't be glorified; drugs have caused just as much suffering and misery.

In my first band - I was 15 years old -, rehearsals were basically parties. We drank an unbelievable amount of beer and smoked just as much weed. We often had girls over whom we'd met the night before at a club or a concert and thought we could impress. When I listen to the recordings today (we recorded practically everything), I can only laugh at our youthful stupidity. What we produced in a state of mental derangement was absolute garbage. Nevertheless, we managed to get good enough to play gigs regularly, which kept getting bigger. For a while, we were even relatively successful. Then two things happened that have shaped my opinion about sobriety in a band to this day.

1. We got so incredibly drunk before a big gig that it was a complete embarrassment. We kept messing up and had to restart songs. Between songs, I told stories that I thought were hilarious and clever at the time. They weren't. When I listened to the recording the next day, I was deeply ashamed.

2. One of the band members became increasingly addicted to cocaine and showed the usual symptoms. He told everyone that he was the "star" and we were just his backing band. When we found out, we fired him. That was the end of the band. Funny fact: He's a doctor now.

Since then, I've never drunk more than a small beer before a gig. Excessive alcohol or even drug use is out of the question for me in a band. Not only because you can't get anything done, but also because I don't want those kinds of people around me.
 

[Leonard Smalls]

31 minutes ago, ra0ulduke said:

We got so incredibly drunk before a big gig that it was a complete embarrassment

Back in the early 90s we thought that in order to impress a number of scouts (that's record company ones, not boys in shorts) we'd need to be uninhibited and exciting on stage. Which of course meant about 6 pints and a noseful of coke each.

We played abysmally... We never saw any scouts again!

But saying that, in the same band we'd always have some weed at rehearsals and gigs (actually, weed wasn't that available - it tended to be more of the soapbar solid variety which meant it wasn't usually very strong compared to the skunk available nowadays!). And we played well - our live recording in our living room still sounds OK now! (If you want a laugh! )

However, I have a max of 1 beer (*) before playing now, and haven't smoked any dope in decades!

 

*that's often due to driving though - recent gig in Chester saw at least 2 pints and a good glug of tequila before playing as the hotel was only 100m away! No decent cock-ups either...

[Lozz196]

Yep, back in the late 80s my then band were recorded for an ITV show. The footage of the other band that played that night went out, ours didn`t. When I saw it I realised why. We were dreadful, those "pints that made us play better" really let us down that night.