There’s no reason Rod Stewart — the former Faces frontman who eventually reinvented himself into a cheap, inoffensive Christmas present for moms everywhere — should still be alive, and yet, not only didn’t he die from one of his one million drug incidents in the 1970s, he’s celebrating his 68th birthday today in great health. Happy Birthday, Rod Stewart!
(This is the obligatory passage where we mention that although Stewart’s a boring lounge act at this point, you should check out his first four solo albums, especially 1971’s slinky Every Picture Tells a Story, as well as EVERYTHING by Faces, best known for the understated “Ooh La La,” which was used in Wes Anderson’s Rushmore, but they’re one of rock’s greatest pissed-pants bands. That is all.)
In honor of Stewart, and his rowdy past, here are eight of the most insane musician drug stories throughout the years, including tales that involve butts, animal tranquilizers, and bloody ceilings.
The 67-year-old crooner told Access Hollywood that he and Faces bandmate Ronnie Wood occasionally used cocaine suppositories in the 1970s. They came up with the creative method after snorting so much of the drug it burned a hole through Wood’s septum. Stewart was discussing the good times as part of publicity rounds for his new book, Rod: The Autobiography. (Via)
About the time Ted Nugent dodged the draft:
See, I approached the whole thing like, Ted Nugent, cool hard-workin’ dude, is gonna wreak havoc on these imbeciles in the armed forces. I’m gonna play their own game, and I’m gonna destroy ‘em. Now my whole body is crusted in poop and piss. I was ill. And three or four days before, I started stayin’ awake. I was close to death, but I was in control. I was extremely antidrug as I’ve always been, but I snorted some crystal methedrine. Talk about one wounded motherf*cker. A guy put up four lines, and it was for all four of us, but I didn’t know and I’m vacuuming that poop right up. I was a walking, talking hunk of human poop. I was six-foot-three of sin. So the guys took me down to the physical, and my nerves, my emotions were distraught. I was not a good person. I was wounded. But as painful and nauseous as it was – ‘cause I was really into bein’ clean and on the ball – I made gutter swine hippies look like football players. (Via)
Besides writing and recording music, [the Stooges] were injecting massive amounts of drugs, mostly heroin. When setting up a hit, the Stooges would squirt the blood out of their syringes and shoot it all over the walls and ceilings. After a while, enough blood had accumulated on the apartment’s walls to create a sort-of degraded smack addict’s Jackson Pollock mural. Ron Asheton, the only Stooge member who was not a junkie and who lived elsewhere, described it: “A lot of times there would be fresh stuff. Then it would dry on to the table or on the floor…I wish I was smart enough to take pictures of it because it would have been a masterpiece.” (Via)
As told by Nikki Sixx, who makes an appearance for himself later:
I handed (Ozzy) the straw, and he walked over to a crack in the sidewalk and bent over it. I saw a long column of ants, marching to a little sand dugout built where the pavement met the dirt. And as I thought, “No, he wouldn’t,” he did. He put the straw to his nose and, with his bare white ass peeking out from under the dress like a sliced honeydew, sent the entire line of ants tickling up his nose with a single, monstrous snort.
He stood up, reared back his head, and concluded with a powerful right nostriled sniff that probably sent a stray ant or two dripping down his throat. Then he hiked up his sundress, grabbed his d*ck, and pissed on the pavement. Without even looking at his growing audience — everyone on the tour was watching him while the old women and families on the pool deck were pretending not to — he knelt down and, getting the dress soggy in the puddle, lapped it up. He didn’t just flick it with his tongue, he took a half-dozen long, lingering, and thorough strokes, like a cat. Then he stood up, and, eyes blazing and mouth wet with urine, looked straight at me. “Do that Sixx!” (Via)
During a 1973 performance at the Cow Palace, Moon passed out several times on stage while playing “Won’t Get Fooled Again.” He had taken a dose of [15] horse tranquilizers and chased them with brandy. A young drummer named Scot Halpin got on stage to finish Moon’s performance for him. (Via)
Sixx’s totally reasonable reaction to an earthquake:
“Oh my God – as soon as I got the rock and hit the pipe I thought my heart was gonna jump outta my chest. The whole house started shaking, rolling and sh*t was falling off the walls. It threw me on the ground and I realized we were having a f*cking earthquake…I didn’t know what to do so I ran outside, pipe in hand, and the door locked itself behind me. I was naked and had to run around the back of my house and break the window to get in. Then the alarm went off, and security company called. Days like this I with I didn’t get out of bed…” (Via)
In comments published Tuesday, the 63-year-old Rolling Stones guitarist said he had snorted his father’s ashes mixed with cocaine.
“The strangest thing I’ve tried to snort? My father. I snorted my father,” Richards was quoted as saying by British music magazine NME.
“He was cremated, and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. My dad wouldn’t have cared,” he said, adding that “it went down pretty well, and I’m still alive.” (Via)
