Is the crime inspired by song lyrics–or alcoholism?
Alcoholic Myth-of-the-Month: Song lyrics inspired the crime.
“Nearly a decade ago, three San Luis Obispo [California] youths pleaded guilty to killing a 15-year-old girl, saying [heavy metal rock band] Slayer’s songs incited them to commit the crime.”
So said the report on the conviction of Alfonso Ignacio Morales for murdering four members of a Whittier, California family, a daughter of which had spurned his romantic advances. The day of the killing, Morales was wearing a Slayer T-shirt. The report says the motive behind the massacre may never be known.
Readers of my books know that the odds of alcohol or other drug addiction in a convicted felon are at least 80%. While mass or serial murderers about whom biographies have been written can almost always be identified by the careful reader as alcoholics, there is often little in all-too-brief newspaper reports offering confirming evidence of alcoholism. However, the likelihood is at least 80% that the motive behind the crime is egomania rooted in this disease. This is especially true when one of the victims has said “no,” anathema to the practicing egomaniac.
The musical tastes of Charles Whitman, who gunned down dozens of people from a bell tower in Texas in 1966 were never mentioned. Odds are, his musical preferences were country/western, which have never been blamed for craziness, sexual deviancy or murder, even though the lyrics often reference alcohol or heavy drinking. Nor were Ted Bundy’s music preferences ever aired, although we can exclude heavy metal: it hadn’t yet been invented. We didn’t even have rock’n’roll to blame for the murderous legacies of the greatest mass murderers ever, Hitler and Stalin. Nazis are said to have killed Jews while listening to Bach and Beethoven. While a particular style of music is not a common thread to atrocities, addiction or having been coerced by addicts is (one doesn’t need to think hard to imagine the fate of those who said “no” to the alcoholic Stalin or amphetamine addict Hitler).
Also of interest to the addictionologist is Slayer’s motive for writing lyrics purportedly inciting violence and death. Edgar Allen Poe, author of the most macabre books of the 19th century, had the disease of alcoholism. Horror novelist Stephen King, now reportedly sober, was a practicing alcoholic through most of his writing career. The idea can be applied to other creative fields: the behaviors of Jack Nicholson, who has played parts of which Poe and King would be proud, are best explained by alcoholism. Artist Charles Bragg, whose work is a stand-out among the bizarre, is reportedly a recovering alcoholic. Addiction and the bizarre are birds of a feather. Therefore, odds are huge that the members of Slayer were practicing alcoholics during their heyday. Thomas Bright, who worked for Metallica as well as other heavy metal bands in the ’80s, in an interview with Paul Vee (www.motelsign.com/workstories/heavymetal) reports on an amazing quantity of alcohol-induced sexual deviancy, adding there was “lots of drinking,” and “drugs and cocaine are thrown at you.” He says, “I saw ego inflation like you couldn’t believe…Talk about ego trips.” Ego inflation is the hallmark of early-stage alcoholism.
As Frank Zappa said, “There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we’d all love one another.” Religion could be the cause of most of the world’s violence, yet most members of every religion are peaceful and non-violent. Instead, the thread common to most initiators of violence is alcohol or other drug addiction. An addict can be exposed to Bach or Slayer and commit heinous acts. When the neo-cortex fails to restrain the impulses of the basal ganglia, the reptilian part of the brain responsible for impulsive behavior and survival, or the limbic system, the pre-human brain that controls the emotional response, anything is possible. Most music fans, as religious adherents, are non-violent. If they harbor violent thoughts, they typically don’t act out on those feelings. Generally, only those with a damaged neo-cortex – particularly early-stage alcohol or other drug addicts – do so.