Jefferson Starship frontwoman Grace Slick was always a woman who lived by her own rules, but it was this behavior that led to her losing her job.
In 1978, Slick was struggling with alcoholism, arguing with fans, drink driving, and abusing arresting officers.
“With a person who is alcoholic, as I am, you don’t ever have one or two drinks,” Slick told Rolling Stone in May 1978. “It doesn’t work that way. I’ve never had two drinks in my life… It’s either I drink and I’m totally drunk or I don’t drink at all.”
The band’s bassist Pete Sears, who also performed on Slick’s solo record Manhole, admitted she had “a real serious problem” and when she drank “evil forces” took over her.
“She’s such a beautiful person when she’s sober, a really sweet woman, but it’s like an instant change. It’s more than just being an alcoholic,” he claimed, per Louder Sound.
In the summer of 1978, when Jefferson Starship were perfoming in Europe, Slick’s alcoholism got the best of her. In German, Slick got so drunk she refused to perform, attacking guitarist and ex-partner Paul Kantner backstage. So upset the band were a no show, the audience rioted, stole the band’s equipment and burned the stage down.
Two nights later in Hamburg, after the band were forced to hire new equipment, Slick’s “evil forces” got the better of her. She made inappropiate remarks about World War II and goose stepped on-stage. This was one stunt too far and Slick was removed from the band.
“Even as I pulled that stunt, it was clear to me that I’d developed a major attitude problem,” Slick wrote in her 2008 autobiography, Somebody to Love?: A Rock-and-Roll Memoir.
She explained that, “I wanted the band to see an uncontrollable mutant, and I wanted to be so out of line that when I fired myself the next day nobody would object.”
Less than a week after that fateful German gig, Jefferson Starship played their UK show without her. Slick would later sober up and join Alcoholics Anonymous.
Slick would return to Jefferson Starship three years later. She provided backing vocals on several tracks including the band’s biggest hit “We Built This City.”
