The overdose effect: Dissecting the 'drugs and music' cliche

"Pot, hash, opium, psychedelics, speedballs, magic mushrooms, black beauties, LSD, heroin, cocaine, crack, freebase, morphine, China white ... ," parrots rock legend Dave Mustaine in a telling moment in Vh1's Behind the Music Special episode on Megadeth. He's talking about the drugs he has experimented with in a fury-filled career spanning over two decades. As he lists the names, his bandmate Dave Ellefson is shown saying, "It's shocking to me that we are still around."

'Drugs and music' is a cliché that spawned thousands of conspiracy theories, studies and books. Why else do we have the legend of the '27 Club'? Mustaine and Ellefson, however, are lucky; they lived to tell the tale. Others were not. A new Amy Winehouse biopic, Amy, that hit theatres this week, looks at the troubled times of the beehive-sporting crooner who never really took to fame that well. Director Asif Kapadia, whose biopic is a collage of footage over the years along with interviews, paints the tragic life of a much-hounded star, who, grappling with the lethal demons of fame and addiction, succumbed by overdosing on a deadly cocktail of alcohol and drugs.

Early this year, Brett Morgen's documentary on Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, Montage of Heck, too, treaded a similar path. Cobain, who pulled the trigger in his bathroom, had a lengthy past of drugs and alcohol. A loner with a troubled childhood, Cobain started with pot in the early 1980s. Winehouse, as the biopic suggests, also had a troubled childhood, battling with bulimia and body issues. In a telling moment from the documentary, she is seen prophesying to an interviewer, "I don't think I'm gonna be famous. I would probably go mad."

The phenomenon is not new. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison all succumbed to drug abuse. Shillong-based blues legend and Soulmate frontman Rudy Wallang says the pressures on musicians in the West is disturbing. "Indian musicians mostly stick to marijuana and alcohol. In the West, the pressures are huge – you need to be on the top of your game, you need to deliver a power-packed performance, and then there are expectations of fans and recording labels," says Rudy. Indian bands are booked for a few days in a month, while Western bands are on the road touring for months on end.

He adds that recording labels, too, pile a lot of expectations on the star. "It's all about the money. No one wanted to accept Amy for the ordinary girl that she was. The label will want her to be in the news, and stars tend to resort to alcohol, or cocaine, or heroin, or whatever suits their fancy. Stars with money try to fill up that emptiness with substance."

Subir Malik of Parikrama says the keen eye on these stars makes them vulnerable. "Whether one is in the hospital, vacationing or at a funeral, the paparazzi hounds them. Look at Michael Jackson's life. How many would survive that?"

Malik says Indian musicians may be far from that scrutiny, but film stars are not. "Some celebs feel trapped. It's tragic what happened to Robin Williams. Some others resort to drastic means to carry on with the attention. It breeds insecurity. I mean, who would want to walk around in a meat dress like Lady Gaga does?"

Maybe the link is in the notion that drugs enhance creativity, says Dr Pratima Murthy, professor of psychiatry at the Centre for Deaddiction Medicine at NIMHANS, Bangalore. She feels people predisposed to mental problems, like Winehouse, are usually easy prey. "Initially, substance might be exhilarating. Problems come when one's faculties are tricked into believing everyone has a threshold."

Substance abuse is known to damage the brain's neurons and cause cognitive decline over a sustained period. It can also be extremely dangerous in cases of inadequate ventilation, especially in raves and parties, says Murthy. "A person can die of asphyxiation in this situation. It is best to head to a professional instead of resorting to substance as stimulants or coping strategies."

Being in the limelight is a two-edged sword. Monica Dogra of Shaa'ir and Func will attest to that. Recently, she came under a lot of flak online for asking fans to crowdfund a video on the LGBTQ community (ketto.org/shiver).

Some took offence to the Rs50 lakh she was asking for, while others did not like that she termed it a 'high art project'. Some also felt her project will not help the community at all. There have been days recently, Dogra says, when she's been too shy to walk down the street.

"The pressures of fame can affect different people in unique ways. It empowers some and for others, the quality in them that is vulnerable is exposed, (leaving them) desiring love, which can remain open without a closure.

Some fall into an abyss and never return. I've dealt with a lot myself, I can only imagine what a Grammy-winning artist may have faced," says Dogra.

Substance abuse can also come with the disturbing baggage of having to deal with unwanted fame, says percussionist Amit Kilam of Indian Ocean. He says that the high moral ground people tend to take when it comes to drug abuse is almost as punishing.

"It's almost as if we have made up our minds from our high moral pedestals that drugs are a crutch. Artistes usually don't look for a crutch or a support. They do it because inherently, artistes tend to try new things. Unfortunately some get caught and it leads to a lot of turmoil." In his view, alcohol and smoking may not be considered taboo, but their effects are bad, maybe worse. "Even a coffee addiction is just as bad, but there is no social stigma there."

Any talk of unwanted fame is incomplete without the role of the viewer, and our obsessive voyeurism. There is a chilling montage in Amy of various videos of the paparazzi hounding Winehouse, juxtaposed with scenes of her falling on stage. It's uncomfortable viewing. We may blame the fallen star all we want, but we cannot deny the part we play in that downfall.