Heck, keeping it in his pants saved him from going to Vietnam.
And by “it”, I mean his own feces.
The guitarists / front men for Status Quo - Parfitt and Rossi - shifted prodigious quantities of cocaine and alcohol. Rossi lost his septum from cocaine.
Rick Parfitt had a quadruple heart bypass operation in 1997 after which he announced he had given up drugs and alcohol for tea…
In 2014 he had a heart attack and said he was glad because that finally provided the motivation to give up drugs…
In June 2016 he had another heart attack and then retired from touring with the band…
On Christmas Eve 2016 Parfitt died. Apparently sepsis from a shoulder injury.
TCMF-2L
First one to spring to mind. He’s another devout Christian but unlike Pat Boone he has not generally been a sanctimonious dick about it.
Hell, you’d be hard pressed to find a squeaky clean COUNTRY music star. I think being famous is hard enough. But being a touring musician is especially difficult. With their very late and anti-social hours, being away from their loved ones for months on end, the sheer boredom of traveling from city to city, followed by insane highs from performing in front of thousands of screaming and adoring (and, in most cases, available for the taking) fans, the innate insecurity that comes with creativity, and the ease of getting drugs and drink…well, it’d take a really strong person to resist the temptations that come come their way.
In The Eagles documentary, they talk about trouble they got into as a direct result of partying. At one point they were paying thousands of dollars each week repairing hotel rooms after Joe Walsh’s epic hotel trashings. Then the band got into a rift when Randy Meisner started refusing to sing one of their biggest hits, “Take it to the Limit” because his voice was ravaged from from being up all night partying it up. It seems that they either have a Come to Jesus moment in their life, a la Joe Walsh…or they die.
I am unconvinced that one’s public persona really says all that much about their habits when the cameras aren’t on.
Do I KNOW Lifeson? No. Can I vouch for him? Of course not. I’m aware of the incident you mention, and I admit, he MAY have been 100% at fault. He may have gotten drunk with his son and assaulted a cop. I wasn’t there so I’m not entitled to an opinion.
I’ll only note that Alex tells a very different story, and carried on legal action against the police force in question. He claims he got into a scuffle with an overly violent bouncer who was a moonlighting off duty cop.
Agreed, hence the OP. But as you say “it’d take a really strong person”, and perhaps there are tiny number of “really strong people” out there.
And, conversely, the homebodies who aren’t sensation-seekers or risk-takers are less likely to be drawn to the life of a rock star in the first place.
I know examples of talented bands/artists that arguably could have had much bigger careers if they hadn’t had families they didn’t want to abandon.
Are we counting pop stars?
If so, there’s Donny and Marie Osmond.
Gene Simmons is the first that comes to mind and he has no problem talking about it ad nauseum (literally). Similarly, Paul Stanley, which is why their partnership has endured so long.
Ted Nugent used to go on huge rants about drugs and alcohol… especially if he saw (or smelled) anyone high or drunk at his shows.
Frank Zappa - I remember being absolutely stunned that anyone clean and sober could write like that.
Surprisingly, Roger Waters was not really into drugs or alcohol.
Zack de la Rocha - dabbled in drugs before RATM but abstains now.
FYI, the straight edge lifestyle is becoming more and more popular outside its punk rock subgenre.
The Wikipedia list includes some mentioned here and others.
Guitarist Rich Williams, actually. He lost the eye in a fireworks accident in his youth; he wore a prosthetic eye during the band’s heyday in the 1970s, but now wears an eyepatch instead.
I think the bigger (and potentially more literal) vice was the age of the girls whose pants he was trying to keep it in.
All the country music performers who have died from alcohol and drug use are proof of this.
Ca. 1990, with 3 kids in college, my dad moonlighted for a while as a security guard at a civic auditorium, and after working at a number of shows of all types, he told my mom, “I cannot believe I had a problem with the kids going to rock concerts. I sure am glad they weren’t country music fans.” :eek:
I’ve heard that quite a few gospel, CCM, etc. artists aren’t as squeaky-clean as one would believe either. :dubious:
And likewise, I can think of several entertainers, and other prominent people like politicians who have publicly stated that they did not have children because they felt a child needed the kind of parent that their careers would not allow them to be.
ETA: Both men and women.
Don’t know how well Randy Bachman (The Guess Who, Bachman Turner Overdrive) qualifies as a rock star, but he has been quoted as having never used either drugs or alcohol due to his life-long adherence to his Mormon faith.
I would say that being a member of two of the biggest bands of the late 1960s and early to mid 1970s would qualify him as a rock star, regardless of his offstage behavior.