But mostly it was awful. Half of Hanoi Rocks seemed to hanging out at the Mews as well now. The times Magenta and I walked Johnny round the house praying he wouldn't OD on us, still makes me shudder to recall. I watched this tragically addicted junkie, whose skin was covered in white discoloured patches, shooting up virtually anything he could get his hands on to get high. Vodka, speed, Windowlene.... You think I’m kidding....
But of course, there is always the eternal dilemma that exists in the truly talented but tortured soul because for all that was bad, there was also the sweet, funny, uncompromising man who was such a genius soulful guitarist that it was an education for me just to stand on stage with him or hear him play. And no matter how bad it got, how bad he looked physically, I never once saw him dress in anything less than a sharp Italian suit and typical Johnny accessories, a sort of cross between the Mafia and a New York pirate.
He was the real thing and I cried when I heard he’d died in 1991, his talent never fully realised or acknowledged. Nolan died too, another heroin casualty, and people ask me why I have never touched that drug......
Having finally escaped from getting to close to the Thunder’s flame, I knew without doubt that I was looking for something completely new. Something pure and totally original, something that looks to the future and not to what had already been.
