Adrenalized: Life, Def Leppard, and Beyond by Phil Collen & Chris Epting

Author:Phil Collen & Chris Epting [Collen, Phil & Epting, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Composers & Musicians, Music, General, Genres & Styles, Rock
ISBN: 9781476751658
Google: pG_JCgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 147675165X
Barnesnoble: 147675165X
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2015-10-27T00:00:00+00:00

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In the winter of 1989, a few of us were in the studio one day when we got a call from Mensch. “Steve’s in trouble. He was found unconscious in a bar in Minneapolis, and he’s been rushed to a hospital there.”

We flew out to see him immediately. It was me, Joe, Mutt, Tony DiCioccio, and either Peter or Cliff. I remember turning up at the Hazelden Addiction Treatment Center, northeast of Minneapolis. The patients looked like the cast from the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, including the large Native American. We were asked by the doctor to write a letter to Steve voicing our opinions and how we felt about all of this. But then the doctor said, “Okay. Now I need you to read it to him.” The doctor also told us about enabling and that if we loved our friend we would have to confront him via intervention. I read my letter first. We all sat in a circle and we told him, “Steve you’re scaring the shit out of us.” He sat there with a cigarette, taking it all in. Mutt gave him a big hug; then we all hugged him and told him that we loved him. That was a very tearful and emotional experience for all involved, especially when the doctor explained to us that about 70 percent of alcoholics who get to this level usually end up getting killed either by accident or overuse. This was just about as serious as it could get. This was something very different.

The doctor also told us that the alcohol level in Steve’s blood was 0.59. That didn’t really mean anything to us, until he explained that it was a 0.41 level that had killed John Bonham from Led Zeppelin. Then he went into detail about just how dire it was—more statistics about alcoholism, the physiological and psychological toll on the body, everything. Then family members and friends of alcoholics at the facility came in with their stories.

With our support, Steve went to another rehabilitation center, this time in Tucson, Arizona. We told him to take a six-month sick leave and get healthy—that we’d keep working on the record and that as soon as he was able to, he’d get back in the fold. It wasn’t long afterward that Steve met Janie Dean, another patient who was being treated for heroin addiction. Steve thought this would be great—they could help each other cope with each other’s addictions. But, as anyone familiar with addiction knows, this was a bad fucking idea. They both left rehab and continued aiding each other’s addictions. We didn’t think it could get worse, but it did. It became almost impossible to keep track of Steve’s whereabouts or what he was doing.

The morning of January 8, 1991, I got a call from Cliff.

“Phil,” he said, “I’ve got some bad news. Steve died in his sleep.” It was exactly like the dream I had had. What had happened was that he had been drinking and had cracked a rib earlier on.

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