During the height of the Beatles mania John Lennon had said: “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now.” Words of a very troubled man … and words of a man who believed he was more than human was. This is the irony of all the great music icons: That their desire for acceptance was at the heart of their rebellion, and that their ultimate embrace by the masses came about because of this rebellion. The sad part about rebellion, however, is that it usually follows rejection. In line with their rebellious image, they lived promiscuous existences, drinking, philandering, scoring psychedelic drugs, and sex, everything that went into self-destruction.

Icons they are all. They pressed the self-destructive button during the height of their fame. What manner of despair forced these incandescent talents to give it all up when they apparently had everything going for them? What is it with the creative mind that fuels this appetite for self-destruction? This perhaps remains one of the most important questions with no single answer. And yet, a study of their lives tells a story of melancholy and despair buried under a makeover of glamour and machismo. There is a definite pattern that emerges … a matrix where the dark lines of loneliness and pain cross the bright ones of fame and adulation. They were successful, famous, yet in their heart of hearts they were lonely, stressed out stars who found another route to their troubled life.

Sociologists believe that a few celebrities … movie stars, athletes, music icons…are seldom prepared to handle their success. For them, the world is unreal, the money is unreal, the adulation is unreal, and the world gets entirely skewed. They live their public persona, believing that they were larger than life.

Tormented, misunderstood, yet striving for perfection…. the only definite answer you can draw is that they all were victims of their own genius. Money, drugs and sex seem to come in large amounts with every second rock star having a story to tell.The unpredictable world of rock ‘n’ roll has brought a downfall to many. Though some may’ve made it to the top with their physical attributes, lining them up for a length of idol worship, others have garnered fame through nature's own way of producing the best out of them.

Mumbai based Music journalist, Verus Ferreira explores the ways in which the use of rock music has destroyed successful careers of stars and brought them to purgatory and finds out that Rock and Roll may never die but rock stars do!

Led Zeppelin:

They have become inextricably linked as composers, performers and showmen.   Disciples of heavy metal, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant however, will never come anywhere near the excesses of rock or heavy metal. Due to a mishap with session bassist John Bonham, the trio did not exist for too long and broke up in 1980. The sad tale is of drummer John ‘Bonzo’ Bonham. Bonham was on his way to rehearsal at Page’s Windsor house and stopped up for lunch at a pub. He washed down sandwiches and 16 vodkas. At the rehearsals, which followed, he continued to drink prolifically until he could no longer play. The rehearsal muted into a party with Bonham drinking vodka after vodka until he passed out. The next morning he could not respond to wake up calls. The man who played drum solos with his fists had died on 24^th September 1980 at the age of 31. After that Led Zeppelin called it a day.

Freddie Mercury:

The founder of the band Queen, Freddie Mercury (real name - Frederick Bulsara) was almost just that until AIDS took his life away. Known for a very outlandish lifestyle, Freddie was just like any rocker, loud and bold though not into substance abuse and drinking; his only folly lay in a homosexual encounter that took away his life. On 22^nd November 1991 Mercury called Queen’s manager Jim Beach to his Kensngton home and issued a press note for the next day announcing to the world about his fatal disease. On 24^th November 1991 he was no more. The official cause of death was brochial pneumonia resulting from AIDS.

Michael Hutchence:

Lead singer Michael Kelland John Hutchence of Australian rock band INXS was found dead in a hotel room in Australia on 22^nd November 1997 with a belt around his neck. He was only 37. His girlfriend, Paula Yates revealed details of her sex life on TV in an effort to prove that his death was more likely to be a result of a sex game that went wrong rather than suicide.

It was reported that Hutchence took the step after he received a phone call from his companion Paula that upset him. Hutchence who was on the anti – depressant, Prozac, broke down when she revealed to him that she would not be meeting him again, as she couldn't bear to leave alone her two daughters born from ex - husband Bon Geldof.

Kurt Cobain:

Godfather of grunge, lead singer of Nirvana, a millionaire at 27, who wrote and sang his own music much to the adulation of millions of fans, whose album “Never Mind” spun to the No.1 spot on the charts. But there was no Nirvana for Kurt Cobain, only cocaine – filled despair. To quote the names of one of his albums: “I hate myself and Wanna Die”, this line came true when on 4^th April 1984 he shot himself in his home. Suicides ran in the family – three of his uncles had killed themselves before him.

Elvis Presley:

His oily good looks, coupled with the raw energy in his inimitable voice, shot him to fame and stardom paved all along the way in gold and platinum records, innumerable film and TV appearances and the frenzy of besotted fans.

The showman Elvis Aaron Presley tied the knot to Pricilla Beaulieu, who at that time was a leading lady in the soap opera “Dallas”. Within years the marriage ended in divorce, as Elvis preferred the company of bodyguards many of who were prone into agreeing with him, however outlandish and unreasonable his behavior was. This was the start of the downfall in his career. Saddled with a drug intake, perhaps resulting from extreme hypochondria which was said to be immense, it was eventually a contributing factor to his death on 16^th August 1977 at the age of 42. Many fans also feel that Priscilla’s secret affair with a boxer was the cause for Elvis’ death.

Jimi Hendrix:

Arguably the greatest rock guitarist of all time, like all rock legends, Hendrix’s death is well documented than his birth, the most likely date being 27th November 1942.

He learned to play the guitar at the age of 10. Holding it upside down to compensate his left - handedness. He formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He played his music injecting it with whooping hysteria, while he played guitar with his teeth, behind his back, between his legs, eventually setting fire to the instrument to howls of anguish from the fretboard.

Hendrix stayed in London with girlfriend Monika Dannemann. While on tour, Jimi decided to take some sleeping pills with the idea to sleep through the next day and leave for America after the weekend. The next morning 18^th September 1970, Dannemann noticed Hendrix had vomited. His body was so affected by the pills that he died of suffocation. He was only 28.

Janis Joplin:

Universally acclaimed as the goddess of rock, Janis Joplin’s career had been virtually meteoric, but her ascent as the first woman rocker was doused by her sad and lonely death. It was the Monterey Festival that made Janis a star, playing twice by public demand. She won the hearts of the huge audience and hit the pages of every national publication. The publicity became fame and the fame became madness. Her magnetic performances, her voice spelling out the rage in stuttering phrases, her hair tossing and fist clenching, was stupendous.

She soon split up with her band and formed her last band. She tried to come out of heroin, but in vain. The death of Jimi Hendrix only a month early didn’t really shake her up. Following a huge injection of heroin at a Hollywood hotel, she blacked out, fell, hit her head and died sometime in the early hours of 4^th October 1970. 

Brian Epstein: 

He was a failure at school in the army and at acting. Brian Samuel Epstein was taken up by the Beatles and did all he could to know more about them. But there was a bad side to Epstein. To put it bluntly, he fancied homosexual behavior especially towards the callow John Lennon. During the next few years 1962 – 1963 he progressed his family business and became emperor of a recording syndicate that would make him one of the wealthiest figures of rock music. He became the Beatles manager. But the pressures that brought with it gave him constant worries that left him with no sleep. His life was a succession of brief encounters punctuated by large intakes of barbiturates and amphetamines. The Beatles began to outgrow him. After their last live show, Epstein attempted suicide, stricken by an emptiness of the future. He took little pleasure on the future of the Beatles. On 27^th August 1967 he took an overdose of sleeping pills. He had been too depressed to remember how many to take, so he had them all.

The Rolling Stones:

Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Brian Jones, and Charlie Watts are the famous boys who make up rock’s greatest rock’n’roll group. Excesses seemed to be the order of the day and ran through the whole band.

In a raid, Brian Jones was found with cocaine, Methedrine and cannabis resin in his London flat. He was arrested and sentenced for nine months. On appeal, his sentence was commuted to a 1000 pound fine and probation for three years. Later he came to know that The Stones were plotting to overthrow him. He was soon asked to leave.

In the early hours of 3^rd July 1969 he went for a swim in a pool and remained in the water, until his lifeless body was discovered and dragged out. He was only 26. The death raised eyebrows. He went for swim at midnight, and nobody saw him drown? Wasn’t he supposed to be a top swimmer? Later a close friend of Jones stated to the media that he had been probably murdered by drug dealers whom he had double crossed several years previously.

Keith Moon:

Londoner Keith Moon dubbed as the all time champion of “Going A Bit Too far”, from the time he tore the stuffing out of his first hotel pillow, until the pitiful climax of his death at 32. Moon also known as ‘Moon the Loon’ was such a character. After passing his audition for the rock band The Who as their drummer from 1964, he thereafter embarked on a 16 year - old career of fun and orgy in a destruction that made him the scourge of hotel managers everywhere. His practical jokes take on the fancy of all his fans. Moon was addicted to anti – alcoholism tablets. But this addiction soon took its toll when one night he took 32, more than twice the required legal dose. He died on 7^th September 1978.

Jim Morrison:

Brilliant, impulsive and hyper sensitive, Morrison lived in an alternate zone, oscillating between a luminous public life and a dark personal life punctured by depression and agony. Morrison was a living icon, catapulted into a raging sea of adulation and fame while in his early twenties. He could never come to terms with his own fame and influence, sinking into a quicksand to his own poetic creation. He was the mythmaker, who sang about sex, doom, the revolution of death, and the other side of it. Morrison lived his music … drinking recklessly, hallucinating on cocaine … breaking all speed limits on the fast lane.

Nobody knows what happened on the night of 2^nd July 1971. He along with girlfriend Pamela moved over to Paris. That was the last time they were seen together. It was later confirmed that Morrison had died in a bathtub due to an overdose of heroin. Jim was only 27. Pamela and a doctor were the only ones who knew what really happened.

John Lennon:

The day New York will never forget is still a red letter day for Americans. At 10.30 p.m on 8^th December 1980 a Beatle fanatic Mark David Chapman pumped five bullets into his 40 year - old idol having barely five hours earlier - secured Lennon’s autograph. Lennon was shot dead in the lobby of the nine – storeyed Dakota building that had become his home. The man who had tried to give peace a chance met with this cruel and violent death.

Chapman was later ruled a psychiatric case with two pet fixations. The Beatles and suicide. Two failed attempts to kill himself led him to plot his hero’s death. A case of suicide turned backwards. Whatever the psychiatrics analysis, the fact remains that the pop world lost one of its greatest stars.

Sid Vicious:

And then there are the seriously disturbed prophets of machismo like Sly aka John “Sid Vicious” Beverley bass player for one of the most influential British punk rock bands The Sex Pistols. Sid was a deranged, traumatized soul who found emotional outlets in brutality. On 12^th October 1978 he ended his tempestuous relationship with lover Nancy Spungen by stabbing her to death with a hunting knife. Sid was charged with her murder and released on a $ 50,000 bail amount. Ten days later, he attempted suicide slashing the full length of his forearm with a knife. He survived. But on 1^st February 1979 Sid finally succumbed to a heroin overdose administered to him by his own mother who herself was a confirmed junkie. Sid was barely 21.

The others in the coffin and the reason.

Tommy Bolin (25) – Deep Purple - 12^th April 1976 – Drug Overdose

Steve Clark (30) – Def Leppard – 8^th January 1991 – Alcohol

Dinah Washington (39) - 14^th December 1963 – Accidental overdose

Bon Scott (AC/DC) (33) – 19^th February 1980 – Alcohol Poisoning

Shannon Hoon (28) – Blind Melon – 21^st October 1995 – Drug Overdose

Phil Lynott (35) – Thin Lizzy – 4^thJanuary 1986 – Drug Abuse

Ron ‘Pigpen’ McKernan (27) – Grateful Dead - 8^th March 1973 – Alcohol

Johnathan Melvoin (34) – Smashing Pumpkins – 11^th July 1996 – Drug Overdose

Bon Scott (33) – AC/DC – 19^th February 1980 – Alcohol

Brent Mydland (38) – Grateful Dead 1^st July 1990 – Drug Overdose.

Michael Jackson – Solo singer – 25^th June 2009 – Drug Overdose

Amy Winehouse – Solo singer - 23^rd July 2011 – Drug Overdose

Whitney Houston – Solo singer – 11^th February 2012 - Drowning