His mother had lost her family in the Concentration Camps, he said he couldn’t hurt her with substance abuse. If there was ever a good enough reason, that would be one of the best.
He still had the womanizing, though.
Randy Bachman of The Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive (“Takin’ Care of Business”) is a Mormon and supposedly doesn’t touch the stuff. I can’t say if he never tried anything. Burton Cummings, the singer for The Guess Who, was the opposite.
I’m pretty sure I read it in Rolling Stone. It was quite a few years ago.
He recently appeared in a series on the History Channel, and did a very good job. Apparently he’s a big history buff, and one of his favorite places was in Washington DC, near the 9:30 Club, where Black Flag et al played a lot of gigs.
I was always under the impression that the guys in Rush were pretty low-key when it came to drugs. They drink alcohol and I’m assuming smoke weed on occasion but nothing harder.
Linda Ronstadt said in her bio that she tried cocaine twice and got sick both times. She said that she never tried it again. Otherwise AFAIK her long career was drug free.
Her bio is a great read. She was the classic musician that played because she loved and lived through music. She’d go to parties and corner people to find out how to play one of their songs. Learn one of their licks. Otherwise the party scene bored her.
Linda Ronstadt was popularly rumored to have had plastic surgery to repair her septum more than once owing to cocaine usage. YMMV.
Henry Rollins is a blow hard. I met him several times during his Black Flag days. Including once when I interviewed him for a collage radio station. There were a group of us, and we smuggled in about a case of beer. None of black flag, including Henry partook. He’s got a great sized ego, but I don’t know of anyone that counters his straight edge claim and that he doesn’t do booze or drugs. FWIW, at least when I spent time with him, he wasn’t a cooze hound.
I thought that was Stevie Nicks.
Back in college, I interviewed the Ramones for the local university newspaper.
Joey Ramone claimed they didn’t use drugs or alcohol, and were against both. Now, this was the pre-internet era, so finding something to discredit this was not easy…
But since Dee Dee Ramone eventually died of a heroin overdose, and was in the band from the beginning, we know that at least one of the guys was using. (Then again, having an addict in the band could make one against abuse.)
That said, I can see Joey not putting up with a lot of shit. They were *really *regimented in their stage shows.
I’ve heard from people who have worked his shows that he looks at what catering offers, says “Can’t have that” repeatedly, and only takes the bottled water.
Dee Dee was a drug-addled mess constantly, and the songs he wrote for the Ramones were heavily larded with unambiguous autobiographical drug references.
Marky was a heavy drinker, which led to his ouster from the band in the early 80s. He has apparently cleaned up his act.
Joey was a social/recreational drinker, but I’ve never heard of him doing hard drugs.
From what I’ve heard, Dee Snider, of Twisted Sister, has never drank or done drugs. He’s also been married to the same woman since '81. Wikipedia doesn’t have anything on drugs or alcohol.
He admitted in his autobiography that he accidentally ate a marijuana brownie once, which is believable. I can just picture him, “Oooh brownies! Nom nom nom nom!”.
Paul Stanley has tried to claim being always sober as well. Not so believable when you see the necklace he used to wear in the 70’s.
Alex Lifeson still smokes marijuana, although he says he mostly uses it medicinally (he has psoriatic arthritis). He’s also admitted to using cocaine and ecstasy in the 80s and 90s. The others have said that they have avoided hard drugs altogether.
And by all accounts has also been faithful to her too.
Are you sure you’re not talking about Stevie Nicks? Let’s just say she was also heavily rumored to take cocaine, ahem, some other way. 
I bet that made for some very interesting visits to the colorectal surgeon.
Depends on one’s definition of “drugs.”
- Frank and family would often have wine with dinner*
- He smoked grass on (at least) several occasions in the early 70’s**
- He was famous for drinking astonishing amounts of strong coffee
- He was a chain smoker throughout his adult life, and displayed a typical addict’s denial about tobacco. In at least one video interview shortly before his death he insisted, with a straight face and apparent sincerity, that tobacco was beneficial for some people, and in his case it was literally “food.”
- Zappa Family friend Matt Groening, magazine article
** Howard Kaylan, autobiography
Well, Joey did admit to a painkiller addiction after injuring his leg (IIRC). I don’t know if that means recreational use, an attempt to bury his feelings, or inadvertent addiction.
Either way, Johnny’s control of the act didn’t seem to include much control of their off-hours activity.
On one of those “Wives Behind the Musician Behind the Music” shows, Dee’s wife sang a bit different tune, in my opinion. She basically said she understood what was out there and was okay with whatever, as long as Dee always came home to her. I took that to mean he’d at least indulged in groupies. And I’m pretty sure the groupie boards of back in the day hinted as much too.
Only they know what their marriage is really like, and there’s a pretty good chance that if he was unfaithful, she was too. I mean, really, does anyone think these lonely celebrity wives are sitting at home knitting booties?
More like gettin booty amirite?!?