Music is better with drugs (is better with music): Making music while under the influence By Liam Hansen (they/he) FEATURE WRITER
Illustrations by Lucy Higgins (she/they)
This article contains references to drug use Musicians do a lot of drugs - or at least, they talk about it the most. A musician and a sales assistant may take the same amount each week, but only one of them has an audience to discuss it with (that is, unless you have a teenage sales clerk bragging about how they smoked ‘three whole weeds’ last week while you’re trying to buy an air fryer). But it’s often difficult to separate the two, as so many genres, like stoner rock, acid rock, and psychedelia, are linked to substance-use, from everything down to their names. While not all purveyors of these styles are necessarily druggies, the origins are impossible to ignore. This is especially true if you're a square like myself, who had half their drug education take place through song lyrics I didn’t understand yet. Having a GeorgeFM Mum and hearing "I'm in love with the coco'' on repeat really does something to ya. But does taking drugs actually have any impact on the sound, style, or quality of your music? Sure, there’s links between certain substances and subgenres, but I doubt a swig of rum will cause a group of regular dudes to start singing sea shanties at the top of their lungs… Okay, maybe it would, bad example. But it’s an aspect of music that often feels exaggerated for the sake of vibes and impact, creating atmospheres through lyrics that aim to replicate the feeling of being high, to varying results. Do these styles of music come directly from drug use? If psychedelic musicians went sober, would their style of music change? I wouldn’t know, because Harold the Giraffe’s anti-drug trauma continues to permeate my mind, and the music I make is very, very bad. I had a chat with a few local musicians (who are actually good at making music) to discover if all that’s holding me back from musical greatness is a hit of DMT.
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*All names have been changed, except for Sam Denne because they were keen for their music to be plugged. Listen to Baecorps' Joy on Tick if you haven’t! 99% of musicians would probably rather be asked for their Luxon, Seymour, and Peters Fuck-Marry-Kill ranking than explain where their ideas come from. Creative expression can be drawn from so many different areas of your life, relationships, and worldview that it's impossible to define through any medium beyond music. That, or you can have a few drinks and immediately assume you’ve become the god of sonic creativity. “It's easier to write a shit song and think it's good when you're wasted,” Sam Denne told Debate. The producer/songwriter behind Skody Banks and Baecorp has been through the ring of it, seeing the highs and lows of drug abuse at the peak of their angsty punk songwriting era. While they don't think the years spent making music on the piss were particularly healthy, it doesn't seem like they were necessarily unproductive. “I played in a goon-themed (and oriented) ‘crust-punk’ band for a while and I think it was definitely some of the more rudimentary music I've ever put together. Written drunk, designed to be played drunk and amped up on gear to punters on any combination of cheap booze and bad drugs that I'd liken to Marie Antoinette's head - chopped and removed from their original structure,” they said. Sam’s thoughts on their creativity are backed up by science. Dr Alice Flaherty, a Harvard researcher focusing on writer's block, writes “When your alcohol level first starts to rise, the first thing that it inhibits is some of the inhibitory systems.” So, alcohol in particular doesn't really help your creativity at all, but it sure makes you think it