“Pot, hash, coke, whatever”: Grace Slick was amazed Jim Morrison made it to 27
No other era typified the ‘live fast, die young’ ethos quite as adeptly as the 1960s. The advent of the hippie counterculture, coinciding with a rise in prominence of mind-altering substances like LSD, inspired the creation of some truly groundbreaking artists, as well as a plethora of defiant, drug-addled rock and roll bands. Even still, there were a noble few who took this cocktail of sex, drugs, and rock and roll further than anyone else: people like Grace Slick and Jim Morrison.
Both Slick and Morrison got their start in music at the same time, with Slick forming The Great Society in 1965 and Morrison forming The Doors the very same year. Their respective journeys to the top of the pile in American counterculture rock were punctuated by an endless penchant for originality, a wide range of influences, and, of course, a great deal of drug use. For Slick, in particular, some of her most renowned compositions, like the Jefferson Airplane classic ‘White Rabbit’, were irrefutably linked to the use of acid, which came to typify the counterculture era.
For his part, Morrison’s work with The Doors was no more subtle in its references to drug use. The 1967 track ‘People Are Strange’, for instance, is very obviously an account of the counterculture scene and the strange people encountered while on an acid trip. LSD was not seen as much of a big deal within the hippie scene, particularly after it was adopted by more mainstream groups like The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, but as he progressed, Morrison’s drug use became increasingly worrying for those around him.
After all, Morrison was not using LSD in isolation, and he was not taking drugs solely for artistic inspiration. As the years went by, it seemed as if the songwriter was taking a worryingly broad spread of drugs on a daily basis for no reason other than to get through the day. Of course, drug and alcohol abuse is not a rare occurrence within rock and roll music, but Morrison took it to such an extent that even Grace Slick began to worry.
When the American underground bands started to reach the global mainstream, Jefferson Airplane would often tour alongside The Doors in Europe on a double bill, which would now blow the minds of rock obsessives. These tours gave Slick and Morrison an opportunity to spend time with each other and partake in copious amounts of drug use along with the rest of their respective bands.
In her memoir, Somebody to Love?, Slick recalled, “The kids on the streets of Amsterdam recognised us … they’d come up and talk, handing us various drugs as gifts of thanks for our music. Most of us just said ‘Thank you’ and put whatever it was in our pockets for later.” In contrast, Morrison seemingly saw no reason to waste any time when it came to this smorgasbord of free drugs handed to him by legions of adoring fans.
“Jim, on the other hand, stopped, sat down on the curb, and did it right up,” Slick remembered, “Pot, hash, coke, whatever. I thought he was ingesting an overly interesting combination of chemicals for that night’s concert.” When Grace Slick starts to think you are taking things too far, then you know you have something of a problem. For many years, prior to her sobriety, Slick was a poster girl for the drug-addled life of a successful rock and roll singer.
Of course, Morrison’s heavy and non-discriminatory policy towards drugs and alcohol was a huge contributing factor to his tragic death in 1971 at the age of only 27. In fact, some of those close to him have repeatedly claimed that his death came as a direct result of a drug overdose while in Paris. For Slick, though, the fact that he made it to 27 at all was a surprise, given the excessive lifestyle the rock star led.
“That he lived as long as he did,” she shared, “Was amazing to me.”
