Just a couple of days ago, the world of Rock woke up to the news of the death of Wayne Static, the American musician best known for having been the frontman and guitarist of the Metal Industrial band Static-X. At the time of writing this column, no further details have been revealed about the reasons for his death, but sources close to the musician point to possible drug abuse. And although the death of Static It was a totally unexpected shock, the probable relationship between his departure and drugs is far from surprising. After all, our collective psyche indicates that dying from a drug overdose is an occupational hazard associated with being a rockstar and completely acceptable. Electricians die electrocuted, Formula 1 racers amid flames and twisted irons, rockstars die of drugs - that's the way the world works.
The list of musicians and rock stars who have found the end of their days thanks to substance abuse is endless. Drugs have led to the greatest legends, such as Elvis, Hendrix, and Janis Joplin. Drugs have left incredibly difficult gaps in bands like The Stooges, Sex Pistols, Thin Lizzy, The Grateful Dead, Def Leppard, Hole, Blind Melon, The Smashing Pumpkins, Alice in Chains, The Ramones, Quiet Riot, Slipknot, Weezer, War and many more. Damn, the drugs took almost half of The who.
And yet perhaps they are a totally necessary evil. Since the dawn of rock, countless musicians have used substances to "expand your mind”–A very fashionable term in the sixties- leaning on them as an assistant in the creation of some of his best works. Take for example the Beatles; The history of Liverpool quartet it is irreparably associated with drugs, from the Phenmetrazine that they used to take in their boy-band days, to the marijuana that Bob Dylan He introduced them to even the psychotropic substances of the sixties. Does anyone conceive of the birth of seminal works as "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ” or his self-titled album - known as the "White album"- without substance use?
But the creative association between drugs and rock is not limited to any era or genre and is not exclusive to those decades -60s and 70s- in which everyone took them. In the eighties practically all hair metal bands lived on the diet of Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll. The first examples that come to mind are -of course- Guns n 'Roses and Mötley Crüe. As for the guns and Roses, it is unthinkable to conceive of creating the best album of his career, the “Appetite for destruction ”, without the legendary substance and alcohol abuse surrounding the band - just listen to tracks like "Mr. Brownstone ” and Welcome to the jungle to realize the importance that drugs had at the time of composing the album. And it is not at all risky to suppose that much of the success of Mötley Crüe it has to do with their image of hedonists addicted to alcohol and drugs. Even one of his biggest hits -Kickstart My Heart- is based on the friction that Nikki Sixxx had with death after a heroin overdose.
In the 90s, of course, there is Nirvana, the band that caused a revolution in the music industry and became the banner of a lost generation. The drugs were carried Kurt Cobain –Well, technically it was the shotgun that took him, but drugs played a fundamental role in his death- but they left in exchange records that laid the foundations for the resurgence of alternative rock around the world. Drugs were also carried Hillel Slovak of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and they have been on the verge of destroying the band in countless occasions. But through them, Anthony Kiedis and John frusciante They have found their voice and have given life to works in which love, melancholy, frustration, fury and endless emotions coexist in beautiful songs like "Under the Bridge", which speaks of the loneliness, isolation and suffering that it caused in Kiedis your heroin addiction.
And it is by rereading the last lines that this columnist has begun to realize that perhaps, after all, it is not drugs that fuel the creativity of rock musicians: It is suffering. It is the demons of sadness and depression, and lack of empathy, that terrible feeling of isolation that makes you feel misunderstood, only in a sea of people, which accumulate inside and find an escape route in art. . Perhaps a tormented psyche is an indispensable element of creative genius ... and drugs are associated with it.
"Art cannot exist without pain, art exists in order to deal with grief" Explain Till Lindemann, vocalist and lyricist of Rammstein. Perhaps this is why rock and drugs are so hopelessly linked, because both are escape routes to existential emptiness and pain. Through pain and suffering, great artists and musicians give birth to immortal works that in turn serve as an escape and emotional refuge for millions of people around the world, who identify with these works, and who reflect their own fears, frustrations and pain in them.
Through pain and suffering, great artists and musicians give birth to immortal works ... and sometimes, in the process, they end up losing their lives. Rest in peace, all of them.
