Kevin Courtney looks at the lives of some legendary hellraisers who have swapped drugs for vitamins
You've been there, done that, and sold the T-shirts. You've jammed with Jimi Hendrix, duetted with Dylan and rocked with the Rolling Stones. You've done the sex, the drugs and all the other bad things associated with the rock 'n' roll lifestyle, and you've enjoyed every minute of it (well, every minute that you can remember, anyway).
You've risked life, limb and liver in the pursuit of fun, and you've come through it all relatively unscathed, save for perhaps a bald patch and a slight touch of tinnitus.
Now, you're staring down the barrel of middle-age, but you don't want to stop the music just yet. You realise, however, that if you want to stay in the game, you're going have to stay in shape. No one wants to see a clapped-out old rocker creaking arthritically onstage and croaking out their past hits. With any number of guitar-toting young bucks waiting to snatch your crown, you're gonna have to stay light on your feet or risk being swept aside by a new wave of stars.
"Hope I die before I get old," sang Roger Daltrey sometime back in the mesozoic era. He didn't get his wish, though: The Who are still rocking more than 30 years after My Generation, and Daltrey will be strutting his stuff at Oxegen next July. He's seen two of his bandmates sacrifice themselves at the rock 'n' roll altar, but it looks like he's not planning to join them anytime soon.
Rock music is now more than a half-century old, and its practitioners are starting to realise that they want to grow old too. Every rocker reaches a crossroads in their career, when they must decide between the road to ruin or the highway to health. Somewhere along the way, rock music has lost its appetite for self-destruction and rediscovered its lust for life.
When The Rolling Stones rolled into Dublin a couple of years ago on yet another record-breaking world tour, Keith Richards quipped to the audience: "It's great to be here - it's great to be anywhere." Anyone who's survived the excesses of rock 'n' roll will know exactly what he means.
Rock music can be detrimental to your health - in fact, it can be terminal. Many rockers don't even make it to middle age, and those who do survive long enough to collect their bus passes often find their hellraising past catching up with them. Just watch Ozzy Osbourne doddering on TV, and see what years of drugs, alcohol and biting the heads off bats can do to you.
Sadly, some ageing rockers never learn. John Entwhistle, bass player with The Who, died in 2002 of a massive heart attack on the eve of a world tour. He was found to have small amounts of cocaine in his system perhaps not enough to kill a younger person, but sadly fatal to a 57-year-old with an existing heart condition.
Rock stars tend to age badly compared with, say, sports stars, and it's all down to the lifestyle. Cigarettes, drugs, alcohol, bad diet and lack of sleep are occupational hazards for the working musician, and the reason many rockers look pale, wan and in need of a decent meal. Years of touring, performing, partying and spending long nights in the studio take their toll on the immune system, leaving many rock stars more susceptible to illness and disease in their later years. Lifelong smoker David Bowie had to cancel his headlining slot at Oxegen two years ago when he was hospitalised with a heart condition, and Scottish singer-songwriter John Martyn had to have a leg amputated following a life of hard drinking and hard drugs.
Some stars, however, stay fit and rocking right into their twilight years. A sneaky peek at Bruce Springsteen's backstage rider reveals that The Boss favours healthy foods when he hits the road. Forget Jack Daniel's, coke and the blood of 16 virgins: raw oats, fresh fruit, non-fat yoghurt and herbal tea are the main items on Bruce's menu. More and more rockers are turning their nose up at meat products: eminent vegetarians include Bryan Adams, Chrissie Hynde, Morrissey and - really - Meatloaf.
Sting stays youthful with tantric yoga and, allegedly, tantric sex; Madonna opts for Ashtanga yoga; and Mick Jagger brings a personal trainer on tour, to keep fit enough for his nightly 12-mile onstage marathon.
Joe Elliot, singer with rock veterans Def Leppard, doesn't go to either extreme, but he still feels fit enough to strut his stuff after more than 25 years on the road.
"I still do the same things I used to do when I was younger - it just takes me a day longer to recover," he says. "You'll still see me in Lillies on a 5am bender, but you won't see me for a month after that."
Def Leppard are releasing a new album in May, the affirmatively titled Yeah! It's an album of songs by the band's favourite teen heroes, including Bowie, Marc Bolan and Roxy Music.
"For me, it was all about the music, not the lifestyle. The other stuff was just a nice side-effect, but it wasn't the reason I got into it. When I was a kid, and I saw Bolan and Bowie on Top of the Pops, I didn't think, I wanna do their drugs. I didn't even know what drugs were. I wanted to sing and show off, and that's still what I want to do. But I can't keep doing it unless I stay healthy."
For Elliot, healthy living was something he gradually drifted into as he grew older, wiser and more conscious of rock's pitfalls. Also, his bandmate Steve Clark drinking himself to death and his drummer Rick Allen losing an arm in a car crash helped to focus his mind.
"A lot of is is just being sensible. We don't stay up all night after a gig if we have to do it again the next night. We've never gone onstage hammered. Maybe bring a beer 'n for the encore, but I've never stumbled onstage. We do it all after we've finished the job, and only if we don't have a gig the next night. If you're croaking onstage, the audience are going to be disappointed. Everybody gets the flu, but don't give yourself the rock 'n' roll flu."
Elliot eats healthy foods on tour ("You can get organic food even in Boise, Idaho"), drinks water by the gallon and takes vitamins to keep his immune system working.
"My lifestyle is moderation - whatever you like in small doses," says Elliott.
"I know it's a cliche, but the tortoise and the hare analogy is appropriate. When you burn brighter, you burn out quicker. On one end it's live fast, die young and leave a pretty corpse - on the other end it's BB King. I'll take BB King."
Probably the best way to survive the rock 'n' roll lifestyle is to never have done the drink and drugs in the first place.
Johnny Donnelly, ex-drummer with The Saw Doctors, always brought a bicycle with him on tour; while his bandmates slept off the previous night's partying, Donnelly would be cycling around whichever city the band was in.
Donnelly left The Saw Doctors four-and-a-half years ago, but he still hasn't given up his healthy lifestyle. Earlier this month, he flew off to Africa to take part in the first of three gruelling marathons in aid of the Niall Mellon Township Challenge, an Irish charity set up to build houses in disadvantaged areas of South Africa.
Donnelly begins by running a 70-mile run in the searing 45-degree heat of the Sahara, then heads to the North Pole in a couple of weeks in minus-40 degree Arctic conditions. He'll round it up with a 35-mile run in Cape Town, most of it uphill.
It's not every rock 'n' roller who can put down his guitar and run marathons in extreme temperatures, but it's never too late to get back at least a portion of your squandered health.
Donnelly also plays occasionally in a supergroup of sorts with Billy Duffy, the guitarist from The Cult, and Mike Peters from The Alarm. And what rock 'n' roll activities do the trio get up to when they meet? Do they crack open the whiskey or whisk open the crack for old times' sake?
"When you look back over The Cult's history, the stuff they used to get up to was just unbelievable. But myself, Mike and Billy, when we get together in Mike's house in Wales, all we do is jog the mountains.
"Those two boys are completely reformed in every respect. Chili Peppers are the same breed - complete health fanatics. I think people are realising that life's very short, and the damage that's done in the early years does take its toll in later years."