FUll Article here: https://gn24.ae/87b3507f9faa000
See more at https://gulfnews.com/videos
One of the most infamous conspiracies in the music industry, is the 27 club. Why do so many great artists seem to meet their maker at this age? Is it coincidence or curse? Leslie and Yousra dive into this dark and intriguing subject.
#27Club #Curse #GoneTooSoon
See more at https://gulfnews.com/videos
One of the most infamous conspiracies in the music industry, is the 27 club. Why do so many great artists seem to meet their maker at this age? Is it coincidence or curse? Leslie and Yousra dive into this dark and intriguing subject.
#27Club #Curse #GoneTooSoon
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to another episode of Rap Rock and All That Jazz.
00:09My name is Yusra, and I'm joined by Leslie Wilson.
00:12Hello, Yusra.
00:13Hi, Leslie.
00:14How are you?
00:15I'm good.
00:16How are you?
00:17What have you been listening to in the last couple of days since we met?
00:18Anything interesting?
00:19Oh, surprisingly, I've been sort of on a Nirvana binge.
00:21Lovely.
00:22Yeah.
00:23Sounds good.
00:24I mean, I'll tell you why.
00:25It's because it's gonna...
00:26It's basically...
00:27Got something to do with our show today?
00:28Yeah.
00:29Oh, lovely.
00:30It's a very morbid topic.
00:31So I'm gonna say Nevermind, which was, by the way, the iconic album.
00:36Yes, I remember.
00:37Me, full of puns.
00:38Silly puns.
00:39The baby floating in the pool.
00:40I remember.
00:41Yeah.
00:42So basically, today's topic is going to be about the 27 Club.
00:45I don't know if you've heard of the 27 Club before.
00:47Haven't we all heard about it?
00:49It's a really creepy kind of story that we're gonna tackle today, basically about a lot
00:53of famous rock stars who died at the age of 27.
00:57So we're gonna find out whether it's a coincidence, or there was something with that number, 27.
01:05So basically, many people are saying that it's not a coincidence, because it's about
01:11over 80 people who have been successful musicians that died at the age of 27.
01:18Among them are Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison.
01:26And way more, I have a full list of all of them.
01:28We're not gonna go through all of them, but I've got a list.
01:32And basically, the really interesting bit is that none of them have died, I mean, you
01:37don't ever die a natural death at 27, but most of them haven't been very peaceful deaths.
01:43A lot of it is murder, road accident, cardiac arrest, drug overdose was a big one, alcohol
01:50poisoning.
01:52And basically, you know, some do call it the curse, some call it a coincidence.
01:57But like, is it...
01:58I call it the tragic 27 club.
02:00Yeah, it is.
02:01It's very tragic.
02:02Yeah, it is.
02:03And, and, yeah, I mean, some of these members, like I said, are just, what they have in common
02:11is that a lot of them reached success at a very young age.
02:15That's one very strong theory.
02:16I agree with you.
02:17They died.
02:18Yeah.
02:19And I guess a lot of them did die from drug overdoses, you know, and alcohol, and just
02:26not being able to deal with fame at such a young age.
02:28So maybe it has something to do with that.
02:30I kind of agree and disagree with you as well.
02:33Basically, what triggered this 27 club was that four really incredibly famous rock stars,
02:39Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Brian Jones, the guy who founded the Rolling Stones,
02:46they all died at the age of 27 within the span of two years.
02:51So that was pretty much pretty eerie.
02:53I mean, people are wondering, was it a coincidence, you know, just for...
02:57But then when Kurt Cobain died, the founder of Nirvana, his mom posted later saying like,
03:05now he's done it.
03:06That's it.
03:07Yeah.
03:08So that means he talked about joining this 27 club.
03:11Yeah.
03:12There is a famous...
03:13That's pretty spooky, isn't it?
03:14Yeah.
03:15So where his mom says to a reporter, I told him not to join that stupid club.
03:19So can we talk about Kurt Cobain for a little bit?
03:22Because I researched and I got sort of like the history and I started listening a little
03:27bit to Nirvana.
03:28And the thing about Kurt Cobain is that he always felt like fame took away from his artistic
03:35ability in music.
03:36Like it just diverted the attention away from what really mattered.
03:39That's sort of unusual.
03:40A lot of rock stars feel that way.
03:41Yeah.
03:42So basically, they're calling him like the...
03:47He was sort of like the front man of the grunge revolution in the 1990s.
03:56And you know, when he released Nevermind in 91, like that's when people really started
04:02noticing them.
04:04And that's when he started doing drugs really heavily.
04:07His relationship with Courtney Love, I read about all of this, like I really immersed
04:11myself into it.
04:12She's a rock star herself.
04:13Yeah.
04:14But apparently, they're saying that she's the one who kind of got him into heroin and
04:20into drugs.
04:21Yeah.
04:22And every time they both tried to quit, they just couldn't, they would go back.
04:25And it was just a very tumultuous, really unhealthy relationship.
04:29And sometimes I like to think that if his partner had maybe been someone a little more
04:34down to earth and not so wild, like Courtney Love.
04:37Yeah, a lot more stable.
04:38Yeah.
04:39And I read that she quickly was like, oh, I'm going to set my sights on Kurt Cobain
04:44and I'm going to get him.
04:45And she pursued him heavily.
04:48And...
04:49Yeah, but it's kind of easy to blame somebody.
04:51I mean, at the end of the day, you've got, listen, I'm going to talk to you about smoking.
04:56All my friends smoke.
04:57I've never smoked.
04:58Yeah.
04:59I'm not saying I'm a saint or, you know, it's just that at the end of the day, you don't
05:02blame somebody else for what you did wrong.
05:05That's true.
05:06What you did wrong.
05:07Kurt Cobain probably was very vulnerable at that time.
05:11You know, he found success at such a young age and astounding success, astonishing success.
05:17And that album, Nevermind, was absolutely mind blowing.
05:20I listened to it at least once a month.
05:22Oh, really?
05:23Come as you are.
05:24Yeah.
05:25And Nirvana, Unplugged.
05:26That's amazing.
05:27Actually, that was what I just listened to.
05:31And that's where you can really feel the cocaine or whatever, heroin influenced voice that
05:36he had.
05:37Yeah.
05:38Because it was raw.
05:39It was raspy.
05:40But it brought something to that show of, you know, Unplugged where there was no gadgets,
05:44no gimmicks.
05:45It was just Kurt Cobain himself.
05:46Yeah.
05:47Yeah.
05:48Tragic.
05:49We lost a great musician out there.
05:50Yeah.
05:51So basically he died on April 8th, 1994.
05:55So I was about four years old or three.
05:58So he died.
06:00He took a whole bunch of drugs, took heroin, and then shot himself in the head.
06:07And he was found in a greenhouse.
06:10And he left a suicide note stuck on some soil.
06:13And a gardener found him.
06:15And the gardener called the local radio station.
06:17He was like, I have a scoop for you.
06:19You better give me free concerts for life because you're going to go crazy when you
06:22find out.
06:23Wow.
06:24That's weird.
06:25So he found him.
06:26That's weird.
06:27And he told everybody.
06:28I told him not to join that stupid group.
06:30What a way to die.
06:31What a waste of life.
06:32Really.
06:33I mean, they also say only the good die young.
06:35So there's a bit of solace in that we can take, you know.
06:38He was really not just good.
06:39He was great.
06:40I mean, so having said that, I mean, that's probably the worst way to die.
06:44Drugs killing yourself.
06:46And what about Amy Winehouse in 2011?
06:48Yes.
06:49So I've got some research on Amy over here.
06:52We go forward and we go backwards, guys.
06:54Yeah.
06:55We're going to be oscillating.
06:56Yeah.
06:57She died in 2011, which was pretty recent.
07:00She was also 27.
07:01She grew up in like a family of lots of musicians.
07:04So she really jumped into the scene very early on at 16.
07:08And with her newfound fame came access to so much drugs and alcohol.
07:14And she basically just poisoned herself by drinking to death.
07:18Yeah.
07:19That was literally it.
07:20That's really sad as well, because she was another gifted singer.
07:22I mean, she brought such a whole new dimension to the mainstream blues and all that.
07:28And the way she sang, performed her stage, her identity altogether, the look, the Amy
07:33Winehouse look, you know, with the big hairdo and, you know, the one from the 50s and 60s.
07:40And she was iconic.
07:41She was also a very small woman.
07:44So all of the things that she took, I'm sure, really affected her body straight away.
07:50The smaller you are.
07:51And she also suffered from bulimia because she had body image issues.
07:55So she would throw up.
07:56That's right.
07:57She just didn't have enough, I think, body to handle all the alcohol and all the drugs.
08:02What a waste.
08:03I mean, that's all we can say.
08:04I mean, it's a wasted life.
08:05I mean, at the end of the day, if Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse were still around, the music
08:11business would be a lot more enriched, right?
08:13Yes.
08:14He would be about 40, no, he was born in 67.
08:20So he would be about in his 50s right now.
08:22But his music lives on, isn't it?
08:24So does Amy Winehouse.
08:25And she's another woman I listen to a lot.
08:27I've got concerts of her.
08:28Yeah.
08:29And I've seen her as well.
08:30But should we talk a bit about the Hendrix and Morrison and Joplin?
08:34Yeah, let's talk about Hendrix.
08:35But wait, before we jump into Hendrix, I have a very interesting man called Robert Johnson.
08:40Yes, the blues guitarist.
08:42So people think so.
08:45So the speculation about him is, is that he actually made a deal with the devil, because
08:52he didn't know how to play guitar.
08:54And then I know that story into a four, I don't know, he disappeared somewhere.
08:59And then suddenly came back and he had like the fastest riffing and yeah, yeah, he got
09:04those skills.
09:05And a lot of a lot of musicians talk to the devil.
09:09And, you know, there's even a lovely song called The Devil Went Down to Georgia, about
09:12a fiddle player.
09:13So, I mean, yeah, it's fun.
09:15It's I mean, we shouldn't read too much into it.
09:18No, I mean, so basically, Robert Leroy Johnson, they're calling him one of the original members
09:23of the club, because, you know, after that, those really mainstream death happens that
09:27you mentioned, yeah, they started going back and like looking, yeah, oh, my God, how many
09:31of these probably one of the first of the big names to pop themselves.
09:36But no one really knows how he died.
09:38Yeah, they just know he did at 27.
09:40And he really influenced like music today.
09:43Yes.
09:44So many BB King and, you know, the blues guitar muddy waters, all of them, they've all taken
09:48notes out of his book.
09:49And yeah, play that.
09:50But yeah, so I mean, it's very sad that we have to be talking about people who, you know,
09:56kill themselves or, you know, but then again, it's it's always in do I mean, this talk about
10:02did it happen?
10:03Is there is there a jinx?
10:05Is there some connection with the devil?
10:06Is there some sort of, you know, what else or what can it be?
10:10If you ask me personally, I think it's nothing but coincidence.
10:13Yeah, it's nothing.
10:15It's absolutely nothing.
10:16Cobain is an exception.
10:18He wanted to join that club.
10:20Yeah.
10:21But with Hendricks, Morrison, Joplin, and Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones, look,
10:26Brian Jones was a founding member of the Rolling Stones.
10:30And look at Mick Jagger.
10:31He's still very much alive.
10:32Yeah, he didn't want to join that 27 club.
10:34And he's about, I think, 76 right now.
10:37And he's still rocking must be the oldest rocker in the world.
10:41So I heard that before, what's his name, Brian Jones, Brian Jones, before he died, that they
10:48were actually trying to get him out of the Rolling Stones.
10:51Is that true?
10:52That's true.
10:53There's always you know, I mean, he probably didn't fit into that.
10:56The you know, the early early Rolling Stones albums, he didn't fit into that.
10:59And did you know how he died?
11:00There's a there's a theory that he went swimming with heavy boots.
11:04Yeah, absolutely.
11:05And actually sank.
11:06Oh, no.
11:07That's really creepy.
11:08That's the last thing you do when you go for a swim, go in with heavy boots and all that.
11:12So but these guys were pretty dysfunctional.
11:15I think the 60s and 70s, a lot of people were dysfunctional.
11:19A lot of them used drugs as a as a method to reach a different zone, a different level
11:25of thinking of observation and talent like in Hendricks's case, probably the most influential
11:32rock guitarist ever.
11:34Tell me about Jimi Hendrix.
11:35You'll never ever have another Hendricks.
11:37So he was born in 1942.
11:38That's right.
11:39Seattle, Washington.
11:40That's right.
11:41I have all the facts.
11:42Yeah.
11:43And he was a solo artist.
11:44He played as Jimi Hendrix.
11:46And he also had a band called the Electric Ladyland Band.
11:49But possibly his most iconic performance came at Woodstock, the iconic festival at Yasker's
11:55Farm in 1969.
11:58So he was 26 at the time.
12:0026.
12:01Okay, I didn't know that.
12:02Because he died in 1970.
12:04So he I saw that concert.
12:08My editor actually showed it to me just how he was performing on stage.
12:12Apparently that really shot him to fame.
12:14Yeah, that's right.
12:16So there's a song that he does called Purple Haze, that's his signature number.
12:21And where he's his iconic lines are, touch me while I kiss the sky.
12:26I mean, look at that.
12:27I mean, which normal person can come up with lyrics like that?
12:30You need to have a really stoned or really high.
12:33But I mean, he's brilliant.
12:34I mean, the things he did with the guitar, you know, experimented with it a lot.
12:40The way he bends notes, you know, bending notes.
12:43Modern guitarists, every young guitarist, aspiring guitarist listens to Hendrix to find
12:48out how they can push the envelope.
12:50Yeah.
12:51So Hendrix died when his, Hendrix died when his girlfriend, Monica, Danman, Danman, discovered
13:00him.
13:01So she found him in bed.
13:02And she was like, Oh, my God, I can't wake him up.
13:06And she thought that he committed suicide, because she found some like musical lyrics
13:10that she thought was a suicide note.
13:12But it turns out that he died from asphyxiation from his own vomit.
13:16Yeah.
13:17But again, drug influence.
13:18You know, Hendrix, apparently, they said a habit of picking up any pills.
13:22If you had any pills lying around, antihistamines or whatever, he would he just pop them.
13:27So he had a pill obsession.
13:29And yeah, he choked on his vomit and died.
13:31What a very sad way to die.
13:33I mean, he left.
13:34But anyway, he left behind such a legacy.
13:36You know, he's got an album called Electric Ladyland, which is a brilliant album.
13:41So many brilliant songs.
13:42A Bridge of Sighs.
13:43That's another brilliant album of his.
13:45And then what about Jim Morrison?
13:47He's one of my favorites.
13:48He's one of my favorite artists.
13:49Yes.
13:50And I've got a spooky thing to say as well as we go on.
13:53So Morrison, of course, we all know, was the the man behind the doors, one of the most
13:57iconic bands we formed with Ray Manzarek.
14:01So with Manzarek's keyboard playing very, you know, very church organ based sound, they
14:07forged a very unique sound to their music.
14:10I mean, you probably everybody's probably had Riders on the Storm.
14:13Yes, I have.
14:14That's a brilliant song.
14:15That's a great song.
14:16I do know this one.
14:17The other iconic song of theirs is Roadhouse Blues, which a lot of people listen to.
14:21But, Nusra, guess what?
14:23I've actually been to Jim Morrison's, listen to this very carefully, grave in Paris.
14:31He died in Paris.
14:32He died in Paris.
14:33You're right.
14:34It's a tourist landmark.
14:35About 14 years ago when I was there and somebody did mention it and I had a couple of days
14:40spare to go, I went to this grave and I believe it's in, you know, it's called a cemetery,
14:44the West End's West Side Cemetery, something like, it's got a French name, which I'm not
14:49even going to attempt to pronounce, but it's the West End Cemetery, one of the biggest
14:53cemeteries in Paris.
14:55And he's buried over there.
14:56It's a pretty normal grave.
14:59The tombstone has, you know, people writing graffiti, coming and paying tributes.
15:03Any new visitors who are inspired to write something or move to write something would
15:07do so.
15:08They probably wash it away the next day.
15:09They put weird flowers, you know, daffodils and drop a picture of his.
15:14He even left albums.
15:15You'd find those albums as though he would need those albums.
15:19When I went there, somebody put a photograph of Jim Morrison and there was even a garland
15:24possibly from an Indian guy, because in India we put garlands on our tombstones.
15:30It was creepy, but it was kind of fulfilling in a way.
15:33I mean, you don't visit graves of dead people, do you?
15:37But Morrison was such a lovely singer.
15:40I really liked what he did to music, the way he played with music, and, you know, I
15:45have all the Doors albums.
15:46Oh, that's cool.
15:47Yeah.
15:48I love the Doors, yeah.
15:49I've downloaded them.
15:50I just have them.
15:51He was also known as the Lizard King because he had a very creepy way of singing, you know,
15:57over the mic.
15:58Yeah, he would ride around the microphone stand.
16:01He was sexy.
16:02He was good looking.
16:03Yeah.
16:04He had a great voice.
16:05He had all the components to make a great, great rock star.
16:07Yeah, but too bad that he died in Paris.
16:13He actually went there in 1971 with his girlfriend, and he started sort of suffering from respiratory
16:22problems.
16:23He was coughing up blood.
16:24No one exactly knew what it was, but they say that it was probably a heroin overdose,
16:31and then he got heart failure from it.
16:33Wow.
16:34Yeah.
16:35Understandable.
16:36Yeah, I mean, if you're going to overdose, something's going to go wrong with your body.
16:39It's not going to take it.
16:40I mean, that whole decade, you know, there was so much of, you know, wrong stuff going
16:46on.
16:47I mean, there was overdosing.
16:48Yeah.
16:49Janis Joplin.
16:50She was another one who joined the 27th Club.
16:53Tell me about her because I didn't do any research on her.
16:55Janis Joplin has the most amazing voice, absolutely.
17:00She's known as the greatest white blues singer.
17:06And there's a song called Cry, which is an iconic song, and she just screams out cry.
17:12But the note she hits, the level she can take music to.
17:16She was really the, you know, the bohemian child, the hippie, the hippie rock star.
17:20She again was very much in the Hendrix mold, the Jim Morrison mold, but possibly the most
17:26well-known female singer in the world at that point of time.
17:30And yeah, again, again, a victim of drugs again.
17:35That's very sad as well.
17:37Yeah.
17:38Yeah.
17:39So I know it's really, really strange to be talking about.
17:44So what do you make of this?
17:45So what do you think was wrong with music?
17:49I mean, there was nothing wrong with music at that time.
17:52Probably the best music.
17:53It was the best music.
17:54What's wrong with the people who made the music?
17:56I think maybe these days people are really into like wellness and like they understand
18:02what everything is to your body.
18:05Maybe it was just the lack of knowledge about good health care and what drugs actually do
18:11to you.
18:12I mean, I'm not super duper like, I shouldn't be saying this, but like drug laws, sometimes
18:19I feel like they're exaggerated, right?
18:22But at the same time, when I read stories like this, I feel like, no, like you really
18:27shouldn't be putting this stuff into your body.
18:29And a lot of these people have died because of this.
18:33I read a couple of reports and some more statistics, and I read this article in The Independent
18:41and they kind of prove your point is that it's like a myth.
18:45It's not really like a thing.
18:49Nothing happens to your body when you turn 27 that causes you to die.
18:53Actually they say that 28 and 65 have a lot more death than 27.
19:00Yes, I do know.
19:01They said something like 2.3% of rock stars died at 28.
19:06Yeah, more than 27.
19:081.3% by the way, apparently.
19:11That's what the study said.
19:12Only 1.3% of rock stars in the world at that time died at the age of 27.
19:19And basically they're saying it's that sort of 27, the whole reason that this club was
19:28formed is because these particular people who died at the age of 27 had a lot of talent,
19:35they were groundbreaking in their music, or even performances.
19:40Some of them weren't really musicians or singers, they were guitarists, whatever.
19:45And it just kind of, it's like a thing that people then started to do.
19:51And you know when people start to talk about conspiracy theories, it just kind of snowballs
19:56into something bigger.
19:57A lot of ground, yes.
19:58Of course it did.
19:59Interestingly, I was just talking to Ashley Hammond, our colleague, and he has a different
20:03theory on this 27 club.
20:05He feels that a lot of people peak at the age of 27.
20:09That's when you absolutely really peak.
20:12And I think as a musician you would ultra-peak.
20:14So in Kurt Cobain's case, probably he felt he'd achieved everything, he'd got fame, he'd
20:20got notoriety, you know, he'd done everything in life that he wanted to do.
20:25And there was nothing more that he felt he had to prove as a musician, and he did the
20:30silly thing of joining that club.
20:33Yeah.
20:34Which is really unfortunate, so, I mean, the 27 club, it just so happened that a lot of
20:44them died.
20:45It was over 80 artists at 27, they were all super successful.
20:49Most of the, like literally 99% of the deaths were very like freak accidents, like car crashes
20:56or heart failure or stuff that doesn't happen to you unless you kind of bring it upon yourself
21:01or suicide or the devil kills you.
21:05I don't know.
21:06He takes your soul back to house.
21:07A lot of musicians died in plane crashes, Yusra.
21:09Oh, really?
21:10That's pretty strange.
21:11There's a guy, country singer, who my mom absolutely loves, a guy called Jim Reeves,
21:16possibly the most golden voice in country music.
21:20He died in a plane crash.
21:22And Bill Haley and the Comets, the tragic incident of that, you know, there's so many,
21:27so many, so many...
21:28I can kind of explain that a bit.
21:30I feel like when you're a musician...
21:31Sorry, Buddy Holly, that was.
21:32Oh, oh, yeah.
21:33Buddy Holly, sorry.
21:34That's okay.
21:35When you're a musician and you tour a lot, you tend to travel a lot, and I guess it's
21:39just statistics, like if you're on an airplane every week, you're more likely.
21:42Look at what happened to our good friend Michael Jackson.
21:45Of course, he died, I think, at the age of 50.
21:48But he suffered the same thing.
21:49I mean, he was struggling with his conscience, with his identity, and the loneliness that
21:55you have as a rock star.
21:57You can't go anywhere.
21:59You can't do anything.
22:00You've got to disguise yourself many times.
22:02There was an incident where he was in Dubai in disguise, they said.
22:06He was wearing an abaya.
22:09That's a bit wacky, but that's the story, I mean, that when he used to come here, he
22:15just didn't want to be noticed.
22:16He didn't want to be recognized.
22:17Yeah, I get it.
22:18So I felt you feel so alone in yourself, and you resort to drugs and alcohol.
22:23But he died.
22:24I mean, he gave us the best music from the Motown, yeah, he had time, unlike these other
22:29guys.
22:30But yeah, I mean.
22:31So yeah, what a creepy choice episode to do, but I mean, at the end of the day, we can't
22:37hide from certain things.
22:38Yeah, death.
22:39Life has, yeah, death, especially, you know, I would blame it on the hippie culture as
22:45well.
22:46There was a massive hippie movement going on, you know, love, peace and drugs.
22:50I mean, remember the famous tie dye t-shirts people wore and the peace sign.
22:54I remember I tried to make one of those, you know, I made tie dye t-shirts when I was a
22:59little kid.
23:00Yeah.
23:01So it's yeah.
23:02So anyway, guys, enough of the 27 Club.
23:05We're going to keep talking about nicer things when we come back in our next episode.
23:12Yes.
23:13We've got a lot of things to talk about.
23:14I mean, you know, the music is a world out there, so with Yusra's help and our producers
23:22and so stay with us, Yusra.
23:24For sure.
23:25And gulfnews.com.
23:26Thanks, everybody.