The myth of the “fade in guy”: A rock star’s cheat code for authorised cocaine budgets
While contemporary artists are scratching around, looking for part-time jobs to fill the financial void left by pitiful streaming royalties, the hedonistic days of sex, drugs and rock and roll seem hard to imagine. At a time when music’s disposable income was at such a level, an artist could look at a TV set in a hotel room and think nothing of throwing it out the window. Heck, musicians now are likely to marvel at the mere fact that there was even enough budget for a hotel room.
So when Matty Healy appeared on John Kennedy’s Tape Notes podcast and spoke of the “fade-out guy” myth, you could hear the collective banging of heads against the wall as the fruitful rumours of yesteryear were somewhat confirmed.
“Do you know about the fade-out guy they used to do in the ’80s to get cocaine budgets?” Healy asked the host. He explained, “There was a naivety amongst major-label dudes, so like people who were really on the sesh and they were like making records. They would put a bit of the budget to the side for the fade-out guy. So they would ‘fly’ in a guy who like is perfect at doing the fade-out”.
He added, “That’s where they got a lot of their budget for Racket, which I thought was pretty cool.” Now, while most of Healy’s anecdotes do indeed sound like a rambling guy at an after party who prefaces every story with “trust me, bro,” the known hedonism of music’s history combined with his family lineage that stretches back into the vaults of entertainment, gives its prospect of truth some serious weight.
But to be honest, most of the research confirming its truth is pretty scratchy. That’s not to say it never happened, but it doesn’t seem as though it was quite as common as Healy suggests.
Perhaps the story’s re-telling in the modern era, where cocaine is just as rife but not as celebrated, gives the story extra intrigue. But the reality is that musicians in the ’70s and ’80s weren’t stretched for sources of illicit substances and, quite frankly, didn’t need to go to such lengths to either secure or hide it.
While Healy’s story is set in the decade that followed, Bowie once spoke of cocaine and its presence in the industry, saying: “I started on the drugs at the end of 1973 and then with force in 1974. As soon as I got to America, pow! It was so freely available in those days. Coke was everywhere. … Because I have a very addictive personality, I was a sucker for it.”
Bowie’s claim is backed up by a myriad of songs that emerged throughout the late 21st century that acted as a love letter to the powdered drug and speak of a world where it’s hard to imagine loopholes were required. Although the idea of an officially employed drug dealer adds to the anti-establishment sentiment we love to romanticise about music’s yesteryear, and for that reason alone, I’m willing to fan the flames of Healy’s anecdote.
