Bruce Springsteen says music industry puts “enormous pressures on young people” following Liam Payne’s death
"Dying young, good for the record company, but what’s in it for you?"
by Poppy Burton · NMEIn the wake of Liam Payne‘s death, Bruce Springsteen has shared his thoughts about the pressures young people in the music industry face.
Payne passed away earlier this week at the age of 31 after falling from a third-floor balcony at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Since his untimely death, many have laid blame on the music industry, with Sharon Osbourne recently saying it had let him down. “Where was this industry when you needed them?” she said. “You were just a kid when you entered one of the toughest industries in the world. Who was in your corner?”
Her comments followed a statement from Katie Waissel, who competed alongside One Direction on the X Factor, and called for more “care and support for young artists”. Similarly, Rebecca Ferguson, who finished in second place in the same season of the show, paid tribute to Payne while also speaking out against the “exploitation and profiteering of young stars.”
Now, Springsteen has shared his thoughts with The Telegraph, saying artists dying young is “not an unusual thing” in his experiences of the industry.
“It’s a normal thing,” he said. “It’s a business that puts enormous pressures on young people. Young people don’t have the inner facility or the inner self yet to be able to protect themselves from a lot of the things that come with success and fame. So they get lost in a lot of the difficult and often pain inducing [things]… whether it’s drugs or alcohol to take some of that pressure off.
“I understand that very well,” he continued, adding that both he and his band have all “wrestled with their own issues”.
“Danny [Federici] certainly did. Drugs were not uncommon in the E Street Band, you know. There was a boundary, however – I stayed out of your business, but if I was on stage and I saw that you were not your complete self, there was going to be a problem.”
He went on to say he was “proudest” that if “one of my fellas passed on, they passed on of natural causes.” Figures like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Kurt Cobain were mentioned, and Springsteen said: “People continue to fall to it. It’s a death cult.”
“It’s a grift, man,” he concluded. “That’s a part of the story that suckers some young people in, you know, but it’s that old story. Dying young – good for the record company, but what’s in it for you?”
Across the music industry, others have paid respects to Payne, including Shawn Mendes, Maggie Rogers, Robbie Williams, Rita Ora, Liam Gallagher and Victoria Canal.
One Direction’s surviving members Zayn Malik, Niall Horan, Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles shared a joint statement on Payne’s death, where they expressed their devastation, and that they would need time “to grieve and process the loss of our brother, who we loved dearly.”