Pleasure-seeking is a sport that we all enjoy playing every now and again. Most of us have indulged in an all-day beer bender, seen the sun rise through an intoxicated gaze after the blur of a day spent off the wagon. Others have sky-dived, gone hand-gliding, surfed the crest a 10 foot wave on the Great Barrier Reef. Some have taken a motorcycle across Route 66, fired a gun in a desert wasteland, bored into the dead eyes of a Great White Shark from the confines of a steel cage. These are the things that stick with us as we age, the moments when we felt truly alive when on the cusp of danger, when we broke the rules and went all out, our bodies caught in the thrill of the moment. But could we live like this 24/7? Could we put our minds and bodies at risk each waking moment of every day, right through until the night, or the next night even? The answer, is no. And yet there are a few, a small few, that rarely came up for air. Funnily enough, they are often the rich and the famous, the success stories who forged an existence far above our own expectations. Frequently, they are of the artistic mould: writers, actors, painters, and, most commonly, musicians. Musicians have been steeped in controversy for centuries, and things have only slowed down in recent years now that the music industry has reinvented itself, for better or worse. So, in a queer homage to the renegades way of life, here are four of the maddest and baddest players, dead or alive.
4. Keith Richards
Where else would we begin? Keith Richards is the poster-boy of rock n roll excess, amazingly effervescent after decades of self-infliction via the needle, the bottle, and a rolled up dollar bill. The Rolling Stones guitarist has dabbled in every drug under the sun, with the endless myths of his decadence only serving to boost his legend. You name it, Keiths done it - and lived to tell the tale! The release of his autobiography Life in 2011 was an immediate best-seller, even appealing to those who had never warmed to the Stones, but whom were desperate to get a taste of the lifestyle Richards undertook as his band climbed the ladder of fame. The book shined a light upon the recklessness a man can find himself embroiled in as the albums boom and the tours expand: groupies, naked contortionists, suitcases full of smack, guns, knife-fights, and drug busts - and thats just for breakfast! Yes, the man has seen it all and prides himself on being the chief pirate of the music industry. Nowadays, Richards is clean and sober, sharing the stage with blockbuster names like Justin Timberlake and Lady Gaga. Oh how the times have changed...