Motley Crue had nine lives from a career standpoint – and we’d estimate that bassist/co-founder Nikki Sixx alone used up at least half.
None of his near-death experiences have been as infamous as the one on Dec. 23, 1987. After a night of drug-fueled partying with pals (including Guns N’ Roses members Slash and Steven Adler and Ratt’s Robbin Crosby), Sixx was injected with one last syringe of heroin – and promptly passed out cold.
Unfortunately, this overdose wasn’t like the others; he had turned blue, and couldn’t be roused. In Sixx’s book, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, a recent U.S. transplant named Sally McLaughlin recalls frantically giving the rocker mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, while her then-boyfriend Slash destroyed a hotel bathroom around them.
The Black Crowes’ career has had its ups and downs, and most or all of these were determined by the alternately hot and cold fraternal relationship shared by its two fraternal leaders, vocalist Chris and guitar-playing brother Rich Robinson. Over a quarter century on from the group’s smash hit 1990 debut, more than a dozen musicians have fleshed out the band’s ranks. Only drummer Steve Gorman hung onto his position and, more often than not, served as a buffer between the Robinsons. Currently on hiatus again, the Black Crowes are bound to make a comeback at some point – because, well, blood is thicker than water, after all.
As rock’s first true supergroup, Cream set a standard for colossal egos who tried, and ultimate failed, to coexist. Though they shared a dues-paying education with both Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated and the Graham Bond Organization, bassist Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker never seemed to like each other much. And when the immensely talented but less assertive Eric Clapton was thrust between the two, it was all he could do to keep the peace with his formidable guitar skills. After a mercurial two-year run, Cream fulfilled their supergroup destiny and packed it all in.
If you’re searching for the band that stands as the poster children for dysfunction, look no further than the Eagles. As their popularity grew and their sound evolved one album at a time across the early 1970s, the Eagles endured all kinds of internal power struggles. Original leader Glenn Frey and the fast-emerging Don Henley ultimately consolidated their control over the group – to the point where, when they fell out in the wake of 1979’s much-delayed ‘The Long Run,’ it took hell freezing over to resurrect the Eagles. But then longtime guitarist Don Felder got himself exiled a few years later for voicing his opinions.
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