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“Take the best orgasm you’ve ever had, multiply by 1000, and you’re still nowhere near it.”

These are the words which Ewan McGregor’s character Renton uses to explain the allure of heroin in Danny Boyle’s 1996 film adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s acclaimed debut novel Trainspotting. Three years later, this writer asked former heroin addict Steven Tyler, Aerosmith‘s frontman, whether he could relate to this.

“Oh no, it’s much better than that,” Tyler answered sincerely, before delivering a crucially important addendum. “At first…”

Speaking to People magazine in 1988, Tyler confessed that his own past drug use involved taking “heroin, coke, Valium, anything that anyone came near with.”

“I have an addictive personality so I found certain drugs I loved and didn’t stop to the point of hurting my children, hurting my life, hurting my family, hurting my band,” he admitted on Fox News programme OBJECTified in 2018. “There was a point where I didn’t have a band and I didn’t care.”

As he watched Nirvana‘s meteoric rise in the early ’90s, Steven Tyler says he recognised the “pain” in Kurt Cobain’s eyes and later discovered that Nirvana’s frontman was using heroin. In a bid to try to help the younger musician avoid pitfalls of which he had personal experience, Aeromith’s frontman went as far as contacting Nirvana’s management in 1992 to enquire about getting Cobain’s phone number to set up a heart-to-heart chat with the vocalist/guitarist.

In Everybody Loves Our Town, the definitive oral history of grunge, Gold Mountain Entertainment’s Janet Billig, recalled, “Right when It started coming out that Kurt was doing drugs, I remember Steven Tyler called and wanted to help. I told Kurt, Holy shit, Steven Tyler called my office and he wants to help you. Can I give him your number?’ And he was like, ‘Steven Tyler got to be a junkie for 18 fuckin’ years. I’ve only been doing drugs for an hour’.”

Like many drug users, Cobain was somewhat in denial about the extent of his drug use.

“It’s not my fucking fault that anyone knows that I did heroin,” he told Details magazine writer Gavin Edwards in July 1993. “I’ve never talked about it. When I’m high, it’s really obvious. That’s why I’ve never gone out in public on it. I tried as hard as I could to keep it from everyone.

“I just hope to God nobody is influenced to do drugs because of me,” Cobain continued. “I definitely have a responsibility to talk negatively about heroin. It’s a really really evil drug—I think opiates are directly linked to Satan.”

The singer then told Edwards that he was no longer capable of using heroin, stating, “now if I take heroin it makes me vomit right away.” The very next week, on July 23, while in New York to play the Roseland Ballroom, the singer overdosed on ‘Bodybag’ heroin, and could have died but for the quick thinking of Nirvana’s UK press officer Anton Brookes, and Kurt and Courtney’s nanny, Michael ‘Cali’ DeWitt.

This near-death experience may have been on Cobain’s mind when he finally met Steven Tyler face-to-face the following month, backstage at Aerosmith’s August 12 show at Portland Memorial Coliseum, in the company of Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl. Tyler took Cobain aside and spoke about 12-Step recovery groups

“He wasn’t preaching,” Novoselic remembered to writer Charles Cross, as related in definitive Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, “just talking about similar experiences he’d been through. He tried to give him encouragement.”

Within nine months, after discharging himself from a Los Angeles rehab facility, Cobain was found dead at his home in Seattle. Interviewed on US TV show Turning Point ( see below) the week after Cobain’s body was found, Steven Tyler admitted, “I’m angry about Kurt. This guy didn’t have to die.”

With their fourth album, Destroyer, Kiss reached for the stars and created their masterpiece. Their first three studio records were simplistic rock’n’roll, banged out fast. For Destroyer, they hired Bob Ezrin, producer of Alice Cooper and Lou Reed.

As a result, Kiss sounded bigger, better and smarter. And they never sounded, bigger or smarter than on the juggernaut of an opening track that is Detroit Rock City. The song was partly inspired by the true story of a fan who was killed on the way to a Kiss gig, hence sound of a car radio and noise of smashing vehicles that bookended the song.

“On a previous tour, somebody had gotten hit by a car and killed outside the arena,” said Paul Stanley. “I remember thinking how weird it is that people can be on their way to something that’s really a party and a celebration of being alive, and die in the process of doing it. So that became the basis of the lyric.”

Ezrin set about encouraging Stanley to complete a lyric, and the end result was the story of a kid who hears about his own demise. And, no, despite what you may have read on the internet, Gene doesn’t take the part of the radio reporter at the start. That was Ezrin.

“We put his voice through a little radio and recorded it off the radio,” said engineer Corky Stasiak. “If you listen to this opening through headphones, you get this eerie feeling that this is all happening to you.”

Beyond the tragedy told in the lyrics, Detroit Rock City was also a salute to the city namechecked in the title. It was in Detroit, not their home town of New York, that Kiss found their biggest audience in their early days. In return, the band gave the Motor City its own rock anthem. “The first town that opened its arms and legs to us,” as Stanley quipped.

Urged on by Bob Ezrin, this was a fitting tribute – a 150mph rocket of a song, propelled by a bassline lifted from Curtis Mayfield’s blaxploitation classic Freddie’s Dead and featuring Stanley and Frehley’s iconic push-me-pull-you twin guitar solo. With its Spanish flamenco flavour and flair, the solo was an idea that came from Ezrin.

“I wrote the guitar solo on Detroit Rock City,” he said. “We got to the point that we had seen the introduction and met the characters, and it was time to set up a little tension with a moment of high drama. I felt like this was the sequence where he was driving and this would be the music that would go underneath it.

“I wrote that in my head; I don’t think I actually picked up an instrument. It’s not exactly original. It is pretty well an old-fashioned flamenco theme adapted to hard rock music. And it’s not because I’m some kind of musicology major. It was my take on Gladiator music.”

“Bob sang that solo section note for note, then asked Ace to learn it, including the harmony,” confirmed Paul, happy to give credit where it’s due. “The drumbeat, the bassline, it was really all Bob.”

Detroit Rock City opened both Destroyer and 1977’s Alive II with an almighty bang, and right until the end, no Kiss show was complete without it.

“This was a calling card of sorts for Kiss,” Stanley told Classic Rock. “I always believe that albums, particularly ours, should start with a song that captures the spirit of what you’re going to get on the rest of the album, and Detroit Rock City was very much that for Destroyer.”

The surprise for the band was that when radio stations got the single in July 1976, they flipped it over to play Peter Criss’s ballad Beth [the single’s B-side] and lo and behold, Kiss got an unexpected hit with a different song, one that climbed all the way to No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became Kiss’s biggest commercial hit in the US.

More than two decades later, Detroit Rock City gave its name to a Gene Simmons-produced comedy film, which followed a group of 1970s teenagers attempting to crash a Kiss show. Described by the New York Times as a “weary promotional comedy”, it bombed at the box office but didn’t dampen Simmons’ rightful enthusiasm for the original song.

“It’s kind of a national anthem of rock if you will,” said Gene. “Sure, Rock ‘N’ Roll All Night is a celebration [it’s also the only song Kiss have performed more], but there’s something about Detroit Rock City that just says ‘Heartland.'”

A record collection belonging to English music executive Tony Calder is going under the hammer.

Calder, who promoted the first Beatles single, also co-managed the Rolling Stones with Andrew Loog Oldham, with whom he co-founded the UK’s first independent record label, Immediate, in 1965. He died in 2018.

Now his record collection is being auctioned off, and it includes plenty of rare and collectable pieces, including releases by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Pink Floyd and The Who.

Pride of place goes to an original copy of Would You Believe, a 1968 album by songwriter Billy Nicholls. The album was commissioned by Immediate as a British response to the Beach Boys’ classic Pet Sounds, and featured all the members of the Small Faces alongside a coterie of familiar session men including Nicky Hopkins, John Paul Jones, Big Jim Sullivan, Jerry Shirley and Dave Greenslade.

Only 100 promotional-only copies of the album were ever pressed, and the album never made it to retail after Immediate went bust.

“People often cite records such as the Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen on A&M Records among the rarest records in the world, and rightly so,” says Martin Hughes, vinyl specialist at Wessex Auction Rooms. “Yet in the last six years, I have personally handled and sold five copies of that record, including a world record example.

“I have never handled another copy of Billy Nicholls’ Would You Believe, and I know I never will again. For serious record collectors, opportunities to acquire a copy simply do not exist. This is one of those records that most collectors will only ever read about.

“There are certainly rarer one-off artefacts, acetates and unique recordings. But when collectors discuss records that were actually pressed and distributed, Billy Nicholls’ Would You Believe is always part of that conversation.”

Calder’s copy of Would You Believe is estimated to sell for between £6000-£8000. Another original copy of the album, which has been rereleased several times, was sold via Discogs for €5000 in 2023.

Other records in Calder’s collection include an acetate of the first side of the Rolling Stones’ 1966 live album Have You Seen Your Mother Live!, a previously undocumented press pack for the Stones’ Sticky Fingers album, and a 1970 “Spiral Vertigo” copy of the debut album by hard rock power trio May Blitz.

For those with regular-sized wallets, some bargains may be had, including a single lot containing 70 vinyl albums from artists including Buffalo Springfield, The Allman Brothers Band, Stephen Stills, Freddie Mercury, Eric Clapton, David Crosby, The Band, Mountain, Jefferson Starship, It’s A Beautiful Day, Joni Mitchell, John Lennon, Eagles, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Walker Brothers, Argent, Cat Stevens and more. The guide price? Just £100-£150.

Calder’s collection can be viewed at the EasyAuction website.

It’s fair to say that Booker T. & The M.G.’s changed the course of Mick Ralphs’s life. The Herefordshire electrician was 18 when he first heard Green Onions on Radio Luxembourg in 1962.

“I loved the nasty guitar of it and the groove,” he told Classic Rock in 2016. “I’d never heard anything like it before, and that inspired me to want to play guitar like that. It basically got me into blues and soul music and people like Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry. That was the trigger.”

Ralphs wasted little time, and passed through a number of local acts prior to making an album with the Doc Thomas Group in 1967. After a brief spell as lead guitarist in Jimmy Cliff’s backing band, he hooked up with Verden Allen, Dale Griffin, Pete Overend Watts and Stan Tippins to record demos as Silence. A name change and a personnel tweak later – out went Tippins, in came natural frontman Ian Hunter – and Mott The Hoople were born.

Mott’s early status as underground cult favourites, nourished by a fiercely devoted fan base, was due in no small part to Ralphs’s versatility. Powerhouse riff-rock, heaving sound textures, country blues, acoustic delicacy, he was across it all.

Between them, he and Hunter carried the bulk of the songwriting load. Among his finest contributions were 1969 debut single Rock And Roll Queen, Thunderback Ram (with Ralphs on lead vocals), Whiskey Women, Ready For Love and One Of The Boys.

Ralphs stayed until 1973, when Mott were six albums in and at the peak of their glam phase. Leaving was a tough call, but, as he explained to Classic Rock in 2012: “I felt we’d lost some of our wildness and simplicity. It was tough to leave my dear friends, but I had to move on.”

By the time of his final Mott gig, in Washington DC that August, he’d already hatched a plan with ex-Free singer Paul Rodgers, “something more bluesy and basic”.

Teaming up with Rodgers, former Free drummer Simon Kirke and sometime King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell as Bad Company, Ralphs became master of the heavy groove. He also ensured they hit the ground running with his song Can’t Get Enough, a ringing, open-tuned gem that went top five in the States. Its parent album Bad Company went multi-platinum.

Propelled by further monster-selling albums like Straight Shooter, Run With The Pack and Desolation Angels, Bad Company sold out stadiums throughout the rest of the 70s. Ralphs’ input, both as protean guitarist and co-songwriter, was crucial. Good Lovin’ Gone Bad epitomised the barrelling rocker; Feel Like Makin’ Love summed up his ability to switch between folk-country balladry and a thumping chorus.

By the time Bad Company split in 1982, there wasn’t much left for the band to achieve. Ralphs went on to make three solo albums, tour with David Gilmour and form his own ensemble, the typically unstarry Mick Ralphs Blues Band. But both Mott The Hoople and Bad Company stayed close to his heart. He oversaw different iterations of the latter during the late 80s and deep into the 90s.

2009 was a particularly eventful year for Ralphs. Not only did he rejoin Rodgers and Kirke for a Bad Company tour of the US (Burrell had died three years earlier), he also helped revive the classic Mott line-up for five celebratory gigs at London’s Hammersmith Apollo.

More reunion tours beckoned. Shortly after a Bad Co. date at London’s O2 Arena in October 2016, however, Ralphs suffered a stroke that he never quite recovered from.

His considerable legacy was already long secured by then. Further proof, were it needed, arrived in the spring of 2025, with the announcement that Bad Company would be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. Ralphs was ecstatic on hearing the news.

Ian Hunter

“My first encounter with Mick was in Bill Farley’s Regent Sound studio on Denmark Street in London. It was an audition [for Mott The Hoople]. I played Like A Rolling Stone and Laugh At Me, and I was sort of in.

“They were a bunch of hairy people, and initially I didn’t know who was who. They were all quiet at first. Stan Tippins was the only one who really chatted to me, and I was replacing him. It turned out that Mick had travelled up to London a couple of times from Hereford and ‘raided’ Island Records. He eventually found [mentor/ producer] Guy Stevens, who liked his hair. Guy asked Mick to bring the band up to London, telling them to nod their heads violently to any music that Guy played. The band nodded violently and Guy was suitably impressed.

“I guess at that point Mick was leading the band ambition-wise, but really there was no particular day-to-day leader, they just left it to him. Mick was not that much of a talker. He was more of a thinker. But the humour was there. His playing, his ideas and his songwriting were of quiet intelligence.

“He and Phally [Verden Allen, Mott The Hoople keyboard player] combined for that mighty Mott wall you hear on Brain Capers [1971]. He often hung back on stage working with Buff [Dale Griffin, drummer] and Pete [Overend Watts, bassist]. He loved those big heavy chords, and only played lead when he thought it was necessary. He didn’t whizz up and down the frets at a hundred miles an hour like so many guitarists do to invite adulation. He simply played for the song.

“We were playing Houston in Texas, opening for Traffic and Mountain [in June 1970], when I saw Mick tearing up as he watched [Mountain guitarist] Leslie West. I asked him if he was okay, and he said: “That’s it – that’s where I want to be – and he’s already doing it!”

“Greatest moments? There were so many. I remember listening to the backing track of Whizz Kid on the Mott album [1973] and thinking it had to be orchestral. There was no other way. In comes ‘Ralpher’ – problem solved! I was astonished at what he did on that track – and on many others.

“He was torn when he left the band, but thought it was the right thing to do. He and Paul Rodgers were made for each other. Oddly enough, perhaps because of the Hereford guilt thing, we saw more of him after he left than when he was in the band. He’d played us Bad Company demos before Bad Company became a thing. Mick and Luther Grosvenor had played together in phone booths when they were kids because they couldn’t afford amps. So Luther [aka Ariel Bender] replaced Mick in Mott. And that’s for some other story.

“Now, when I look back, the word ‘respect’ comes to mind. I know we argued, rowed, slagged each other off – especially me, the dreaded frontman! – but later on, the Taking The Mick tours and the Mott reunion shows amplified the respect and love there was in that band. I hold Mick in my heart, as I do Pete, Buff and Phally.”

Paul Rodgers

“I used to see Mick at the offices of Island Records on Basing Street, because Mott The Hoople were also on the label. He was a really nice and very funny guy, the kind of person you like immediately. We found ourselves on the same tour after Free imploded. I formed a three-piece band called Peace, with Stewart McDonald on bass and Mick Underwood on drums. Mick Ralphs was on the same bill [October/November 1971] with Mott. We’d get together in the tuning room and start playing songs to each other, and we just clicked.

“The idea of Bad Company came about when Mick used to visit me at my country cottage and we began songwriting as a team. We already had a few songs. He had Can’t Get Enough, I had Feel Like Makin’ Love and Rock Steady, and we began working on Seagull. I wanted to sing Ready For Love, which had been previously recorded by Mott. It’s his masterpiece, just so moving. Simple Man is another perfect song by Mick. I loved singing it, there’s so much depth there.

“Mick was always supportive of my songs, as I was of his. I remember playing him Feel Like Makin’ Love and saying it just needs something. Mick said: ‘I know what it needs’, and played those big power chords. He was right. On Can’t Get Enough, he showed me the harmony part and suggested we play that. Once again he was right – another brilliant idea, compliments of Mick Ralphs.

“When he and I were first getting together to write, that’s all it was. But in my experience, original songs are the lifeblood of any band, so it was inevitable that a new band would emerge from the songs we were writing. Mick recently told me that he thought he and I would be a duo, like the Everly Brothers, which was news to me. But as fate would have it, we went the full band route, which we both agreed was the right move.

“We were looking for a name for the band when I started to write the song Bad Company, and Mick liked it. Simon [Kirke] wasn’t keen on the name at first, and neither was our manager, Peter Grant of Led Zeppelin fame. But Mick and I stood firm, so Bad Company it was.

“Mick got more varied sounds out of his Gibson guitar than anyone I know. Listen to Burnin’ Sky, Electricland and Shooting Star – the diversity of sound between just those three songs is vast. His playing was always unique, always had character and always inspired me as a singer and songwriter. His sound made the band what it was, no question. Always different, but always recognisably Mick Ralphs.

“His tone is a whole other story – rich, solid and full. I’ll miss hearing him play. It’s a gift that there are so many recordings of him, so his legacy will live on and inspire guitarists for an eternity. I’ve always felt Mick was underrated. He wasn’t recognised as the phenomenal guitarist that he was.

“I’m fortunate to have so many great memories of Mick. He was a tower of strength and a rock-solid band member who was calm and cool. He had the best sense of humour and quick wit. With Mick on board, bus rides were never boring. That man was the greatest storyteller; he was so funny. I remember we once went into a French restaurant, and he took one look at the menu and said: ‘I’m not eating horses’ doofers!’ Of course, he meant hors d’oeuvres.

“That dry humour endeared him to so many and inspired him to keep living. When I called Mick to tell him about the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction, I said: ‘Remember when we were trying to come up with band names, and I called you and said Bad Company and you dropped the phone? Well hang onto the phone, Mick. We’re going to be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame’. He went: ‘I’m elated! That’s fantastic!’

“It’s quite incredible, considering this was the first time that Bad Company have ever been nominated. I’m glad that he passed knowing that we together – Mick, Simon, Boz and I – had achieved this. That’s fabulous. An enlightened friend told me that when I think of Mick, know that his hand is on your shoulder and he is with you. That’s a comforting thought.”