Destruction and depravity is normalised in the transgressive world of rock’n’roll. Is it too late to reassess the human cost?
In 2000, Ian Winwood, a longstanding writer for hard rock magazine Kerrang! – was sent to interview an up-and-coming rock band. He liked them immediately, recognised their potential and struck up a friendship with them. He watched, delighted, from various degrees of proximity, as they rose in popularity – sold-out shows, platinum albums, a very real chance of breaking America – then looked on aghast as things started to go wrong. The lead singer became an egotistical liability, developing a drug problem that made him unreliable, alienated him from his bandmates and caused his teeth to start falling out. The size of the venues they played began to shrink, America turned its attentions elsewhere, relations between the singer and the rest of the band soured into violent altercations backstage. Their time in the sun was drawing to a close: some members began discussing splitting up, then possibly returning to catch a wave of nostalgia, playing their old hits as a “pension plan”.
That should have been that, but it wasn’t. The group were Lostprophets, the lead singer Ian Watkins. Before the band had the chance to split, he was charged with, and ultimately convicted of, conspiracy to engage in sexual activity with minors and possession of indecent images of children and “extreme” animal pornography.
