Wolfmother star 'blasts label drug plans'

Wolfmother frontman Andrew Stockdale has criticised music industry bosses over plans to withhold pay from artists who are addicted to drugs.

A coalition of record label chiefs, led by the former head of Island Records Marc Marot, are looking to place a legal clause in all artists' contracts denying them wages if they are unable to perform due to substance abuse or self-harm. Musicians could also face suspension from their record label if they are deemed to have broken the agreement, Gigwise reports.

Marot claimed that the clause will only be implemented to protect vulnerable musicians, saying: "Everyone has their own right to live how they want to live. There is sometimes a vested interest in people misbehaving and it's not that I or my colleagues want to take the 'rock 'n' roll' out of rock 'n' roll.

"We don't, but what we want to do is provide a safety net for those people that are too damaged to be able to recognise within themselves how to get out of it."

However, Stockdale insisted that the potential rule could stifle creativity. He said: "You wouldn't have 'Purple Haze' [by Jimi Hendrix] and 'Dazed And Confused' [by Led Zeppelin]. Keith Richards wouldn't have written all the riffs and stuff.

"They want a soundtrack to evoke emotions, to feel something and then they want the artist to be 9 to 5 cookie-cutter, turn up on time, do this, do that and be morally virtuous. That’s too much to ask of a human.

"Everyone has their own right to live how they want to live. As for selling units and doing business with a person like that, that's the choice the label has to take when they enter into that agreement."