Non-stop partying… drugs… booze… sex… property damage… lavish spending… self destruction.
I’m thinking Keith Moon.
Got it in one.
Moon, quite obviously.
Before I got to the end of the OP’s question I came to the exact same conclusion.
Moonie is definitely the poster boy for Rock ‘n’ Roll excess, but Harry Nilsson was no slouch either. Here they are enjoying a night on the town.
Jim Morrison
Nikki Sixx
Janis Joplin
Jimmy Page. Includes whips and underage girls.
That was my first thought, too - especially the “fish incident”. Still, Keith Moon is a hard guy to beat in the hedonism department.
Hmmm. Time for a Keith-off?
I suppose we could say he would be the standardbearer for the “second generation” of wild rockers.
But from the earlier wave, Moon set the bar way high.
Hmmm… yes, I do suppose the underage loveslave provides some serious extra cred here.
Damn that *was *quite the different time, wasn’t it…
Sure.
Whoever is still alive is the loser due to weak commitment.
I was going to say this. Keith Richards has reached the ripe old age of 71 and the worst thing that has happened to him was he fell out of a tree and hit his head.
Two words: Club 27.
Ron “Pigpen” McKernan of the Grateful Dead drank and debauched himself to death by the age of 27. He was a keyboardist.
Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil down at the crossroads.
Some of what Moon did seems to be an act. A kind of “Well I’m Keith fucking Moon aren’t I? This is how I’m supposed to act.” Not all, but some. Whereas I think John Belushi was just John Belushi. Belushi also gets points for living a rock and roll lifestyle when he wasn’t really a musician. Despite the Blues Brothers stuff.
I guess I’d still give the top spot to Moon. Moon’s death is puzzling. he took 32 tablets of a sedative when he was told not to take more than three in one day. There’s thinking you’re invulnerable but that’s beyond the pale.
I remember Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me having a question about that incident (or shortly thereafter)…
“When Keith Richards dies, if, indeed, he can die…”
Obviously Justin Bieber.
I would nominate Robert Johnson, founding member of the “27 Club” who - although technically an R & B star - helped pioneer the rock & roll form, and definitely was the archetype of the classic rock star - guitarist, bragged about “selling his soul to the devil at the cross-roads at midnight”, cheap sex, hard liquor & dope, fast living…and checking out, un-repentantly, at age 27. Everyone since him is an imitation in some way or another.
I remembered a scene from The Decline of Western Civilization: The Metal Years with a guy in a pool drinking vodka while being interviewed… That guy was nuts.
YouTube link. The scene I was talking about starts at about 1:40.