Waking Up Dead Looking back at four years of anyone's life can be mostly inconsequential - even for that of a rock star. Unless of course if those four years included a downward spiral beginning with onset of a drug problem and ending with having a bunch of wires strapped to your chest.
Director Fabio Jafet with camera in tow graphically documents the years of drummer Phil Varone's life at the height of his drug addiction while touring with Skid Row. Varone tells his story of receiving his first drum kit at age six (which he still owns today) and how playing those drums led to his obsession with becoming a rock star; a dream that was realized in the band Saigon Kick.
Having just had a daughter and gotten married when Saigon Kick was first making it big, interviews with now ex-wife Cathy Varone explain how at that time Varone didn't even drink. However, when Saigon Kick's song “Love Is on the Way” became a massive hit, the fame which that sparked had detrimental effects on everyone involved. Suddenly the idea of being a ‘rock star' was much more important than being a musician in a rock and roll band. Egos became inflated, and as Saigon Kick vocalist Matt Kramer explains, it torn the band apart.
In 1996 Varone was flat broke despite Saigon Kick's success, and quit the band but also separated from his wife. In the summer of 2000 Varone was asked to join Skid Row in order to complete their tour opening for KISS. This was Varone's first arena tour and a setting which he describes as a “traveling circus” where one could get away with anything.
"You're a dollar sign to people,” explains Varone, “People will protect you - as long as you're making money people will protect you to the death."
This restriction-free life of excess is well covered in this film, from the groupies to the drugs, and from Varone's diminishment of control to the flippant attitude regarding his deteriorating financial status. In one scene, Varone films his online banking statement that shows a whooping $1.57 in his checking account, and a big fat zero in savings. But it's the drugs in particular which are the focal point of this film – rock stars can get in front of a camera all they want on MTV and say to fans ‘don't do drugs,' but that message doesn't quite hit home like watching Varone snorting cocaine and saying how good it is, yet indirectly making it look like it's a pretty horrible experience, and not to mention a pretty horrible existence as well. In another scene we see Varone complacently talking about receiving an eviction notice to which resolved by selling a drum set of his in order to make his rent.
The turning point for Varone happened while onstage when he began suffering from a coronary spasm. Barely finishing the show, as paramedics were working on him backstage his only thought was wondering what his kids would think of him if he died like that. Following the advice of his cardiologist, Varone quit Skid Row after four years in an attempt to stay clean, and stay alive.
As difficult to watch as is reading a similar personal account by Motley Crue bassist Nikki Sixx [ The Heroin Diaries ], Waking Up Dead is an eye-opener, but sadly a necessary one. And drug addiction isn't something that only huge rock stars deal with – it's present in every walk of life from unsigned local bands playing at the corner bar, to lawyers and doctors, heck, even that guy you grew up with who never made it out of his ‘party phase' like you and the rest of your friends did.
Varone is brave enough to show himself at his worse to the world, but more importantly to show that side to his own children. But he's also smart enough to realize that despite the fact that there are the Aerosmith's and the Nikki Sixx's of the world can handle getting straight while remaining in the rock world, not everyone can, and so he's removed himself from the world that tempts him – which too is highly commendable doughtiness .
My only concern while watching this film is how often Varone puts the blame for the negatives in his life upon the music industry. Hopefully through Varone's sobriety and self-analysis he's come to realize this could have happened to him regardless of which path he'd taken in his life. As Nikki Sixx said of his drug use in The Heroin Diaries : “ Ok, so maybe Motley gave me the resources to be an addict, but...you know what? If it hadn't I'd have found some other way to do it."
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