Phil Varone was the drummer for Saigon Kick, a heavy metal band that sold over one million albums and performed thousands of concerts. Years later, he joined an even more successful group, Skid Row, and went on tour with Kiss. At one point in Waking Up Dead, Varone shows us the balance of his bank account: $1.57.
Varone started playing the drums as a child, and joined Saigon Kick when he was barely out of his teens. The group scored big in 1992 with the unjustly forgotten hit "Love is on the Way," but tensions within the band - not to mention the rise of (ugh) grunge - took their toll, and Varone left the group in 1996 with barely a penny to his name. Skid Row came calling a few years later, and Varone was back in business - and into a downward spiral of debauchery and drug addiction.
Waking Up Dead director Fabio Jafet followed Varone through his life as a sort-of-famous rock star - just well-known enough to score all the groupies and cocaine he wanted, but not successful enough to pay for it, much less have anything left over for child support. It's a story we've seen many, many times before on Behind the Music, but Waking Up Dead shows it in often excrutiating detail, with Varone snorting coke and having sex (with groupies for whom the word "skank" was coined) right on camera.
Addicts usually have to hit rock bottom before they start to turn their lives around (assuming they survive), and by the end of Waking Up Dead, Varone is suffering serious heart problems caused by cocaine use, and is forced to sell his drum set to his drug dealer. He finally quits Skid Row (most of whose members, except for guitarist Dake "Snake" Sabo, appearently refused to participate in the film), tries to reconnect with his children, and warns the viewer away from ever getting caught up in that messy business.
Article comments