Premature Death of Rock Stars

January 25, 2007 6:49 AM

Heart attacks, not overdoses, number one cause of musicians' early demise. An almost-thorough list of dead rock stars, but there are some "cause" blanks that need filling in.
posted by usedwigs (46 comments total)

Not overdoses? Have you ever seen the EKG of someone who is all coked out? Granted, heart attack might be the actual cause of death... but

If you wanna get down, down on the ground; cocaine.
posted by three blind mice at 6:56 AM on January 25, 2007

The first person I went to see how they categorized was Mark Sandman. He died of a heart attack in Italy, and later the fat obnoxious libertarian speaking half of Penn & Teller chalked it up to drug use. He's not on this list, though.
posted by ibmcginty at 6:58 AM on January 25, 2007

Following the links, I learned some FACTS about Hell (not faith-based), namely that hell is INSIDE THE EARTH!

The writers certainly themselves believed hell to be real and geographically 'beneath' the earth's surface. . .
To say this is not scientific is to assume science knows much more about the earth's interior than is actually the case. The great 'pit' [hell] would only need to be about 100 miles or less in diameter to contain, with much room to spare, all the forty billion or so people who have ever lived, assuming their 'spiritual' bodies are the same size as their physical bodies."

The Birmingham News, April 10, 1987 had an article entitled "Earth's Center Hotter Than Sun's Surface, Scientists Say". The article stated that scientists have recently discovered, "THE EARTH'S INNER CORE HAS A TEMPERATURE OF OVER 12,000 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT!"

I'm unplugging my Stratocaster right now.
posted by kozad at 7:15 AM on January 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

NOTE: This is EVERY death of a Rock star we've found. This is NOT a "RIGGED" list to produce FALSE numbers, but an HONEST observation.

and the percentage of deceased to those still living is ??? ... and compares to ordinary americans how?

WHAT IS YOUR CHOICE?

I Choose life!
I Choose death!

damn it, i hate making big decisions when i'm just waking up in the morning ...
posted by pyramid termite at 7:15 AM on January 25, 2007

Michael Hutchence INXS 97-11-22 37 Suicide

Really? I'd have put autoerotic asphyxiation
posted by Bravocharlie at 7:19 AM on January 25, 2007

I'm so happy that this is taken from a Christian website that has, to give one example, the charity and well just decent Christian values of forgiveness to put down Bobby Darin's heart attack (due to a congenital heart defect) down to the fact that he was a rock musician and therefore in league with Satan. God in his infinite wisdom has decided to strike any sinner before their even born.
posted by ob at 7:27 AM on January 25, 2007

Average Age at Death of Included Rock Stars

Sure, cherry pick the dead ones already. Let's use the average age of C++ programmers who have died. Gee, most start young, and since it is a relatively new language and we are only using those who have passed we find a short average life. Who knew programming was the devil's work? This list fails to include rockers who lived to die from old age. Where is George Harrison?
posted by caddis at 7:39 AM on January 25, 2007

God is a DJ (audio maybe NSFW) and therefore he must hate rock stars?

I am happy to see that Rob Collins (Keyboards, The Charlatans. Car crash) managed to escape the list.
posted by spish at 7:39 AM on January 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

kozad: "Following the links, I learned some FACTS about Hell (not faith-based), namely that hell is INSIDE THE EARTH!"

I'm really missing the image tag right now.

You rejected Jesus too? And after all he's done for you! And they even asked you twice!

Be sure not to miss the main page of Dial-the-Truth Ministries (you can't make this silliness up), where you can view their delightfully uplifting DEATH COUNTER. Two hundred people have died since I first opened that page!
posted by koeselitz at 7:50 AM on January 25, 2007

If I include the road crew and a former member, I've lost 7 out of 10 of me old bandmates. To hepatitis, heart attack, AIDS, plane crash, two car accidents, and one so absurd I'll just file it under gardening incident. The one thing they all had in common was breathing too much oxygen and giving up a day job for a belief in themselves, regardless of ever making the "big time" and the honor of being enthroned on this shitcake's list.

"...but the years of the wicked shall be shortened." Go tell Iggy. I dare you.
posted by hal9k at 8:03 AM on January 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

anyone notice that the book they got the info from is 10 years old!
posted by nimsey lou at 8:09 AM on January 25, 2007

i would submit that anybody dying at 58 is not an early death :)
posted by empath at 8:12 AM on January 25, 2007

(or at least, not premature)
posted by empath at 8:12 AM on January 25, 2007

empath, you might feel differently when you hit 58.

and they're missing one choice from the bottom of the page: I choose to ROCK!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 8:20 AM on January 25, 2007

This is no surprise. The leading cause of death is always heart disease. Musicians are just following the mainstream population.
posted by markulus at 8:20 AM on January 25, 2007

I almost joined their ranks last year. I still rock though, just not so hard.
posted by chillmost at 8:35 AM on January 25, 2007

Be sure not to miss the main page of Dial-the-Truth Ministries (you can't make this silliness up)

Ho, ho, ho!

Even more amazingly, the Church Lady had this one figured out twenty years ago!
posted by yhbc at 8:47 AM on January 25, 2007

I much prefer Motorbooty magazine's rock death index, but I'll be damned if I can find it anywhere on the 'Net.
posted by NoMich at 8:47 AM on January 25, 2007

...and Cass Elliot did NOT die of "choking" on a ham sandwich, or anything else. "Medical" should be the proper COD.
posted by Faze at 8:56 AM on January 25, 2007

For a website about death, I was expecting more awesome somehow. I don't know what, but I thought it would be awesome. *sigh*

George Harrison's not on there. Was his death somehow not "premature"? Is there an age cutoff? I'm seeing guys listed as dying of heart attacks in their 50s... Harrison was only 58 when he died of cancer. Or was this list made pre-2001?

Is there some sort of anti-George Harrison conspiracy?
posted by grapefruitmoon at 9:25 AM on January 25, 2007

Michael Hutchence INXS 97-11-22 37 Suicide
Really? I'd have put autoerotic asphyxiation

Dying by autoerotic asphyxiation is suicide, technically. Just comes with a whole other set of baggage.
posted by psmealey at 9:25 AM on January 25, 2007

The "causes" field is again too cryptic to be meaningful, which skews the data a bit.

Bonham, though he probably did have a high enough BAC to kill a normal person when he died, that's not what killed him. He asphyxiated on his own vomit. There's some dispute as to whether Hendrix died in a very similar way.

Ronnie Lane technically died of pneumonia, though I'm sure the MS was a complicating factor.

Also, since when did Randy Rhoades(sic) play in Quiet Riot?
posted by psmealey at 9:37 AM on January 25, 2007

Is there some sort of anti-George Harrison conspiracy?

Note to MetaClub: grapefruitmoon is getting suspicious and making inquiries. Kiki? Please advise.
posted by hal9k at 9:45 AM on January 25, 2007

This is a misleading chart, even ignoring the selection filter. First of all, there's the proximate cause of death and then there's an underlying cause of death. A heart attack induced by cocaine has the former as the proximate cause and 'overdose' as the latter. It is likely that many of the heart attacks et al. are the result of decades (or just years) of excess consumption of many, many drugs.
posted by daksya at 9:52 AM on January 25, 2007

Is there some sort of anti-George Harrison conspiracy?

Okay, fine. The truth? We missed. The wrong one died. And that led to the whole "Wings" fiasco.

Okay, I've said too much.
posted by hal9k at 9:52 AM on January 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Joe Strummer's not on there. Most famous rock and roll heart attack.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:12 AM on January 25, 2007

NoMich, I've got that issue of Motorbooty...
posted by AJaffe at 10:18 AM on January 25, 2007

*sigh* I used to have all of the Motorbootys, but they up 'n disappeared on me somehow.
posted by NoMich at 10:26 AM on January 25, 2007

You know what other group of people as a whole die at a young age? Martyrs.

1. Joan of Arc - 19
2. Francis Ferdinand de Capillas - 40
3. Saint Agnes - 13
4. Paul of Tarsus (St. Paul) - 57
5. Joseph Smith, Jr - 39

Average age of Death of Americans: 75.8
Average age of Death of Martyrs: 33.6

For their rock is not as our Rock,
Deuteronomy 32:31

5 Behold, God is mighty, and despiseth not any: he is mighty in strength and wisdom.
6 He preserveth not the life of the wicked:. . .
14 They DIE in youth, and their life is among the unclean.
Job 36:5,6,14

Don't even get me started on aborted fetuses.
posted by substrate at 11:02 AM on January 25, 2007 [3 favorites]

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a rock singer? He performed religious music.
posted by mike3k at 11:16 AM on January 25, 2007

This list is all, like, part of the conspiracy man. Want proof?

Kurt Cobain was murdered.

And Country Dick Montana died of far too much awesomeness.
posted by tkchrist at 11:19 AM on January 25, 2007 [1 favorite]

Dying of a heart attack when you're in your 50s isn't "premature" - that's when a lot of people who die of heart attacks die of a heart attack.

Also, c'mon now...
John Phillips, dead at 65 - premature? Go to hell rock-haters!
posted by Mister_A at 11:50 AM on January 25, 2007

I didn't know John Phillips was dead. We're down to one Mama?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:55 AM on January 25, 2007

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan sang the devil's music, dincha know that?
posted by kozad at 12:08 PM on January 25, 2007

Dying by autoerotic asphyxiation is not suicide.

It typically gets signed out as:
Cause of Death: Experimentation [to save the family from embarassment]
Manner of Death: Accident

Suicide, by definition, implies that the deceased intentionally ended their life.

Heroin claimed my favorite punker, Bradley Nowell from Sublime.

RIP. We barely knew you.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 12:11 PM on January 25, 2007

The authors of this red, black and white site (hmmmmm) are missing the point. A lot of these guys wanted to "live fast, die young, and leave a good looking corpse."
posted by telstar at 4:02 PM on January 25, 2007

If you define suicide as doing something with a risk involved and then dying as a result, then yes, you could say that autoerotic asphyxiation is suicide.

And using that logic you could reason Kennedy knew that Presidents were sometimes assassinated and, ergo committed suicide. Pretty soon you could be attorney general.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:03 PM on January 25, 2007 [2 favorites]

of Nazereth Jesus The Holy Trinity 33-??-?? 33 Murdered
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 4:31 PM on January 25, 2007

Only the good die young. How else does one explain Cliff Richard?
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:46 PM on January 25, 2007

They claim the list is not biased in any way because they included "every one they could find".

bahahhahaha
posted by tehloki at 5:35 PM on January 25, 2007

Does this mean every time I jam along to my Foghat record, I'm one step closer to perdition?
posted by breezeway at 6:55 PM on January 25, 2007

i always heard that Ricky Wilson of the B-52's dies of AIDS.
posted by brandz at 7:08 PM on January 25, 2007

I can't trust a chart that lists Bob Marley's cause of death as "cancer"
posted by Pollomacho at 10:28 PM on January 25, 2007

What do you want it to be listed as? Freaky-Deaky-Maryjewanna-Poisoning?
posted by tehloki at 11:15 PM on January 25, 2007

Dying by autoerotic asphyxiation is not suicide.

I stand corrected. I had forgotten about the intent part. It is, however, a really, really fucking stupid way to go. Imagine getting to the pearly gates and having to explain that one to St. Pete.
posted by psmealey at 3:45 AM on January 26, 2007

Dying by autoerotic asphyxiation may not be suicide, but it is socially so.
posted by tehloki at 7:14 AM on January 26, 2007