History Main / SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll

* Music/MilesDavis didn't shy away from drug abuse either.

** Music/BrianJones from Music/TheRollingStones drowned in his swimming pool, probably while high. His fellow band members already had the impression that he indulged too much in this sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll lifestyle.

* Music/TheRollingStones were known for this trope (especially Music/KeithRichards), and it spawned [[http://www.snopes.com/music/artists/marsbar.asp a (false) rumor]] about Mick Jagger being caught eating a Mars Bar from Marianne Faithfull's vagina. They ''were'' caught in a drug raid, and while Ms. Faithfull was nude and covering herself only with a blanket, they were not doing ''that'' with a Mars Bar.

** Brian Jones from Music/TheRollingStones drowned in his swimming pool, probably while being high. His fellow band members had already the impression that he indulged too much in this sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll lifestyle.

* This trope was probably most prevalent during the '80s. Once grunge hit the mainstream, it (or, at least, its ''glorification'') cooled down significantly. [[Music/{{Motorhead}} Lemmy Kilmister]] has even complained about boring, clean-living attitudes of modern rock musicians.

* Music/{{Queen}}. While guitarist Brian May and bassist John Deacon were pretty straight edge, frontman Freddie Mercury enjoyed cocaine, booze, wild parties, seedy gay clubs, and sleeping around with handsome men. Drummer Roger Taylor admitted that he "felt it was his job to have a good time...and the problem was we just got better at having a good time," and while Taylor didn't have as much trouble with drugs that others had, he certainly enjoyed wild parties, booze, and beautiful women. The release party for their album, Jazz in New Orleans was infamously crazy with champagne, strippers, groupies, and according to legend, a woman smoking a cigarette in her vagina, dwarves, and mountains of cocaine. Roger Taylor claims that there were no dwarves or cocaine that he saw, but admitted that the rest of it wasn't that exaggerated.

* Music/{{Megadeth}} gained much notoriety for this during their early years. To begin with, Dave Mustaine created the band after he was kicked out of Music/{{Metallica}} for his violent behavior when intoxicated -- and given that Metallica (as noted above under "Film" with the documentary ''Some Kind of Monster'') was itself known for this trope back then, to the point where they were nicknamed "Alcoholica", that's saying something. They spent 3/4 of the ([[NoBudget quite meager]]) budget for their first album on drugs, alcohol, and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking food]]. Band members getting kicked out due to their drug problems has contributed to Megadeth's status as a RevolvingDoorBand.

* Some of the LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters in ''Literature/{{Ghoul}}'' are in a rock band.

* The Music/DavidBowie album ''Music/TheRiseAndFallOfZiggyStardustAndTheSpidersFromMars'' is all about this trope, with the "Ziggy Stardust" track being the crown example. The final track, despite the ominous title of "Rock n' Roll Suicide", ultimately subverts it, however.
** Another Bowie example: "Ashes to Ashes" from ''Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps'', in which Bowie uses the return of his character Major Tom as a metaphor for his struggle with addiction.
** Bowie's even played this for humor. In the ShortFilm/long-form video ''Jazzin' for Blue Jean'' one of [[ActingForTwo his two characters]], Screamin' Lord Byron, is a rock star implied to be living the hedonistic version of this trope. His handlers literally carry him around, and when he's first seen in the flesh (being hustled into his dressing room, to be specific) he's hooked up to a portable oxygen tank!

* The ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'' series has a few nods to this trope.
* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' seems to hint this with the fictional band Love Fist, a parody of HairMetal bands from the 80s. Your first mission for them consists in getting drugs and pimping out the Colonel's daughter, Mercedes, for them.

* Charlie's backstory on ''Series/{{Lost}}'' is all about how he went from altar boy to this.

* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoViceCity'' seems to hint this with the fictional band Love Fist.

* The Arrogant Worms have a song called 'Sex, Drugs, and Rrsps' which deals with the lead man of a band who decides to invest his money in the stock market instead of blowing it on hookers and drugs.

* This trope tends to be most prevalent near the middle of the MohsScaleOfRockAndMetalHardness, while bands at the extreme ends of the scale tend to have far more laid-back lifestyles (save for BlackMetal, whose musicians embody a [[EvilIsCool different trope altogether]]).

* Music/StevieRayVaughan was addicted to alcohol and cocaine in the early years of his career, eventually building to the point where he collapsed onstage and was taken to a doctor, who told him he would likely die within a month if he didn't kick the habit. He then became a subversion, as the warning finally gave him the push he needed to go to rehab and get clean, after which he not only resumed his career but proved to be an even better musician sober than he had been while he was using (which is saying something given how good he already was). Vaughan would remain on the wagon until his untimely death in 1990 (in a freak accident completely unrelated to his past drug habit).

** And Steven Adler. "What the fuck do you have to do to get kicked out of ''Guns N Roses''?" indeed.

* [[http://www.cracked.com/blog/7-reasons-child-stars-go-crazy-an-insiders-perspective/ This]] Website/{{Cracked}} article, written by Mara Wilson (the girl who played the eponymous Film/{{Matilda}} in TheFilmOfTheBook), explains why people who become famous [[FormerChildStar during their formative years]] are ''particularly'' susceptible to this trope.

* Averted by Music/{{ABBA}}, whose members famously didn't do drugs. They did admit to drinking alcohol occasionally (Bjorn Ulvaeus wrote the lyrics to "The Winner Takes it All" after a drinking session) but never to the point where it became problematic.

** Bassist Duff [=McKagan=] destroyed his pancreas from the sheer amount of alcohol he would drink. It literally exploded and gave him alkaline burns on his internal organs.

* Referenced in an episode of ''Series/{{Frasier}}''. Frasier's new neighbor is a rock star who plays his loud music at all hours of the day at unreasonable volumes. The psychiatrist shouts in annoyance, "Doesn't he ever stop for sex and drugs?"

* ''Fanfic/CodexEquus'': Deconstructed with Moon Ray Vaughoof. Like Music/StevieRayVaughan, he took drugs and alcohol during his career thanks to factors like stress and lack of inspiration, and his vices would be enabled by toxic people like his wife, [[HardDrinkingPartyGirl Crystal Light]]. When he started receiving prophetic visions of himself drowning in water, he tried suppressing them with ''more alcohol''. His professional and personal life deteriorated to the point where he collapsed from a gangplank during the ''Live Alive'' tour, and a hospital tour revealed that he severely damaged himself with his habits. Fortunately, he wised up, cut off all the bad influences in his life, and made a full recovery in rehab, after which he revived his career. He still died relatively young, but it was due to a fatal helicopter crash and not the drugs. Now he spends his (after)life helping addicts overcome their vices like he did so they could clean up and make amends for their mistakes, while preventing others who are at risk from falling into addiction.

* Perhaps some amount of sex and controlled substances are necessary to rocking out at all: Fitz, from the ''Series/DoctorWho Literature/EighthDoctorAdventures'', plays guitar and wants to be a rock star some day. He also smokes thirty a day, gets quite drunk quite often and occasionally gets extremely drunk, tried laudanum once or twice, and has an [[ChivalrousPervert active love life]].

* The downfall of {{Music/Savatage}}'s ''Music/StreetsARockOpera'''s main character DT Jesus. A drug dealer turned rock star, the fame and eventual drug abuse are explicitly part of his story. The sex can only be ''assumed'', but the man made millions and was a house-hold name...

* In ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'', your hotel-room-trashing, disco-obsessed cop has an Electrochemistry stat, a representaton of his mesolimbic reward pathway which begs him to seek out drugs and sex. If you choose to become a Superstar Cop, this will lead to you developing this kind of personality, through stat buffs which give you the ability to do more drugs, allow you to get sexually aroused more easily, and compare yourself to a rock star to all who listen.

** Despite technically fitting the description (he was a drug-addicted rock star who died at 27), Music/KurtCobain could be considered a subversion of this trope. Not only was he an avowed feminist who showed disdain for rock music which glorified female objectification, but his heroin addiction wasn't part of any sort of decadent lifestyle so much as a byproduct of his depression caused by a lifelong chronic stomach pain. He also died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound rather than an overdose, though he did shoot up one last time before killing himself.

* Music/BillieHoliday had a tragic life. She was born in poverty, barely escaped being raped at age 11, worked as a teenage prostitute together with her mother, got arrested, and put in a workhouse. Her vocal talent provided her with means to escape this world and she started performing in night clubs, but her status as the most famous {{Jazz}} singer of her lifetime was tarnished by an endless spiral of abusive partners and addictions to morphine, alcohol, and heroin, which paid their toll on her health. She got arrested several times during her lifetime and eventually died at age 44 from liver cirrhosis.

* Music/{{Queen}}. While guitarist Brian May and bassist John Deacon were pretty straight edge, frontman Freddie Mercury enjoyed cocaine, booze, wild parties, seedy gay clubs, and sleeping around with handsome men. Drummer Roger Taylor admitted that he "felt it was his job to have a good time...and the problem was we just got better at having a good time," and while Taylor didn't have as much trouble with drugs that others had he certainly enjoyed wild parties, booze, and beautiful women. The release party for their album, Jazz in New Orleans was infamously crazy with champagne, strippers, groupies, and according to legend, a woman smoking a cigarette in her vagina, dwarves, and mountains of cocaine. Roger Taylor claims that there were no dwarves or cocaine that he saw, but admitted that the rest of it wasn't that exaggerated.

* In their heyday, Music/RedHotChiliPeppers led an extremely hedonistic lifestyle, playing wild, sexually-charged funk rock, hooking up with groupies, and doing enough illicit substances between them to kill a herd of buffalo ("Under The Bridge" is about heroin use, while Flea came up with the bass for "Give It Away" completely strung out on pot). To date, the only fatality has been original guitarist Hillel Slovak. For comparison, their second, more famous guitarist John Frusciante OD'd on heroin twice, ''and lived''. That said, they've all been straight-edge since the mid-'90s. Frusciante's heroin problem in particular caused all of his teeth to fall out, forcing him to get them replaced before rejoining the band in 1998.

* [[Music/{{Motorhead}} Lemmy Kilmister]]: Did speed, drank tons of Jack Daniels, slept with more than 1200 women, and played [[InsistentTerminology Rock N Roll.]] His lifestyle finally caught up to him around 2012-2013, and he died of an aggressive form of cancer in late-2015 just after turning 70.

ThePowerOfRock is awesome! What problem do you have that ''wouldn't'' be solved by an awesome guitar solo, an elaborate dance routine, and a heartfelt song with kickass drums? Whose life ''can't'' be saved by "Stairway To Heaven"? Rock solves all, right?

ThePowerOfRock is awesome. I mean, c'mon! What problem do you have that ''wouldn't'' be solved by an awesome guitar solo, an elaborate dance routine, and a heartfelt song with kickass drums? Whose life ''can't'' be saved by "Stairway To Heaven"? Rock solves all, right?

* Music/StevieRayVaughan was addicted to alcohol and cocaine in the early years of his career, eventually building to the point where he collapsed onstage and was taken to a doctor, who told him he would likely die within a month if he didn't kick the habit. He then became a subversion, as the warning finally gave him the push he needed to go to rehab and get clean, and it turned out that he was an even better musician sober than he had been while under the influence[[note]]considering the particular effects of cocaine, some people believed it had fueled his playing and thought he might not be able to play on that level without it; he proved otherwise[[/note]], so his best rock and roll years came after he'd left the drugs behind. Vaughan would remain on the wagon until his untimely death in 1990 (in a freak accident completely unrelated to his past drug habit).

* Many songs by Music/PinkFloyd from ''Music/{{Meddle}}'' onward; mostly because the guy who wrote their happier stuff had been the AnthropomorphicPersonification of this trope. Emphasis on ''[[AuthorExistenceFailure had]]''. ([[Music/WishYouWereHere Shine on, you crazy diamond...]])