

This takes the edge off a wide swath of the outlaw lyric pool.Nonconformist behavior, once the domain of artists, is now everywhere. In 1968, Steppenwolf’s John Kay sang “the dealer is a man with the love grass in his hand,” but now you can just walk into the dispensary and use your Apple Pay. Coded drug references used to be the musician’s bailiwick, but that too has gone mainstream. The push to legalize cannabis in America is another sign that previously taboo behaviors are now acceptably mainstream.

It wasn’t that long ago that athletes and musicians were in opposite political and lifestyle corners. It’s not rare to hear chefs, actors, and quarterbacks referred to as rock stars. Of course, the modern-day image of sober and respectable musicians like Keith Richards and his writing partner, Sir Mick, hasn’t hurt the shift in attitudes towards musicians.
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Similarly, as painters, writers, and musicians have become more famous for their net worth than their alcohol and drug consumption, the artist’s career choice has taken its place besides professional athletes and business entrepreneurs. But today, enough creators have become wealthy and fawned upon by the media, helping to offset the images of Rimbaud, William Faulkner, or Jackson Pollock surrounded by empty whiskey bottles. Many great artists are not recognized or remunerated in their own lifetime. This is not to say that the band didn’t love their music, but that they realized the first word in the phrase show business is … well, you get the picture. We pored over colorful leather swatches and dozens of metal stud samples.


Later, when designing guitars for their Fuel for Life tour, I met with the band along with their set and costume designers to coordinate the group’s stage look. As if in a parallel universe, these monsters of rock asked politely if I could secure a tee time for them at a local golf club.
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Downing and Glenn Tipton attired in full costume-golf shirts and pastel trousers. Imagine my surprise when I was greeted by guitarists K.K. Despite more than a decade of playing music professionally and dealing with touring bands of all stripes, I approached my first meeting with them with some trepidation. I first began working with the members of Judas Priest in the early 1980s. Downing and Glenn Tipton attired in full costume-golf shirts and pastel trousers.Īn illustration of this is the mythology of the heavy metal life. But there are those who live “the life” and those who also see art as a profession-and know the difference. Artists often say that they are driven to create, and of this I have no doubt. This sort of idealized debauchery was a template for artists centuries before Charlie Parker or Hank Williams. The poet Arthur Rimbaud, admired by the likes of Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan, famously spoke of making himself a seer by breaking moral rules and societal norms, fostering a mental state in which he could create work that inspired his audience. So how did the perception of an artist’s life go from certain squalor to being a career path? My guess is that as the visibility and economics of artistry blossomed, artists took their careers more seriously, and the public’s perception of them shifted in kind.
