With heroin use again rising in the Pacific Northwest, "Keeping the Band Alive," a panel discussion of substance abuse in the music industry, was an unfortunately timely topic at Portland, Ore.'s North by Northwest conference on Thursday (Sept. 21).

Moderated by Harold Owens of MusiCares (which provides health and welfare services, including substance abuse programs, to the music business), panelists included artist managers, including former Stone Temple Pilots manager Steve Stewart; a well-known industry interventionist; and three musicians who've been near poster boys for substance abuse: Bob Forrest (ex-Thelonious Monster leader; currently of the Bicycle Thief), Wayne Kramer (ex-MC5), and Duff McKagan, formerly of Guns N' Roses.

All three artists, of course, are now clean and sober, bearing little resemblance to their infamous late-'80s visages. McKagan is barely recognizable from his long-haired and slit-eyed Appetite for Destruction days, opting now for a clean-cut look and short, Bon Jovi-esque do. A new-school Bob Forrest is dreadlock-free, wearing a Fedora and round Coke-bottle eyeglasses -- though his craggy, well-lined face still bears testimony to his hard-living past.

Kramer, in particular, was a vocal advocate for the powers of AA. "I'm a satisfied customer," he proudly announced. Later in the panel, he expressed that substance abuse awareness must be heightened, and that the public can't become complacent. "We need a treatment center on every corner," he insisted. "Because there's a liquor store on every corner, and a drug dealer on every corner."

Forrest stayed light-hearted when describing his current life of sobriety, joking that his buddies compare medical charts of their needle-spread Hepatitis C ("Sorry, I laugh at everything," he explained), but later turned quite serious when describing how abuse problems trailed Thelonious Monster. The current statistics: Out of eight bandmembers, four are sober, one's in rehab now, and two are dead.

McKagan, though stopping short of naming names, was forthright when asked how his sobriety changed his relationship with his former bandmates. Explaining that he wasn't the first G N 'R member to clean up ("More drugs for us!" he recalled ironically), McKagan said the rift between the sober Gunner and his still-using bandmates -- McKagan was in the latter camp at the time -- required two separate hotels and modes of transportation. "We never saw him," recalled McKagan.

Both McKagan and Steve Stewart described the agonizing decision-making involved when a major artist's abuse becomes deadly enough to take urgent action. McKagan described the army of lighting people, caterers, and crew that lose jobs when such a huge tour is canceled ("My band was pretty popular," he understated). Stewart told of industry finger-wagging after canceling a big STP tour due to singer Scott Weiland's well-documented problems: "It wasn't difficult to make the decision. It was difficult to deal with the fallout afterwards."

The consensus amongst the panel was clear, though, that at the end of the day an artist's life and health must be placed first. As Wayne Kramer put it succinctly, "So a band gets upset and breaks up, but somebody lives. To me, that's a winner."

The article was sent to WADY by "Patience". Thank you!!!

©1997-1998 Andreas Björlenstam -"We Ain't Dead Yet"...p@ge