According to an article in Weekly magazine, you might want to tell Billy to put down the guitar and pickup a handgun. Apparently leading the lifestyle of the King can lead to a premature stage exit. After collecting the statistics on 1,064 rock stars, from the 1950s to today, researchers at Liverpool John Moores University concluded that rock stars really do die younger. For American rock stars the death age was 42; for European counterparts it was only 35.
Chief reasons for a visit from the Grim Reaper were extensive partying, plane and bus crashes and mental instability. “We looked at this industry just like any other. When you do that, you identify what people are most at risk of,” says principal researcher, Mark Bellis. “Some of the key risks are still associated with drug and alcohol use.”
