Spicolli...

The majority of the past 4 1/2 years I have spent drug free has been pretty smooth sailing. The only time I get a little crabby about it, is when I'm sitting here late at night, playing along with my itunes on shuffle, I flash back to when I first started playing music. I would sit on my bed in front of my cd/radio boombox, and try to play along with whatever came on the radio, but I would be stoned out of my mind. I loved smoking joints that I had usually stolen from my Stepdad, and sit there in amazement as I played along with shit I had never played before, like I had been playing it for years.
It's the same now as it was back then for me, I still get that rush of excitement when I am just able to play something I had never played before, but it was so much more fun when I was stoned. I would sit in my chair singing the harmonies to Crosby, Stills, and Nash, closing my eyes and pretending I was in the studio recording it as it was playing. I would smoke a bowl, then take an hour long steaming hot shower while I sang along to the entire "Are you gonna go my way" cd, or "Facelift" by Alice In Chains... smoking weed just let me wrap my head around the music more so it got deeper into my head, something a ton of cigarettes and coffee just don't do. There is no amount of meditation that could prepare my head for the tuning it needed to get deep into it.
Some of the best records in the world came from the most drugged out people on the planet... and when they got sober, their records just sucked. period.

Thank God I never stopped playing, so I don't need that extra boost to get where I need to go nowadays. What I needed to get me to that place when I was a kid just comes naturally now, and the music is my drug. That may sound gay as fuck, but it's true. I just came back from a 10 day trip in South America, playing to packed houses every night, and didn't need one shot of whiskey, heroin, coke, or weed, to get my spirit centered enough to not be nervous. I just went out there and did my thing the way I know how to do it... people may think I'm loaded as fuck the way I act on stage, but the fact is, that I'm so comfortable in music, I don't need anything to help me. I can play in front of thousands of people sober just as easily as I sat in that chair stoned singing that fucking hippy music, and the rush I get when I put that bass down and step off that stage, listening to those kids lose there fucking minds for one more song, doesn't compare to what a joint used to do, looking down and seeing that little girl sing every word as tears roll down her face is enough of a high for me.
Not to mention the fact that if I do smoke a joint to try and capture that youthful moment, I will probably be locked in the dressing room bathroom with a needle and an eight ball in no time, then there will be no band, no music, and no crying little girls waiting for me outside the hotel....
I still do the same shit I did when I was 19. I still take a shower with Facelift blaring through the speakers, pretending I'm in a vocal booth harmonizing with Layne, I still sit in my chair running Iron Maiden scales until my fingers bleed and I can't move my forearms, I still eat a pint or two of ice cream while I watch cartoons... It's kind of like I still smoke weed, I just don't.