Playing under the influence.

[73 P Bass]

Mike Bear's thread about his R & B gig and playing with Slash got me thinking, how do people play while intoxicated? You hear so many stories of rock stars and their rock star antics, and to some extent I've always felt it was something of an act, but maybe these guys (and gals) have the ability to pull it off.

Personally, I can't. Back in the day I tried (well, I really wasn't trying, but one thing lead to another... ) and made an ass of myself.

I can have a couple of drinks, and still have confidence in my ability, but anymore and things might get ugly.

[coyote]

I used to be able to play guitar while blitzed, and have it come off pretty good (in a Hendrix/Blackmore sorta way).

 

On bass, drums, or keys I can't make it work, so I don't do it. But I have no fundamental objection to others doing it IF they can indeed pull it off.

[BenLoy]

This has been covered hundreds of times.

 

You should not play while intoxicated. It usually does not result in anything except sloppiness.

 

I have maybe two beers tops before getting onstage. If I'm drunk, I definately sound like s**t.

[Jimbroni]

I think there is something to guitar players and soloist's being able get away with it a bit more. Perhaps only in rock, because being loud and obnoxious is somewhat acceptable in Rock and Roll.

That said its not acceptable for me.

[wraub]

Personally, if what you do doesn't effect me, the gig, or the music, then it doesn't really matter to me, unless the person in question obviously has a health issue or problem I could help with.

 

That said, I play so much better straight that it's a non-issue.

 

Peace,

 

wraub

[getz out]

I can't play bass if I'm drunk. It's impossible for me.

 

But, other can. Soloists were mentioned and limited to rock and roll...

 

What about Stan Getz? Evidence suggests he was NEVER sober, especially at sessions.

[mcbn]

I've played a little hammered a few times. I sounded like crap but didn't care because of the gig circumstances.

 

We got called at the last minute to play one gig and it was one of those days that all 5 of the people who were at this club were hammered. It was a small town in the middle of nowhere and it turns out the club owner pissed everybody in town off about a week earlier.

[Cthulhu Fhtagn]

When I was much younger, we would often play drunk/stoned. We sounded like crap. Hell, we sounded like crap sober.

 

What few public gigs we played were the outdoor "festival" type things where they ran "free" bands all day. As we were fairly young and untried, we usually followed the opener or went third in a list of six to ten bands.

 

We were terrible, but the band after us spent our whole set drinking and "other", so by the time they went up, they were worse than we were. The band after that had two whole sets to drink and drug and were worse still. And so on.

 

And I so remember back in the late 70's watching a crowd of people in Golden Gate Park (Day on the Green, sponsored by KSJO and KFRC) booing, throwing stuff and chasing Aerosmith off the stage because they were so fried they couldn't play.

 

Mates shouldn't let mates play drunk.

[shock]

I can't play half crocked...now if I have a good buzz then that's tits and fine.

[Fred TBP]

In my youth I thought intoxication gave me better perception and enhanced motor skills to pull off the best music. Boy was I an @$$h*1e! I was lucky to drive home most nights without hitting anyone or getting hit with a DUI/DWI. Some of my contemporaries weren't so lucky.

 

In the recent past, I've walked away from bands that couldn't get through a rehearsal, let alone a gig, with one of the members getting wasted. Rarely have I met an individual who can really pull that off. And compared to Jaco, Janis, Jimi, Jim M. and a lot of others who COULD pull that off (notice none of them are around today?) they don't come close in talent or skill.

 

Maybe I'm still an @$$h*1e, but one that is afraid to get behind his bass or the wheel of his car if I've had too many. It isn't fair to my friends or my audience. And I want to live to be a cranky old @$$h*1e.

[ClarkW]

My current band has and has always had a strict no-drugs policy. It cost one of the former singers the gig when they found out that he had been concealing a meth habit when he showed up totally high (and late) to a gig.

 

I've only played once with someone who was drinking, and his playing and singing did get progressively worse throughout the night. I'm a tetotaller by religion, but I doubt I would try to drink and play anyway. I screw up enough without chemical help.

[coyote]

And jazz; many of the 'gods' of that genre were stoned during their most 'worshiped' era.

 

And classical; though we have no knowledge of whether they played while high we DO have some evidence that at least a few major composers imbibed.

Originally posted by Jimbroni:

I think there is something to guitar players and soloist's being able get away with it a bit more. Perhaps only in rock, because being loud and obnoxious is somewhat acceptable in Rock and Roll.

[cloclo]

it depends i think. first: under the influence of what? alcohol? weed? medicines? hard-drugs? cigarettes? (if it kills, that's also a drug for me). different substances do different things. some of them mentally, some physically, some both.

 

secondly: who?

i've seen people react completely different to the same substance. i know a brilliant and famous belgian jazz pianist who has to be stoned before he plays (no, i'm not telling you who, i hate talking behind someone's back), and the stuff he plays is really challenging and overly complex. others cannot play a note under the same circumstances.

 

it just depends on the person i guess...

[Tenstrum]

Drugs are bad... mmmmmmmmK.

[jeremy c]

I'm sure we could make a list of great albums recorded by people who were drunk or under the influence of marijuana, cocaine, LSD or various other drugs.

 

We could also make a list of great musicians who were heroin addicts. They didn't usually record while high and very few of them are still alive.

 

If we go back in history we can add opium and morphine to the list of drugs that famous artists took.

 

But none of that means that it would be a good idea for you to follow in their footsteps.

 

These people were brilliant and creative people before they ingested their first drug. Are you?

[erikmag]

I've never gigged on anything, I dont think I could think strait enough to do it. Ive fiddled around on bass and sax while high, that is fun, but i wouldnt do it live, at least with my current band. If i was in a band that was more "free" than i would try it, but I have a job to do and it would fuck up the show if I was off in my own world.

[Quinn]

There are so many variables to this question that it's hard to make sweeping generalizations. Caffiene is a drug - ever played after ingesting coffee or cola?

 

Personally, I won't play a GIG under the influence of anything but the music. Whether I play 'better' sober isn't the issue so much as that my playing is more consistent when sober and when people pay money to see me, I want to deliver a certain uniform standard.

 

When I'm jamming, experimenting, writing, or listening deeply to music, uniformity isn't so important. I realize it's not the 'correct' thing to admit, but the truth is I believe that some of my past chemical experimentation has helped me hear music in a different way and I find value in that. I'm not advocating this for others, but that's my experience.

[Mike H.]

I'll usually drink Coke and Water throughout the night. Perhaps a beer or two, but nothing where I get even a buzz. If I get a buzz I start screwing up left and right. However, our rhythm guitarist actually plays better when he's had a few. I (we in the band) think he relaxes a lot more and does his thing and does it very well. He's got a great internal metronome that keeps me in line sometimes. But the rest of us in the band are sober throughout the night.

[SteveC]

Water before and during, maybe a Crown after.

 

I wouldn't be OK to drink on my day job, why would I think it's OK to drink on my night job?

[rumpelstiltskin.]

i'm straightedge; i've never been drunk or stoned. so for me, trying to play as such would be a monumentally bad decision.

 

i think the key is performing in the state in which you practice. if you're drunk when you practice, you won't be able to play very well when you're sober.

 

i was in a band where i don't think i ever saw the singer not stoned. i did see him more stoned than other times, but i don't think he was ever unadulterated.

 

robb.

[bassaddik]

alcohol makes me a sloppy mess- i won't even try to play drunk-

hell, i don't like being drunk no matter what i'm doing...

had a huge bout with cocaine in the 80's- got so bad i was shaking and couldn't lay my finger on the bass correctly- no coke in about 15 years.

things of a more, let's say "rastafarian" persuasion, however did not seem to affect me as adversely. I am not advocating it, but those Reggae guy assure can groove---

but anything that hinders you in the least should be avoided.

and to me, drunk is just sloppy and ugly...

[moot]

I stopped drinking at gigs 3 years ago after more than 20 years of playing "high".

 

It didn't so much effect my ability to play as it did my ability to deal with anything else - like a broken string. Once out of the groove I was drunk and had a really hard time finding my way out of the drunk and back into the groove.

 

I am a much better bass player now. Instead of just thinking I'm the poop, sometimes I really am!

[musicfiend]

I was once recording some tracks and the night before I couldn't fall asleep. So I'm falling asleep during recording. I ask for a five minute break, and I go to the nearest liquor store to buy three starbucks double shots. Took my cafeine and finished the recording with no drowsiness.

[EddiePlaysBass]

Well I once showed up for an audition, still drunk from the night before (which, incidentally, had ended just a few hours prior to the audition ) and on my way to the rehearsal room I couldn't even remember which songs I was asked to learn ...

 

For some reason I did get the gig (I think they were desperate ) but I felt really bad about my attitude and have made it a rule to show up sober for rehearsals or auditions.

[Magpel]

It depends on the difficulty material and the skills of the player of course, but I concur with those who say it's a little easier to get by on guitar than on bass. Why? Lower tolerance for error for bass players and drummers, maybe, at least in their tradtionally defined roles?

 

I'm a guitarist who in the past year has started finding work as a bassist. I just did a gig the other night in which we did Revolver cover to cover in the first set and Beggar's Banquet in the second. The idea was: show up crisp and alert for the trickiness of the Beatles in the first set, get drunk and find that msytical, elusive Stones slop groove in the second. Didn't quite work out. We nailed Revolver, got drunk, and pretty much fumbled fumbled Beggar's Banquet, though the crowd didn't seem to mind. Oh well. Wrong drug maybe?

[RHINO_ROB]

the group i was playing with had a strict policy about drugs and being drunk during band related activities. that is how our singer lost his spot in the band. well one of the reasons anyway. i have tried and the only way i can play drunk is if the audience is drunk too so they won't notice the mess ups. which are frequent.

getting drunk in the studio is grounds for a boot party in my book.

[Catlin]

A beer ot two tops, I do not do any drugs so I have no temptation, I just like a clear mind, I like to foucs.

[Father Gino]

Originally posted by SteveC:

I wouldn't be OK to drink on my day job, why would I think it's OK to drink on my night job?

Well, there is perhaps a difference unless your day job is working in a bar. Like it or not, playing music in the club scene is all about selling alcohol.

 

I agree with the statement that it also depends on the person. No one can play worth a crap when they're totally blotto, but if you removed all of the musicians in the world that played while under the influence of something, there'd be a lot less musicians out there.

 

In a perfect world, there would be no need for mind altering substances. But the world is not and never will be perfect and those substances will always be here. They can be dangerous or benificial, sometimes both at the same time.

 

A sax playing friend of mine told me this story: Years ago he dropped acid specifically to play his sax. He expected to be carried away in cosmic bliss of playing. Instead he bummed out and thought his playing sounded like complete crap. He didn't touch the sax for several months after that incident.

[Father Gino]

Originally posted by SteveC:

I wouldn't be OK to drink on my day job, why would I think it's OK to drink on my night job?

Well, there is perhaps a difference unless your day job is working in a bar. Like it or not, playing music in the club scene is all about selling alcohol.

 

I agree with the statement that it also depends on the person. No one can play worth a crap when they're totally blotto, but if you removed all of the musicians in the world that played while under the influence of something, there'd be a lot less musicians out there.

 

In a perfect world, there would be no need for mind altering substances. But the world is not and never will be perfect and those substances will always be here. They can be dangerous or benificial, sometimes both at the same time.

 

A sax playing friend of mine told me this story: Years ago he dropped acid specifically to play his sax. He expected to be carried away in cosmic bliss of playing. Instead he bummed out and thought his playing sounded like complete crap. He didn't touch the sax for several months after that incident.

[Father Gino]

Oops. Sorry, didn't mean to double post. Must've had too many beers