Highs and lows

Internationally, music and substance abuse often go hand-in-hand. Aabhas Sharma and Veenu Sandhu find out if that’s the case in India too.

I need to be slightly numb, in order to regain the enthusiasms (sic) I once had as a child,” wrote Kurt Cobain in his suicide note. Cobain, the front man of Nirvana, was at the height of his popularity in 1994 when, high on heroin, he shot himself dead. To write songs and to perform on stage, Cobain needed that enthusiasm and that numbness for which he turned to heroin and other drugs. Drugs and rock ’n’ roll have had an unhealthy symbiotic relationship for decades. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and, more recently, Amy Winehouse’s lives were cut short by substance abuse.

Do Indian pop artists and bands also seek creativity and energy in drugs? The country has at the moment about 200 music bands in a space that’s practically non-existent. “The pressures Indian bands face as compared to their western counterparts are different and might even be notional, but are strong enough to drive some of them into the world of drugs,” says a DJ who works at a Mumbai pub and has attended jam sessions of some bands. He adds that drugs, which are a reality now worldwide, are as prevalent in India as anywhere else.

“Drugs are believed to slow down everything else in your mind and help you to focus on just that one thing — your music — and they kind of help you think faster and play faster,” says a member of a Delhi-based band who does not wish to be named. “Several rockers, rappers and ravers do hard drugs like cocaine,” says a member of a Mumbai-based band, “but you don’t hear about it because no one here in India is as famous as Winehouse, Hendrix or Cobain.” “It doesn’t always kill you,” adds Amit Kilam of Indian Ocean, “but it can completely destroy your life.” A performance can be exhausting, physically as well as mentally. Drugs, some artists feel, help them perform for long hours.

“Substance abuse has nothing to do with music,” says Hitesh ‘Rikki’ Madan, vocalist of Delhi-based music band EKA. “It has more to do with what these people — Winehouse, Hendrix or Cobain — had to go through and achieved in a short span of time,” adds EKA keyboardist Benjamine ‘Benny’ Pinto. “Something like this can lead to a dual personality, an identity crisis. Add to it substance abuse and one is totally finished,” says the band’s vocalist and bassist, Lokesh Madan. Indian bands, they say, have a long way to go to come anywhere close to achieving what these music giants did. “Drug abuse is also a cultural thing,” adds Amit Saigal, founder and editor of Rock Street Journal, a magazine that covers the rock music scene in India and South Asia and organises a series of music festivals. “Besides, look at the troubled lives of these rock stars lead. In India, you’ll almost never find any musician living on the brink like that.”

Hendrix was addicted to heroin, hashish and LSD. But he didn’t die because he had an overdose of any of these. The night he died, he had nine tablets of Vesparax, a kind of sleeping pill. The prescribed dosage was half to one tablet. Pressure to perform, to entertain or to live up to the expectations takes a massive toll on the lives of musicians. Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett, who in the ’60s was known as “the man who had everything”, became a recluse as he was sucked into the world of LSD or acid. Winehouse spent the last few days of her short life high on alcohol and drugs. A lethal combination of alcohol and ecstasy pills are said to have finally claimed her. Reportedly, she was also spotted buying drugs like cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and an animal tranquilizer, ketamine, which is taken for its psychedelic effects.

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Success, and the money that comes with it, perhaps drove Winehouse to her death. This could be one factor that keeps Indian artists away from drugs — most drugs cost a fortune and the music scene in India doesn’t pay that well. “Indian bands struggle to save to upgrade their equipment; they do not have the kind of money needed to snort cocaine,” says a young lawyer who has actively followed the music scene in Delhi and Bangalore. Cocaine, LSD, known to be one of the most potent mood-changing chemicals, and MDMA (colloquially called ecstasy) are all linked to creativity and are said to release repressed feelings. “But these also cost a bomb,” says the lawyer, “which is probably why Indian bands that indulge in substance abuse stick to the milder marijuana or cannabis (weed, pot or grass), hashish and charas. These, in fact, are quite commonly used.” Cocaine costs about Rs 6,000 per gram, while heroin is cheaper and can be bought for Rs 5,000 per 100 gram but can be procured only if a person is well-networked with the drug suppliers. He feels if more money gets into the music bands, the incidents of substance abuse are bound to skyrocket.

There are some who believe that fewer bands indulge in substance abuse now than about 20 years ago. “When we started out as 17- or 18-year-olds there were a whole lot of bands that would hit the stage completely doped out. Cocaine, chemicals…. they abused everything,” says vocalist Devraj Sanyal, CEO of Universal Music India and co-founder of Mumbai-based metal band Brahma. “We would never step on stage with even a drop of alcohol in us, even though everything was available to us. That’s the reason we lasted this long and have at least another 15 years left with us as musicians.” Their high, says Sanyal, was working out in the gym for two hours. “The new generation of musicians is smarter,” he adds, “Most of the bands today steer clear of drugs because they don’t want to burn themselves out fast.”

Morrison was once quoted saying, “I believe in long, prolonged derangement of the senses in order to obtain the unknown.” But the unknown can also be all-consuming and Indian bands seem to realise this.