No doubt vast sums of money were spent compiling this public health study which finds that … drumroll, please … rock stars are more likely to die young, and largely due to alcohol or drugs.
Evidently, the highest risk of premature death is during a rocker’s first five years of fame, when their death rates are three times higher than normal. The study reminds us that Jimi Hendrix, Bon Scott of AC/DC and punk rocker Sid Vicious all died within five years of hitting the big time. Of course, that may be due to the fact that, for the first time in their lives, they actually have the money to buy their own drugs instead of mooching off their rent-paying girlfriends’ supply?
For Brits, that risk remains high until 25 years after their first success, after which they return to normal life expectancy. North American rockers don’t get such a reprieve: their chances of dying remain twice as high as a normal person’s.
The study attributes that anomaly to American rockers’ love of “reunion tours” which re-expose aging stars to hard living on the road, but fails to explain Keith Richards’s longevity despite being a walking pharmacopoeia.
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Good gods, who IS that in that photo? Because EWWWW.