Drugs in music

[chris_b]

Apart from Statins, these days I don't know anyone who takes drugs. That wasn't always the case.

 

Rock was all about excess and if you did it properly it was fun, although many didn't know when enough was enough and some died as a result, the 27 Club for example. The sensible ones just got high and didn't overdo it. I only ever saw one guy on hard drugs, an American keys player in my first pro band. We arrived in Amsterdam and he managed to find someone selling coke before the rest of us had even got out of the van!!

 

The secret was to have a good time on joints and beer.

[80Hz]

I'm aware of a couple of folks in a band who have integrated psychedelics into their creative process. But the thing is, they're all talented players who are committed to experimentation. Better music isn't the emergent outcome - I don't think the mushrooms make them magically better players! But perhaps it opens up certain avenues of thought that otherwise might be elusive.

 

My friends found that it wasn't so much the trip itself, but the reflection afterwards where any creatively potent insights took place.

 

Now as for me, I need to be fully in control of my faculties to play even at the best of times, so we can't have anything which interferes with the synapses. What use is a bass if your hands might refuse to work?

[ra0ulduke]

1 hour ago, Leonard Smalls said:

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...

My story took place in the early 90s. It was a different time. Fortunately, I'm generally less prone to addiction and was never a big fan of drugs. I started experimenting early and stopped just as quickly. I didn't like most of it, and some things I liked too much to make a habit of. By the time I was 20, I was done with drugs. 

Your band sounds like a mix of The Fall and Dead Kennedys. I really like it!

[knirirr]

I'm not surprised to see in this thread that it sounds great at the time to play whilst stoned, but that the recordings tell a different story...
Personally, I would rarely even have alcohol when performing, and certainly nothing else whatsoever, as full concentration is required.
When I was an undergraduate there was plenty of stoned playing around, though. I recall a popular singer who claimed he could never remember the lyrics unless he'd had "a couple of pints and a bucket," which is presumably the condition in which he spent most of his time. A local rehearsal studio was run by a chap who dealt pot as a sideline so there were usually jazz woodbines being passed around. 

[casapete]

5 hours ago, TimR said:

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.

The manager of a band I was in always said that if the booker or audience saw any of us with just one beer, they assumed we were all pis*ed, so we had to limit drinking to non public areas. Problem was that drinks were always free and plentiful so it took some skill to balance the situation, but we managed it. Ironically in the end drink and drugs led to the downfall of the band though, which was a shame. The next band I joined had a zero tolerance to drinking before a gig, and was all the better for it. 

[Owen]

I suspect that the broad glamourisation of drugs in music is down to journalists making things more fabulous than they are. "Ooh look at then being naughty, they are getting away with it and are epically cool. I wish that was me".

 

Ask anyone who has experience of heroin (other drugs are available) addiction either personally or within their family, and I can guarantee they will not be saying "yeah, but the songs made it all worth it".  Have some people produced interesting stuff while using drugs? Yes. Would they produce interesting stuff anyway? More than likely, this was just a different flavour of whatever would be. We only read about the tiny percentage of people who have "done the thing" and " produce the thing". The rest of the people who have "done the thing" and produced "not the thing" are not eulogised by those who write about it - the tastemakers/gatekeepers.  

[Gank Bass]

They're too f*cking expensive like everything else 😉

[Jackroadkill]

1 hour ago, Owen said:

Ask anyone who has experience of heroin (other drugs are available) addiction either personally or within their family, and I can guarantee they will not be saying "yeah, but the songs made it all worth it". 

 

Very true; the best guitarist I've ever known was a (mostly) functioning smack addict and he ruined every opportunity he ever had, burned through a fabulous collection of vintage guitars and ended up living in his parents' shed at the age of 40 due to his addiction.  He finally went clean in about 2000, I'm glad to say, and has had a much better time of it since then.  Where his talent could have taken him I don't know, but I do know exactly where heroin took him.

[prowla]

2 hours ago, casapete said:

The manager of a band I was in always said that if the booker or audience saw any of us with just one beer, they assumed we were all pis*ed, so we had to limit drinking to non public areas. Problem was that drinks were always free and plentiful so it took some skill to balance the situation, but we managed it. Ironically in the end drink and drugs led to the downfall of the band though, which was a shame. The next band I joined had a zero tolerance to drinking before a gig, and was all the better for it. 

I had a 1 beer rule and stuck to it.

I've been speculatively pulled over by the police on a couple of occasions and just told them that I'd had one (at the start of the evening), breathalysed to confirm it, and thanked them for their work in trying to keep the roads safe.

[Mykesbass]

Drugs and Creativity: Fact or Fiction? | NeurologyLive - Clinical Neurology News and Neurology Expert Insights https://share.google/FZ5gOTghyRnJUwjq6

[TheLowDown]

I've never had any interest in drugs even when young. I don't even have a paracetamol on the rare occasion when I've had a headache. And I don't think that any drugs enhance creativity in any way. They did some research recently which largely threw water on the myth.

The hardest drug I take is 80%+ sugar-free dark chocolate.

 

 

[tauzero]

When I was younger, I did smoke some dope - I never mixed it with playing though. I also used to drink rather more than I do now, and I don't think that did anything positive for my playing.

 

Nowadays, when gigging, I have either zero or one pint, and on open mics I'll have two pints (in context, this is over a 4 hour period).

[TimR]

I suspect alcohol causes by far the most issues in bands. 

 

Whether that's from the players or the audience.

 

I started to list the gigs that have gone wrong due to alcohol but gave up, suffice it to say: keep your wits about you at gigs where there are a large number of 40 something women. 

[casapete]

9 hours ago, TimR said:

I suspect alcohol causes by far the most issues in bands. 

 

Whether that's from the players or the audience.

 

I started to list the gigs that have gone wrong due to alcohol but gave up, suffice it to say: keep your wits about you at gigs where there are a large number of 40 something women. 

I agree. The irony is though that most of the gigs I’ve ever done have been funded by the sale of alcohol. Without people paying for booze I probably would have followed a different career path. I’ve seen many colleagues fail, and lost a couple of friends due to it too and yet somehow managed to stay mainly on the straight and narrow myself. Had a few times when I’ve deviated but nothing serious, and I know I can’t play well when I’ve had more than a couple of drinks. 

[tegs07]

9 hours ago, TimR said:

I suspect alcohol causes by far the most issues in society . 

FTFY

 

As for drugs and creativity. Maybe very creative people are frequently struggling with various demons that drive their creativity and make them more susceptible to self medication? Being very organised with a good routine, fitness schedule, healthy lifestyle with a good diet and early nights I am sure helps with mental health and physical well being. It might not lead to a life filled with experiences and song writing opportunities.

 

[Misdee]

On 04/01/2026 at 21:25, SteveXFR said:

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? 

The biggest difference as the decades have passed is that drugs that were once prevalent in the music business to some extent or another are now widely available in society at large, and are commonly used by people in just about every walk of life, but particularly by people from lower social classes. The experience has been democratised.

 

There are far more street drugs available on Britain's sink estates in 2026 than there ever was in the music business in any era. Drugs like cocaine that were quite elitist as recently as the 1980's/early1990's are widely available in Britain nowadays. Opiates the same. How musicians use drugs has become far less of a totemic issue because the rest of society has superceded them and established its own drug culture. No one is looking to musicians for an example of whether to use drugs or which drugs to take. Rather, musicians who use drugs are  merely an analog of wider society nowadays.

Edited yesterday at 19:40 by Misdee

[BigRedX]

Hence the proliferation of "Straight Edge" bands. It's now more "radical" not to use drugs.

[Stub Mandrel]

I think they key thing with psychedelics is that, broadly speaking, people's experiences with them inspired their creativity. That didn't mean they were tripping when they were recording (with some notable exceptions).

 

Me, I follow the one beer rule now, which also means I've pretty much metabolised it by the end of the gig and certainly by the time we're packed up.

[Supernaut]

Unrehearsed? No warm-up? Lots of drugs? Led Zep Live Aid '85! 

[SteveXFR]

I remember seeing Kyuss live and Brant Bjork was quite obviously on some strong psychedelics, he was on another planet. His playing was absolutely solid although he did over play a few songs.

Ive also seen Sleep when Al Cisneros was obviously tripping and Matt was stoned but I think thats normal for them and it kind of worked but they went of on some pretty wild jams. I think most of the audience was high as well.

[Jackroadkill]

19 minutes ago, SteveXFR said:

I remember seeing Kyuss live

 

I'd give my right ball to see Kyuss.

[casapete]

I saw the Eagles on their ‘Hotel California’ tour in 1977 at Stafford Bingley Hall. I’m not sure who was more out of it, most of the band or the audience. The smell of dope was prominent all night. Didn’t stop it from being an amazing gig though ( and that’s from someone who was not partaking due to being the nominated driver).

[Misdee]

8 hours ago, Jackroadkill said:

 

I'd give my right ball to see Kyuss.

I know a doctor in Turkey who could probably arrange that swap for you.

[Cato]

22 minutes ago, casapete said:

I saw the Eagles on their ‘Hotel California’ tour in 1977 at Stafford Bingley Hall. I’m not sure who was more out of it, most of the band or the audience. The smell of dope was prominent all night. Didn’t stop it from being an amazing gig though ( and that’s from someone who was not partaking due to being the nominated driver).

 

 

I saw the Eagles in , I think, 2001 at the NIA in Birmingham when presumably they were sober and it was one of the most disapointing/boring big name gigs I've ever bean to.

 

They weren't playing badly by any means,  they just gave impression of being bored and just going through the motions.

 

I diid find out later in one of those bbc4 documentaries that some members of the band were barely speaking to each other during that that European tour so possibly that was the problem rather than the sobreity.

Edited 15 hours ago by Cato

[SteveXFR]

9 hours ago, Jackroadkill said:

 

I'd give my right ball to see Kyuss.

 

Sadly it'll never happen again. Josh and the rest of the band don't get on. I was lucky enough to see Kyuss, Kyuss Lives and Vista Chino and all were incredible.