Absolutely Insane Things Musicians Did While Under The Influence Of Drugs And Alcohol
Drugs have (and probably always will) play a major role in the music industry. While not everyone takes a liking to them like some do, there's no denying that some of the craziest stories in the music world have come about from partying. Whether it's Keith Moon passing out cold mid-song or Iggy Pop fighting an entire biker gang in the middle of his performance, these are some of the craziest things musicians have done while under the influence.
Scott Weiland Wore A Disguise To Buy Heroin
Scott Weiland, the frontman of the famous rock group Stone Temple Pilots was no sober Sally. He was known for his rather impressive drug consumption after he began to use heroin in 1994 with Gibby Hanes of the Butthole Surfers. In 1995, he was arrested while buying crack cocaine and spent time in jail. After his release and while still on probation, he moved into an apartment with Courtney Love. Unsurprisingly, the two began to heavily abuse drugs together. It was during this time that Weiland was arrested again for attempting to buy heroin while dressed up like a pimp to disguise himself. After his release, he continued to be arrested on and off again with stints of rehab here and there.
Moon Was Out Like A Light
Kieth Moon, the drummer for The Who will go down in rock and roll history as one of the hardest partiers to ever walk the Earth. His pranks and drunken antics are nothing short of legendary although they eventually caught up to him. However, one incident that stands out was at a 1973 show in San Francisco, California. Before the show, Moon was up to his usual ritual of drowning in alcohol and popping pills when he took a handful of horse tranquilizers. This caused him to pass out cold on his drums in the middle of the show. The band did everything to try and wake him with no luck. The ended up dragging him off stage and let a 19-year-old teenager come play the drums for the rest of the set.
Slash Briefly Lost His Mind
The lead guitarist for rock and roll band Guns N' Roses has been sober for some time now. However, that certainly wasn't always the case. He was well-known for his drug abuse, spending full paychecks on heroin and cocaine. However, he gave it all up after a near-death experience in his mid-30s. One time in the 1990s, Slash took too many drugs at an Arizona Golf Resort. While high, Slash had become convinced that he was being chased by a monster that looked like the creature from Predator. He ended up running around the entire resort completely naked smashing a glass door in the process and using a maid as a shield from the imaginary creature.
Rick James Took A Hostage
It was no secret that Rick James was dealing with a severe drug problem in the 1990s, but nobody knew how bad it really was until the unthinkable happened. In 1992, James and his 21-year-old girlfriend were arrested and accused of holding a woman hostage for a week. While in the middle of a drug-fueled bender, the two bound her, forced her to perform sexual acts, and severely burned her numerous times with a hot crack pipe. While on probation a year later, he did the same thing to a female music executive and went to prison for two years. He then lost $2 million in a civil lawsuit involving the case.
Ozzy Osbourne Was Banned From Texas
Although Ozzy Osbourne probably has the most party stories of any rock star, one, in particular, is usually brought up concerning the law. In 1982, while wearing his wife's dress, Osbourne was stumbling around blackout drunk in San Antonio, Texas. While walking around, he decided that it was time to go to the bathroom. So, he leaned up against a wall and relieved himself. As it turns out, what he was peeing on was the memorial for those who had died at the Alamo, and he was peeing right in front of a police officer. He was arrested immediately, and thrown in jail. After he was released, he learned that he was banned from Texas for an entire decade.
Keith Richards Snorted His Father's Ashes
Guitarist for the Rolling Stones, Keith Richards, is another musician who has set the bar for what it means to party. He has some of the craziest stories out there and most of them will never be topped. There are also stories floating around that have been embellished by fans but are somehow still believable. One story that is true, however, is that he snorted his father's ashes. After his father's cremation, he proceeded to mix the ashes with his cocaine and snort them up his nose. We're not sure why he did that but at least he mentioned that his dad wouldn't mind.
Iggy Pop Isn't Afraid of Bikers
Iggy Pop, also known as "Godfather of Punk Rock" and "The Lizard Man," was as wild as could be. He was known for lathering himself in peanut butter onstage, throwing up on his audience, mutilating himself with glass, overdosing on heroin — and the list goes on and on. However in 1977, at one show at the Palladium in New York, Iggy was in a particularly volatile mood. When a biker gang kept haggling him to play "Loui Loui", Iggy gave them what they wanted. He played a 45-minute version of "Loui Loui," except he changed all of the words to insults directed at the bikers. He ended the song by jumping into the crowd to fight them all at once. He ended up getting a pretty good beating.
Nikki Sixx Died and Came Back
While playing bass for Motley Crue, Nikki Sixx had quite the infatuation with heroin. So much in fact, that in 1987, he shot up so much that he overdosed and was declared dead for a whole two minutes. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital where two paramedics gave him two adrenaline shots and managed to revive him. After reaching the hospital, Sixx quickly escaped so he wouldn't be arrested. He scored a ride with some Motley Crue fans back home where he proceeded to do more heroin. Motley Crue's song "Kickstart My Heart" was inspired by Sixx's experience.
Neil Young's "Travelling Booger Matte"
Surprisingly, Neil Young never managed to earn a reputation as being a hard drug advocate. Although he still was around a lot of drugs and did his fair share, it wasn't one of the main things that he was associated with. However, there was an incident when he appeared on the Band's concert film The Last Waltz in 1976. Here, he was snorting cocaine backstage right before his performance of "Helpless," and he ended up having a giant rock of cocaine stuck in his nostril. Neil's manager saw this and had the special effects people create what is known as the "traveling booger matte" to hide the drug from the camera. Definitely a close call for Young and his manager.
Syd Barrett Lost His Mind
In the earlier years of Pink Floyd, some consider Syd Barrett to have been the captain of the ship. He was writing a majority of the songs while also helping to spearhead the psychedelic scene. However, after some time, his relationship with drugs eventually brought about a psychological collapse. Still, an active member of the band, if he ever showed up to shows, he would just stare blankly at the crowd and play and pluck a single string. His mental state had gotten so bad from the drugs, that the last song he wrote for Floyd the band couldn't even play because it was impossible to learn.
Zakk Wylde
Black Label Society guitarist Zakk Wylde had his life saved by partying as hard as he could...sort of. In 2009, Wylde was hospitalized when it was discovered that he had three blood clots in his leg. He's suffered from these clots for years, with the biggest ones traveling from his leg, through his heart, and into his lung, yet he survived. As it turns out, his crazy alcohol intake kept his blood thin enough that the clots managed to pass through without any damage.
Sid Vicious Killed His Girlfriend
Sid Barrett was deep in a heroin addiction when he woke up in 1978 to find his girlfriend Nancy Spungen stabbed to death in the bathroom of the Hotel Chelsea. Vicious had no recollection of the night before, but it was discovered that his knife had gone missing which other's saw him playing with the night before the stabbing. He was charged with murder and ended up giving conflicting stories because he couldn't clearly remember what had happened. He was arrested but not taken into custody and later attempted suicide but failed. Then, in February 1979, he overdosed on his mother's heroin and she spread his ashes over Spungen's grave.
Ol' Dirty Bastard Forced His Son To Watch Him Do Drugs
In 1993, rapper Ol' Dirty Bastard came into the music scene after his appearance on the Wu-Tang Clan's debut album Enter the Wu-Tang. It was clear that his artistry was a combination of both insanity and drug use as seen throughout his small discography of only two solo albums. However, Ol' Dirty Bastard's lifestyle was a little too crazy and he was arrested nine times between 1987 and 1999 for charges ranging from larceny to first-degree murder — all fueled while under the influence of drugs. He also had seven children and was so high on drugs at the time, that he forced one of his sons to watch him do drugs. He died of an overdose in 2004.
Cris Kirkwood Got Shot
Cris Kirkwood, along with his brother Curt, founded the punk band Meat Puppets in the 1980s. As the success of the band grew and the years passed, Cris Kirkwood developed a terrible heroin addiction, even losing his wife to an overdose in 1998. Then, in 2003, while still battling with his addiction, Cris got into an argument over a parking spot with a woman at a post office in Phoenix Arizona. The fight escalated and he got into a physical altercation with the woman which resulted in him getting shot in the back. After he recovered, he spent 21 months in prison and has since been over 10 years clean and sober.
Britney Spears Became Unhinged
There's no doubt that for a minute, it looked like Britney Spears' career was completely over. After she publicly shaved her head and smashed a paparazzi's car with an umbrella, it didn't seem like there was any way that she could recover from that. However, it was discovered that she was on drugs after ending up in the hospital during a routine turnover of her sons to her ex-husband's representatives. This answered everyone's suspicions about Spears' use of drugs which helped to explain her increasingly erratic behavior. Since the incidents, she's managed to make quite the comeback and salvage her career.
James Brown Pulled Out A Gun
Early on in his music career, James Brown stayed away from drugs for the most part. He even insisted that his own musicians remain drug-free, which wasn't the most accepted philosophy among his band. However, by the 1980s, James Brown had become accustomed to using PCP which made him erratic and led him to be arrested on more than one occasion. One of his craziest freakouts, however, was when he pulled a shotgun out of rage on a man that used the toilet in his office. He then took off in his car which resulted in a police chase and he was arrested for driving under the influence possession, assaulting a police officer and carrying an unlicensed gun. He was sentenced to six years in jail but was released in three.
Izzy Stradlin Was In A Coma for 96 Hours
It's no wonder why the member's of Guns N' Roses have gone down as some of the hardest partiers in rock and roll history. From Axl Roses alcohol-fueled temper to Slash's crippling heroin addiction, all of the band loved to party a little too much. However, before arriving in Japan for a tour, the Guns N' Roses manager at the time ordered the band to get rid off all their drugs and contraband before entering the country. So, rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin took it upon himself to save the band's stash and swallowed all of it. Unfortunately, his plan backfired, and he ended up in a coma for 96 hours. Although he survived, he was lucky to be alive.
DMX Claimed To Be An FBI Agent
Rapper DMX developed a serious drug addiction after rising to fame in 1998. In the decade following his rise in popularity, he had been charged with crimes ranging from unlawful imprisonment, aggravated assault, and more. However, in 2004, DMX set the bar for his antics under the influence when he tried to steal a strangers car by claiming that he was an FBI agent. Although many thought that it was maybe his early career as an action star getting to his head, the 15 to 20 rocks of crack cocaine and countless other pills that were found on him said otherwise.
Courtney Love Exposed Herself
Although Courtney Love had already had her fair share of troubles with drugs, losing her husband Kurt Cobain and bassist from her band Hole both to heroin addiction, the early 2000s had its own set of problems. In 2004, she appeared on Late Show with David Letterman where she jumped on the stage and showed him her breasts and also continued to be unresponsive for the rest of the interview. A month later, a photo emerged of a random man licking her exposed breasts once again in public. She continued on with these wild antics and even threw a mic stand at her audience where she was charged with reckless endangerment and third-degree assault.
David Crosby Had a Gun
Although David Crosby managed to make it through the 1960s without burning out entirely or dying from drug abuse, he carried his liking for drugs well into the 1980s. In 1982, he went to prison for nine months due to possession of cocaine and heroin which didn't phase him all that much. He was arrested again in 1985, while on probation for a DUI where he was discovered to have cocaine and a gun on him. When asked why he had a loaded gun, he responded saying that it was his response to the murder of John Lennon by a crazed fan.
