Cocaine Craziness

It was November 1989 and I'd been working in the recording studio for 6 months when I got wind of the next booking. The week-long recording session was due to consist of drummer Zak Starkey (son of Beatle Ringo Starr), an unknown singer Aaron (I forget his surname but he was also the son of someone rich and famous) and Damian Corner as engineer/producer. Before their arrival I learned that Damian was the son of someone famous too. I'd not heard of Alexis Corner but apparently Damian's father was a blues musician often referred to as a founding father of British blues. These three sons-of-famous people were sure to be really interesting people, I thought, as the the day of the session drew near.

The day of their arrival was a little unsettling. I was waiting patiently in the control room for them to arrive when a van pulled up along the gravel path that ran alongside the studio building. It was always a slightly daunting moment; the people you were to be cooped up with day and night for the foreseeable future arriving – total strangers. These new strangers parked in the car park next to the house at the end of the path and wandered up towards the studio. The thick studio door opened and they piled into the big room that was the main recording area. I came down the stairs from the control room to greet them.

We exchanged introductions and some music small talk. My first impressions were that Damian seemed fine, Aaron already seemed somewhat overbearing & obnoxious, and Zak just seemed extremely.... quiet. Damian and I agreed on a plan for recording. We were going to set Zak's drums up in the biggest room where they would sound best. We'd close-mic. the drums and also set up microphones up high in the corners of the room to capture room ambience. I forget if we set up a mic. for Aaron the singer but this session was mostly about the drums anyway. I led them upstairs to the control room and loaded up Damian's 24 track tape reel onto the Studer A800 tape machine that sat in the corner of the room. Zak went back downstairs to set up his drums while Damian twiddled knobs and faders on the SSL console pulling up a rough mix of the track - me patching in outboard reverb units at his request. Aaron milled around. I walked up and down to the kitchen often, fetching them cups of coffee and tea. Aaron and Damian spoke to me as we got to know each other a little but Zak said nothing to me. He seemed either pissed off or exceptionally shy. Perhaps it was beneath him to mingle with the ordinary folk like me, I wondered.

At this early stage of the session on the surface things may have seemed normal but these guys were distracted by something. There was the feeling of some unrest in the air, a certain edgy-ness. It was soon clear that there was some business that required attending to. They regularly spoke about another Adrian and what time he would arrive. They'd check their watches and speak of him as if he was the one who was going to make everything alright. An older man named Adrian did indeed show up through the studio door later that day. Dressed in a long grey overcoat, laughing and joking with everyone immediately, Adrian seemed very popular with our new studio inhabitants. What's going on?, I thought. How can someone be so popular? What's Adrian's role in the session? It soon became very clear.

Once up on the control room, doors firmly shut behind us, Adrian reached into his heavy overcoat and pulled out a package a little smaller than a paperback book. Handing it over to the guys they seemed very happy indeed. Zak wasted no time in pulling the package open and pouring some of the crystal white powder onto a mirror they had gotten ready on the end the mixing console. Razor blades were in plentiful supply in the control room as they were used for splicing tape. A fresh blade was quickly unwrapped and the powder chopped into long lines, enough for them all. “sniiiiiiiifffffff” was all I heard for the next 5 minutes as all four guys ploughed into their stash. Adrian soon departed for the day and what proceeded was something akin to a certain madness setting in amongst the remaining three.

Zak - the quiet little field mouse from earlier in the day - wouldn't stop talking. His personality shifted entirely as if someone else completely had possessed him. He raced around between his drums in the studio and the control room, speaking excitedly about everything that came into his mind. I was suddenly involved in Zak's world now as he spoke at me while I adjusted the positions of microphones at Damian's request. I could hardly get a word in as the Beatle's kid ranted and raved about everything and nothing. I nodded, agreed with whatever he said and focused on my work.

Damian became hyper too. Suddenly there was a sense of urgency to me patching up gear, adjusting microphones, fetching drinks. It was as if a deadline was suddenly upon us. But we repeated things a lot. Patched gear became un-patched. The same piece of gear became patched back in again (patching gear involved me inserting little plugs into the 'patchboard' (an array of electrical plug holes on one side of the studio) - this enabled reverb units and other effects to be accessible from the mixing console).

Aaron turned into an exaggerated version of himself, louder and more overbearing than ever. He milled around proceedings, hovering around in the control room mostly. Almost every time we spoke he managed to make me feel terrible. At 17 years old I was too young to deal with his put downs and snide remarks. I'm not sure if he took a dislike to me personally or whether he was like it with everyone. I think it may have been a bit of both.

Zak eventually sat as his drums and played the living daylights out them. I had only a few months of experience of listening to drummers play in the studio but Zak was very special and a very different drummer from his Dad. The power and intensity of his playing was matched by amazing timing. I don't think he missed a beat the entire time. Hairs stood up on my neck as he played away. His drums sounded great in the room and also on tape.

As the day turned into night the dynamic trio proceeded to sniff their way through their consignment of magic dust as a matter of priority. As 7pm rolled around the kitchen staff made their phone call through to us in the control room to let us know that dinner was ready over in the main house. Usually the sessions stopped at this time and everyone piled out to go enjoy a break from work and some delicious food. Not this time. The kitchen staff were fobbed off with 'we're coming soon' but our three musketeers were obviously not hungry. At 7.30pm there was another call to remind us that the food would spoil if not eaten soon. At 8pm another one. By 9pm the kitchen staff had obviously gotten tired of waiting as I watched through the studio window them driving off home. I was famished! But the coke fiends had no mind for food. I felt like I was a person encaged with wild zoo animals as the early hours of the morning came around. I stood and watched these guys continued to make their way through their huge supply of cocaine as work ceased while their fruitless excito-talking mania intensified.

It was around 6am when an amusing thing happened - as I watched on, barely able to keep my eyes open, my whole body in pain from sleep withdrawal and hunger. The guys were down to their last few lines of party powder which were laid out on the mirror at the far end of the mixing console like usual. One of them knocked the mirror, causing it to fall off the edge onto to the ground. The last remnants of their coke turned into a dust cloud; scattering into the air and down into the carpet. Furiously and desperately all three of them threw their heads down into the carpet and sniffed up whatever they could. I'm really surprised they didn't clash heads and knock each other out. This crazy moment is one that sticks with me and the whole experience of being with these manic people strung out on their favourite vice was enough to put me off using cocaine myself ever since.