Thursday, February 3
Round Table - “Staying Clean & Sober On The Road”
Grace Slick, Hired Power
Nanette Zumwalt, Hired Power

A highly successful new event implemented at the 2005 Concert Industry Consortium was a group of round tables, covering a wide range of topics and facilitated by some of the most highly respected people in their fields. Running the gamut of industry concerns from how to structure a deal to purchasing tour insurance to staying sober on the road, conference guests could stop at one discussion or visit them all for a taste of what’s happening in today’s concert business.

One of the biggest impediments to staying clean and sober on the road is a person’s difficulty acknowledging that it needs to be done. When it’s an issue, it’s a hard thing to admit and face.
The inimitable Grace Slick was certainly a draw for the session. She didn’t say much but, like the old EF Hutton ads, when she spoke, people listened.

A tour manager told of a client who, after 30 years on the road, was not about to give up his pre-show routine of a shot of liquor.

“It’s too late to ask him to accept that kind of a change,” he pleaded.

But Slick wasn’t having any of it. “Fuck that!” the once-legendary personification of bad living through chemistry shot back.

“I’ll tell you what change is, and you don’t have any say about it,” she said, and described the effects of aging on her own career. “Get used to it!”

One manager mentioned that another unnamed artist attempts to self-treat before tours by going cold turkey. Slick’s eyes widened, and she admonished, “Don’t let him do that unless you want to kill him!”

She explained her own struggles with addiction, including the detox and rehab process.

“What was that ‘old lady’ medicine you guys gave me so I wouldn’t have seizures?” she asked Nanette Zumwalt, who didn’t know. “Just don’t let him quit without supervision. That can kill you faster than the drugs you’re trying to quit.”

Zumwalt’s company, Hired Power, is a leader in the field of placing professionals and personal recovery assistants in a situation to treat addiction, eating disorders and mental health problems.

Slick, who was with several incarnations of Jefferson Airplane, retired from performing in the 1990s and now devotes herself to visual arts, including her paintings, and assisting addicts in recovery.