By Joel Cooper
Copy Editor
jacooper@sph.com.sg

 

When Amy Winehouse was found dead in her London flat in July, fans were devastated but maybe not that surprised.

It was no secret that the British soul diva with the towering beehive hairdo and even bigger talent had been fighting a losing battle against various addictions.

Her best known song was titled Rehab and the press had cruelly nicknamed her Wino – a reference to her debauched lifestyle, which was fuelled by a destructive on-off relationship with her junkie former husband Blake Fielder-Civil.

But there was another reason why her tragic death – which was recently found to be due to alcohol poisoning – had an air of inevitability about it. She was 27. That’s the same age as Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison and a host of other legends whose untimely demise earned them a place in the infamous 27 Club.

And although there is no statistical proof that a person – musician or not – is more likely to die at this particular time of life than any other, the apparent glut of overdoses, suicides and car crashes has led to the idea of a curse entrenching itself in fans’ collective consciousness.

In one sense, there is nothing at all mysterious about these rock and roll deaths. Amy Winehouse was killed by alcohol, Hendrix died of asphyxiation after mixing pills and red wine, and Cobain was in the grip of heroin addiction when he blew himself away with a shotgun.

Given their devil-may-care lifestyles, it comes as little surprise that a 2007 report found pop stars really do die young.

Two years after achieving fame, they are more than twice as likely to go to their graves prematurely as ordinary people in their demographic, said the survey of 1,064 successful musicians by Liverpool's John Moores University.

But what makes 27 such a seemingly common age for rockers to shuffle off to the great gig in the sky?

When people reach their late 20s, they 'start to face a lot more stress with work, starting relationships and pressure from families', says Dr Munidasa Winslow, Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychological Medicine at the National University of Singapore. 'They are also expected to be ‘grown up’ and deal with problems and issues as they come along...not always easy if they have not had good role models.'

Dealing with growing older is hard enough at the best of times, but imagine the havoc it could play with the psyche of a pampered rock star expected to live a life of constant excess while saddled with a fragile self-image based mainly on adulation by strangers. When illegal substances are thrown into the mix, things can get even more chaotic.

'Drugs and alcohol enable artists to live in a fictional world and sometimes they can get trapped in it,”' says Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Reader in Psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Perhaps it is this conflict between the pressures of growing up and a desire to cling on to that rebellious, creative edge that drives so many rockers off the rails in their late 20s. Then again, the “curse” could be nothing but a self-fulfilling prophecy.

After Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994, his mother Wendy was quoted as saying: 'Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club.' Was the Nirvana frontman consciously following in the footsteps of his tortured rock god idols? We’ll never know, although one thing is for sure. The myth of the 'stupid club' goes back a long way.

First to join was Robert Johnson. The legendary Mississippi bluesman is said to have had his whisky laced with poison by a love rival in 1938. Then, after lying dormant for more than 30 years, the curse apparently re-emerged with a vengeance.

Rolling Stone Brian Jones drowned in his pool in 1969, followed in quick succession by the deaths of guitar hero Hendrix, singer Janis Joplin and The Doors’ drink-addled frontman Jim Morrison, whose girlfriend found him slumped in a Paris bathtub in 1971.

But it was not until after Cobain’s suicide more than 20 years later that the 27 Club captured the public’s imagination, spawning websites and even a book.

What impact could all this death and destruction be having on impressionable fans? 'So many young people aspire to be rock stars, and youths in particular can feel they have a special relationship with the rock star or band that they follow,' says Professor Mark Bellis, who led the 2007 study on musicians’ life expectancies. 'We need to ensure such relationships do not include the promotion of health-damaging lifestyles.'

Of course, for most rational adults, the idea of singers being stalked by a curse is pure fantasy.  Sceptics point out that some of biggest names are conspicuously absent from the club – including King of Rock and Roll Elvis Presley, who left the building at a relatively elderly 42.

Yet too many fans and aspiring stars continue to be seduced by the dangerous myth that drugging yourself into an early grave is somehow glamorous. What they rarely see is the true, sordid picture of physical and moral degradation, grieving families and impressionable youngsters spurred on to throw their own lives away.

In an ideal world, the legend of the 27 Club would serve as a warning to wannabe rock gods. Sadly, however, its ghoulish allure shows no sign of fading.

As fans of Amy Winehouse wait for their tears to dry, we can only grit our teeth and hope she will be the last of the young stars that burn so brightly, only to be snuffed out forever.