Sex, Coffee, and Rock & Roll

Like mom and apple pie, like peanut butter and jelly, like crack cocaine and hookers, hard drinkin’ and rock & roll go together. For the sober music lover, this can present a problem. Even the most benign concerts feature the faint smell of weed and a floor baptized in beer. Staying sober in the music scene seems like a daunting task. What’s a music lover to do? Give it up? That seldom seems like the solution to living a happy, sober life. One musician-driven New York City organization is tackling the problem head-on, with help from a marquee-quality list of musical luminaries: Slash, Ozzy, Eric Clapton, Denis Leary, Iggy Pop, Tony Bennett, and many others. Road Recovery is a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting youth in recovery or facing other adversities, with the help of music performance workshops and concerts with entertainment industry pros who have confronted similar crises and now wish to share their experience, resources and knowledge. Founder Gene Bowen, a tour manager for rock & roll acts, said the group has recently added performance workshops for adults. “The first effort is a weekend-warrior experience” with Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke, Bowen told The Fix. “Adult participants can support each other’s recovery while collaborating with industry professionals to create, rehearse, and ultimately record one song all within a weekend,” said Bowen. “As a tour manager, I didn’t get sober to be cut off from the world.” As Slash puts it on the Road Recovery website: "Once you find that you want this, it's something tangible that you can achieve and very much worth the effort."