Eddie Van Halen once pulled a gun on LIMP BIZKIT frontman Fred Durst ->http://youtu.be/yK_AB5mAzg8 -> http://youtu.be/nczZ_f2hapY
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My experience has been quite different. I've met and hung out with amazing Film & TV composers, who not only compose 40 minutes of music per hour long TV episode but do it for as many as 24-48 episodes per year for one TV series, such as Michael Levine (Cold Case), Trevor Morris (Vikings, Tudors, etc.), Harry Gregson-Williams (film resume too long to list), Rick Marvin (Grimm, The OC, and too many to list) and many more, which would be impossible if they were using drugs and alcohol on a daily basis, let alone, treating everyone around them like garbage.

While guys like John Williams and Hans Zimmer aren't really composing much these days, those guys were cranking out hours upon hours of great music each year for films that have earned in the Billions of dollars. Brian Tyler, who has scored some of the Fast & Furious and Marvel films (again, among others) is one of the most down to earth people I've ever met and the dude not only composes the scores, he plays more than 30 instruments, engineers and produces his score soundtracks.

For whatever reason, people have become "used" to seeing or hearing about rock musicians or "rock star" behavior and are accepting of it because of the entertainment it provides, but I think it sends a really bad signal that in order to be a successful composer or musician, one must overindulge in alcohol, drugs and poor behavior in order to find that "magic", which just couldn't be further from the truth.

I have stories for days about "famous" musicians, their sidemen and guys that signed huge record deals, only to never earn a dime, all of whom fell into this false notion that to be successful and famous, one must indulge in heroin and alcohol, that either ended up dead, in jail or all alone, with zero success.

This is the absolute truth and much of it depends on family and upbringing. The Van Halen's were immigrants that not only grew up poor but also in the ways of the "Old Country". As I mentioned earlier, their father began serving them hard alcohol and cigarettes at an early age (EVH was 6), which only led to problems all throughout his life that he couldn't control because he was raised to drink, smoke and party. And while that looks like "fun" from the outside, everyone on the "inside" was miserable.

But I think handling fame is generally much easier, as it is with virtually any aspect of life, if one is raised by two loving parents in a loving household of "normal" people. Fame also becomes much easier to handle if their parents experienced fame, then came out healthy and well on the other side because in that case, there's a roadmap.
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In fairness, wouldn't anybody if they had the chance?
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He’s elite tier but I’ve heard better and more creative players.. it’s subject to the fullest
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Going to back to a conversation we all had a while ago in another thread, there's a reason some of these guys are still making music, like Michael Sweet, and some of these guys aren't. Clean living certainly pays dividends down the road for a lot of these guys. Getting and staying clean saved a lot of long careers.

I know we've become enamored with the idea that drugs "unlock" some kind of creative impulse that is otherwise inhibited going way back to before "rock stars" even. It's hard for us to imagine William Louis Stephenson without cocaine or Frederic Chopin without opium.

In my own musical life, it was very much that way. I thought all of my inspiration was unlocked by being wasted. I had to realize that the inspiration didn't come from drugs, it came from me, and if it came from me, I could get to it without drugs.
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Heaven and Hell is my favorite Black Sabbath album and probably my favorite album by anybody actually.

My favorite song though is The Sign of the Southern Cross from Mob Rules.
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At Vintage Vinyl, University City, MO today:
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Yep. I’ve created most of my best ideas sober and thinking it through, that’s not to say I haven’t been inspired while being high but even a high idea gets reworked when I’m sober minded into something more creative
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I saw them live at Red Rocks a few years ago. it was 2.5 hour show...so kinda short, it would have been two hours but David Lee Roth can't seem to shut his mouth and introduced all this political nonsense. But outside of that it was fucking awesome. They ripped it.
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VH 1 was in my truck non stop in HS, and that was after 5150 came out, lol.
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Yep. I generally compose and produce 15-20 tracks per month, all of which are 2 minutes or more in length. I can crank out a fully Mastered track 8 hours or less and I've even turned around national commercials in less than 90 minutes.

It's really a shame that so many creatives go down that rabbit hole, never to return. I've seen it happen to too many people to count.
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My "come to Jesus" moment really happened when I realized I couldn't create music at all if I was DEAD.
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You are one of the lucky ones. Seriously.

I lost one of my best friends last November, who was not only an phenomenal guitarist and great friend, but was cousins with EVH (he was also Dutch-Indo). I miss him nearly every day.

On a side note, I'm an Artist Endorser for a major amplifier company and was down at the shop today. Dave Friedman, who's been Eddie's Amp Guru for more than a decade, is just devastated by his death. It was really sad to see and hear.

On a personal note and not to derail the thread but something unbelievably cool also happened at the the shop today.


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MJ was, is, and will continue to influence my artistic skills. Wouldn't be a player now without it.
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Well you can't change the past. I wouldn't be the player I am today without it. But I'm a BETTER player today without it.
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