Musicians We Can't Believe Are Still Alive and Performing
The indestructibles...
During a period spanning many decades, rock and roll has established itself as the music of young ne'er-do-wells, people who wanted to live fast and die young. The lyric "Hope I die before I get old" from the Who's "My Generation" lets you know that this is the music of youth, and it's better to die as a spectacular disaster than to live a long life of mortgage payments, jury duty summons, and routine colonoscopies.
While many legendary musicians made good on the pledge and never saw their 30th birthdays, others had some real Energizer bunny DNA and have inexplicably remained alive to this day despite engaging in behavior that should have landed them in the obituaries decades ago. Here are a few who have defied the odds, medicine, and logic and keep going. And going. And going.
Keith Richards
Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards was the subject of numerous heroin busts during the 1960s and 1970s. He said he stopped using the drug after getting busted in Toronto in 1977, but despite kicking the habit, the public perception of him as a mumbling, stumbling junkie never went away. Indeed, many people may be unable to believe he's still alive simply because they don't know he stopped using the drug, or they don't believe him.
Ozzy Osbourne
Heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne has taken almost every drug you can imagine in massive quantities since the 1960s, and he also struggled mightily with the bottle to boot. He also had to be treated for rabies after biting the head off of a bat during a 1982 concert, he became addicted to painkillers in the 2000s, and was nearly killed in an ATV accident around the same time. If you can explain how he's still alive, we're all ears.
Iggy Pop
The lead singer for the Stooges was a heroin addict by the time he was 22, which should have put him on the express lane to extinction then and there. He would also roll around shirtless on broken glass during performances and perform various acts of self-mutilation. Since he just turned 76 in April 2023, maybe all that stuff is keeping him alive?
Alice Cooper
Alice Cooper had a severe problem with alcohol during the 1970s, but he was able to psychologically compartmentalize it enough to convince himself he didn't have a problem. He had privately been throwing up blood every morning, but once, his wife saw it and rightly became horrified, and she and Cooper's manager took him for inpatient treatment at Cornell Medical Center. He was able to stop drinking in 1983 and has been sober ever since. Now he plays a lot of golf.
Steven Tyler
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler was one half of what the band called ‘The Toxic Twins’ (more on the other half in a minute). During the band’s 1970s heyday, Tyler’s substance abuse was often described using such adjectives as “rampant” and “unchecked,” and he was spending $2,000 a week on heroin, cocaine, and alcohol. He eventually got clean and survived all that, but it was really by the skin of his teeth.
Joe Perry
Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry was the other 50% of The Toxic Twins,' and he had a particular fondness for cocaine. He also did all the other drugs, but his greatest weakness was disco dust. According to Steven Tyler, Perry hired a roadie whose entire job was to stand by the side of the stage and feed the guitarist cocaine every time he came over, which was many times a night.
Jimmy Page
Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page had indulged in drugs and alcohol in the earlier years of the band’s career, but by the late 1970s, he had become addicted to heroin, and it affected his guitar playing. There's concert footage of him looking shockingly gaunt and trying to get through a performance in which it seems like he's literally about to drop dead onstage then and there. But he didn’t, and he’s still here today, somehow.
Eric Clapton
In the early 1970s, guitarist Eric Clapton became addicted to heroin and took a few years to kick the habit. Unfortunately, he transferred the addiction from heroin to alcohol, which turned into such a huge problem that he checked himself into treatment, drinking copious amounts of liquor on the flight. In his memoir, he described it as the lowest moment of his life and said he didn't kill himself because he wouldn't be able to keep drinking if he were dead.
Ace Frehley
Original KISS lead guitarist Ace Frehley never shied away from substance use, putting him at odds with other band members, specifically the famously teetotaling Gene Simmons. He only successfully quit drinking in the last 20 years, but during the time leading up to that, he absolutely should have died when he drank an entire bottle of perfume in one mighty chug. That stuff has a high alcohol content, so he wasn't about to complain.
Hank Williams, Jr.
In 1975, country singer Hank Williams Jr. was mountain climbing in Montana when the snow beneath his feet gave way and sent him plummeting 500 feet. His head and face made very sharp contact with the rocks below, and he had to undergo reconstructive surgery 17 times. He had also sustained cognitive damage and took two years to learn how to talk and sing all over again.
This article was produced and syndicated by MediaFeed.
