How Have Drugs Affected Your Musical Career?

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April 20, 2012{ 20 Comments }

dylan.joint How Have Drugs Affected Your Musical Career?I heard an interview on NPR a few weeks ago with Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works, in which he discussed the positive and negative effects of drug-use on the creative process.

The two specific examples he cited were Bob Dylan (ya know, like… the iconic folk/rock megastar) and poet W.H. Auden. Both artists were blitzed on amphetamines (can you be “blitzed” on amphetamines?) at the height of their careers, and during the creation of their masterworks.

Their drug of choice flooded the brain with dopamine, increasing energy (good for recording a trillion great albums in a single decade),  focus (good for drilling down into the minutia of your process), euphoria (good for euphoria), and a sense of grandiosity (as if Dylan needed any more of that).

Then there is the flip side of that drug — the “come down”: anxiety, depression, fatigue, suicidal ponderings, and very creepy dreams. Later in life, Auden especially struggled to maintain his creativity without the use of amphetamines. His flow had become dependent on the buzz.

Drug-use: the path to greatness or regret?

It’s 4/20 today. And this post is not meant to moralize or judge, simply to ask the question– how have drugs affected your musical career and creative process?

We’ve all “had friends” who’ve dabbled here and there, expanding their consciousness with this, staying awake with that, quieting the inner critic with this, boosting self-confidence with that.

But for every mind that’s been opened to new forms and ideas, there’s a bad hippie lyric about “burnished souls of yogurt yellow, very cherry cheese;” for every guitarist who could party all night long, there’s the following night’s missed gig; for every sweet stoner jam there’s the sober moment when you hear the truth;  for every coked-up frontman who could strike a rockstar pose, there’s probably a broken nose and some bitter fans calling him an A-hole.

Actually, that sounds like I’m moralizing; I don’t mean to. I’ve seen people do incredible and terrible things on drugs. I just don’t always trust that the taker can tell the difference. And then there’s all those long-term effects of dependency.

But if even the scientists are telling us that there’s certain things the creative mind can only accomplished while high, where does that leave us? I’m curious what your thoughts are. What has your experience been, either personally or with bandmates, family, friends, and foes? Let us know in the comments section below.

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  • Blackholesound

    Yaaaaasssssssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/David-R-Haworth/1466004861 David R Haworth

    the list of greats we have lost to drugs is extensive: Elvis, Michael Jackson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Marilyn Monroe, etc etc etc etc Drugs are toxic, poison; there is NO POSITIVE SIDE to them.

  • Snoogans775

    some drugs can enhance your ability to perform. It can’t give you any skills that you haven’t previously practiced. I always practice sober, so that if I want to get high and improvise a tune with my mates, my muscle memory keeps it all together.

    • http://twitter.com/CraigofSuede Craig of Suede

      I think Snoogans makes a very important point to this whole conversation.. We are only able to wander to our to creativity when we have established a strong foundation in what we already know. I refuse to believe that any random person off the street becomes a musical creative genius based solely on the use of any type of mind-altering substance. Though there have been several references to musical Greats in history, we are only aware of the presence of drugs in their music, because they were already established in music. I am neither for nor against drugs, but I am huge advocate of music creation. Drugs don’t write music. Musicians make music. Whether or not drugs help or hinder relies solely on the artist and what he/she has already established within themselves.

      Two cents.

      • http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/author-chris-robley Christopher Robley

        Great point.

  • http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/author-chris-robley Christopher Robley

    Thanks for sharing your experience. Sounds like you’re suffering from a similar thing to Auden, not wanting to need the substance to create. I’ll bet it just takes sticking with it, changing things up a bit to get some new pathways firing.

    • Andylongst

      I did 15 years of drugs and music when I was younger. I wrote songs, gigged in bands, jammed with anyone who would play, and had some fantastic ‘spur of the moment’ party and festival jam’s. I’m sure my musical interest has always been fuelled by the drug use and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
      I’ve some lovely guitars and equipment now, but no more enthusiasm for it as I’ve stopped my drug use pretty much completely, for some 15 years now. Playing bores me stiff and song writing never gets started.
      Occasionally though I will see an old mate who will smoke a spliff and I will have a puff and be stimulated to play again and while it lasts the old musical interest is re-kindled. But then after the next days nausea has passed, I’ve lost all interested again
      I do remember being well into music form a young age, as a child, and well before I was introduce to drugs but I do belive I’m a drug induced musician and need the chemical s to becaome creative in a satisfying way. .
      However, as the ‘Mr straight’ person that I am now, I much prefer to listen to the music of others and very much enjoy trawling through the myriad of music that exists on you-tube , spotify, etc. All the best

    • Loren Franklin

      No, I’m not. I had my battle with drugs 25 years ago, and have many years of good living behind me that have been drug free. It took me awhile to convince myself that I could make music without drugs, but the years have shown me that it is by far the best road to travel. -Loren-

  • http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/author-chris-robley Christopher Robley

    Haha. No, I didn’t take it as horn-tooting. Sounds like you’ve really thought and felt your way through a lot of this stuff, and I appreciate you being open about it. Oh, and if you haven’t already, you should use “Dutch-courage and anesthetic crutches” as part of a lyric!

  • http://twitter.com/Hi_Dan Dan Schwartz

    Ototoxic drugs are ones that damage the very delicate structures of the cochlea, causing outer hair cell loss and hence hearing loss and concomitant tinnitus.

  • http://twitter.com/Hi_Dan Dan Schwartz

    Ototoxic drugs are ones that damage the very delicate structures of the cochlea, causing outer hair cell loss and hence hearing loss and concomitant tinnitus.

  • Tunesmythmusic

    If not for LSD, I would not have even tried to pick up a guitar. LOL. Seriously though, it is true. While pot has always been a staple in every music scene I have been acquainted with in the past 30 years, there are not a lot of drugs that haven’t risen and faded in popularity with both musicians and fans alike. It’s like fashion or trends in politics, just on a much smaller and slightly less destructive scale. That being said, there are differences in those who dabble and those who use the drugs and are defined by them. Even when cocaine was making a strong comeback in the mid 90′s, I don’t recall any of my friends or co-workers dying from overdoses or anything like that. (This didn’t start occurring until those doctors and pharmaceutical company’s started flooding the streets with oxycontin, but that’s another story all together).

    I had a lot of really insightful moments while under the influence of one thing or the other, but I have had moments of massive creativity output using the drug Requip (I think that’s the name). I was prescribed this drug because of restless-leg syndrome. I found that after a few days on the drug I could no longer just write songs. I had to take the ideas to their logical conclusion and started writing a novel. Problem was, I was thinking faster than I could write it down (normally I would consider this a problem to have… if you were going to have problems). I had not had that amount of ideas flow at that rate in my life. And then, a month or so later I hit the wall. The wall being that my body adapted to the drug which basically, as I understand it, provides an increase in Dopamine. My brain stopped producing it on its own.

    After stopping the drug, it took me nearly a year to get back to writing anything that took a modicum of imagination. 3 years on, I look back at what I wrote during this period, and there are some really great ideas in there, but not being in that same state of mind its hard for me to pick up on these ideas and expand on them. I have tried writing songs on just about every drug available, as well as while not on any drugs at all. What I have found is, it really doesn’t matter what you are on; what matters most is the situation you are in at the time.

    When it comes to performances, this is where things get murky. Though I have experimented over the years with all kinds of chemicals, I am not a drinker. I went through phases of my life where I drank socially, but never sought out alcohol to calm me down, pick me up or anything like that. I found (and from time to time, still find) marijuana to be my drug of choice when it comes to relaxation before, during and/or after performances.

    Everyone is different when it comes to what can aid or hinder their creative processes and the dangers of drug abuse are always present. I have lost my fair share of good friends to the horrors of addiction and overdose. I found that amphetamines helped me focus, but among the downsides to this were the hours of staring at the ceiling after 3 or 4 days without sleep and distressing that things were a little too focused (ie… 7 minute songs). I tried writing on cocaine but this was futile. The euphoria was great, but the problem with cocaine, for me at least, was that no matter how much you have, as soon as you start doing it you realize that you are running out, so the focus shifts from creating something to finding more cocaine. And of course when using cocaine during a performance, the song tempos would fluctuate dramatically. Another problem is when you are in a band and everyone in the band is drunk or high on different things. A drummer on speed and a bass player on downs can rip a hole in the fabric of space time.

    In the beginning you take the drugs to feel weird, but as you get into it further you find that you are taking the drugs to feel normal. Seems to be a cycle of futility when approached logically, but it is what it is. Not everyone can summon the courage naturally to get up in front of a crowd and perform. Some use the drugs and alcohol as a tool and others use it as a crutch. I have had great shows completely sober, and I have had the same effect when under the influence. It is the situation that dictates productive results not the chemicals you may or may not be using. If you are a performer, you perform. If you are a writer, you write. Drugs are merely peripheral to the situation.

    • http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/author-chris-robley Christopher Robley

      Thanks for sharing your experience. Your fabric of time comment is funny because it’s true.

  • http://www.odysen.com/ Matt

    Maybe it’s sort of like a crutch to help escape, getting the perspective you’re seeking, maybe you could call it your freedom. Sometimes it feels like it’s needed, other times not so much. I’d say the latter is preferred, just to be able to axe any type of dependency/crutch, after awhile it maybe turns into more of a weight than a lift, something like that…

  • http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/author-chris-robley Christopher Robley

    I assumed they were being ironic.

  • Luke

    Arguments could be made both ways and its different for everybody. Weed was great for allowing me to focus on nothing but playing, which is pleasant, but musicians don’t require weed to get into that mindset, it can help though with anxiety as well. Opiates allowed me to play initially with no fear, and audiences and band members alike commented on how well I was playing and performing. Then it became a need, a physical requirement to even get out of bed. No inspiration, just pain when I wasn’t on it and nodding out when I was on it. And then they don’t give you a guitar in jail so in that sense your music suffers even more! 8 months clean from heroin, playing the best music of my life and loving every minute of it. Heroin is of course not the same as weed so don’t think I’m generalizing all drugs, but for the most part its the people and great minds that create great music, drugs just provide an environment of the mind (sometimes a good one), and have huge potential to take great musicians down.

  • Loren Franklin

    It takes time to come down off of pot. People use it as a crutch, thinking they can’t write or play without it, but they can. There is a great deal of propaganda out there about pot smoking, spread around by people who are addicted to it and can’t face up to it. Nobody wants to admit that they are self medicating to escape life’s realities.

    Once your brain has had a chance to normalize by abstaining from weed, you can then learn to go to those inner places where good lyrics and chops are hiding. Like an actor getting in touch with past memories to shape new characters, you can go to those past experiences that live down inside you, and use them as your new drug for creating. Life teaches us, not drugs. Drugs cloud your path toward your creative self. It takes time to come down, but the journey is worth it.

  • Midi77

    The same creative advantages of drugs can similarly be obtained though meditation. Mind altering substances may be the “easier” way to go initially, but the downside is far greater. Learning to meditate constructively is an acquired skill, but I have had far greater output than any drug I have ever tried.

    • http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/author-chris-robley Christopher Robley

      Great advice there.

  • MeloDMatic

    I use alcoholic drinks to push myself into the right mood, when I feel that there’s some creative flow coming up. Usually it works, sometimes not. I don’t like it too much to depend on external influences, but I’m used to it, since I have to take antipsychotic drugs because of my borderline disorder anyway. I’m 34 years old and still it works somehow for me to put all that energy into music, drinking too much and so on.

    Basically I’m able to wite, record & perform music without beer, whiskey & stuff. About 40 % of my music has been created in a sober condition. But overall the quantity and quality of my output would suffer, if I deceided to quit drinking alcohol completely. And that’s nothing I would want right now, since I’ve just released my debut-album and plan to top that one with the upcoming follower.