The 27 Club, sometimes referred to as the Forever Club is a name given to a group of musicians who have died at the age of 27. The causes of death are mostly drug related but there are also suspicious circumstances, even murder as causes of death.

The main 5 of this infamous club are Jimi, Janis, Jim, Kurt and Brian. Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison, Cobain and Jones.

Some argue that Robert Johnson should top that list, as he was the first noted modern musician to die at 27. There are others on the list, Mia Zapata of the band The Gits who at the time of her horrific murder at 27 was exploding with enormous talent into the world of music.

Kristen Pfaff, bassist for the group Hole, dead at 27 from an apparent and officially ruled heroin overdose. Rudy Lewis lead vocalist of The Drifters, drug overdose in 1964.
There are many famous and not so famous musicians that belong to this mythological club.

Some also think that Tim Buckley who just made it past 27, dying at the age of 28 or his son Jeff Buckley who lived just until the age of 30 and Nick Drake who didn't quite live to 27, dying at 26 should at least have mentions.

Why does this "Club" grab our attention? Why has it become so popular in American culture?
Certainly death should not be considered so glamorous. But why is the age of 27 so fraught with musical tragedies? Are these all coincidences?

Are there forces unseen at work in the universe around certain people? It could be argued that the lifestyle of many famous musicians; the rock lifestyle in general, with it's common drug and alcohol use and it's sometimes reckless attitudes about risk, has an expected rate of consequences; cause and effect, Russian roulette, roll of the dice.

Without question dying young is in and of itself, a singular tragedy. When you combine youth with enormous talent and gifts of powerful creativity, this is where mythological enters the picture.

Even though we as a culture and society are new to the myth and folklore making we Americans have always liked our inspirations idolized. Sometimes we even "love them to death".

Why does this even matter? What is the relevance of this cult of the 27 Club? Perhaps it is because as a culture we may glamorize our movie stars but we downright worship our Rock Gods.

Since the time when more and more of our musicians started dying at the age of 27 there have been many who have genuinely tried to find some medical or scientific, even some kind of spiritual explanation for why so many of the world's brightest shining stars seem to dim and disappear, or explode into the universe at this age.

One could argue that they were self destructive, dying by their own foolish choices. But that wouldn't explain the murders, accidents or the suspicious circumstances some have died under.

I've also heard it said that it was a growing into a real and solid maturity that somehow couldn't stick, somehow went wrong. That tired hypothesis that creative people have an inherent mental illness or other mental disorder, that also has been a common explanation.

No doubt countless psychiatrists, doctors, religious leaders, even the music industry itself could give you their own unauthorized opinion on it.

To date, as more and more members enter this club, albeit some of them obscurely without breaking news, the legend grows. The mystery of it all grows gathering more and more speculation and sometimes fantastical theories.

A group of students at a local high school in Seattlerecently gathered around a discussion of the 27 Club. A mathematician, very respected by the students, tried to convince them of the theory of percentages. It was truly all just mathematical.

The kids weren't having it. They argued it was not a matter of some formula. If anything other than mysterious or perhaps occult like forces, it had to be somethingsociological. Yet none could pin down any one specific sociological instigator that would lend so many 27 year olds to a proclivity for dying.

They also reminded each other that it is not only our rock stars and musicians who belong to this club but many writers, actors, and artists who die at this age. Many in the group left the discussion feeling it had to be something to do with occult forces, something in the stars.

We know because one is famous it does not exclude them from the ills and diseases of society, or from childhood traumas. They too, as are we all, subject to the same depression, emotional adversity, self doubt and life pressures.

The lioness control and greed of music industry moguls and their respective companies has produced real horror stories in the industry. Music making as we know it today is not shrouded in mystery and there is no mystery to the accounts of countless gifted, naïve musicians who just want to play their music.

Who believe they will never get trapped or controlled by their respective labels. They believe they can continue to play their music their way, their artistic visions unmolested.

Those very same musicians who have found themselves broken down and broken hearted by the very people promoting and promising them their freedom of expression.

Were all these young supernovas bullied to to death by the industry? Did fame come too fast or way too hard? Was the idolizing by the masses just too much to take for a once unsought after unknown?

Was it truly some propensity for mental or emotional illness? Many hints, clues, messages and sometimes letters, are left behind that could attest to many things.

The theories and speculations abound. The fact that so many musicians in their musical primes have been dying, confounds us. Blame it on Hedonism, sex drugs & rock & roll, especially society. Explain it away with astrology, psychiatry or even the occult.

I've read some pretty pedestrian reviews full of arbitrary indictment and trite, overwrought backbite, by those who allow their bias of an artist or a lifestyle to get in the way of genuine subjective speculation, even at some point declaring the cause outright as if the mystery indeed has been solved.

If any interest into a subject is real one must be open to all theories, so explaining this away definitely and solely with some sociological affliction is not only unrealistic, but since we have already determined it is a mystery, it is flawed.

Rock and Roll has never been an institution of apple pie and howdy doody. Would it be Rock and Roll if it were? Can we really even explain our personal and cultural fascination and obsession with our music and those who make it?

Why do millions of kids pick up a guitar and stand in front of their mirrors with the radio blaring, aspiring to sing or be like their objects of affections? Why do millions of kids ditch school, their girlfriends, that mandatory court date or their little brother to get to that concert?

Would some music journalists even be music journalists, if those very excesses and lifestyles weren't so enticing, so satisfying to be around, talk about and sometimes write worthless reviews on?

People love music. It is in our souls and our music defies explanation. For many, music saves them or saves them from themselves. This is also why souls who are artists sometimes die at the age of 27.

Let's not take the human factor out of this. Let's not take the very real tragedy of a life lost, a creative force stamped out, or how much more they could have accomplished and given to usout of the question of relevance.

We who listen to them, write about them, emulate them, admire and respect their gifts. We who can't explain how we feel, but feel so strongly about them. We who claim to understand these gifts they give of their self. We could try to explain, but know it would be incomplete.

Sometime in April, 2009 a book by Eric Segalstad and Josh Hunter titled The 27's: The Greatest Myth of Rock and Roll,was released by Samhadi Creations. The book is written about the lesser known members of the 27 Club and is part narrative, part visual.

I have neither read this publication to date nor had the opportunity to read any subjective reviews of it and so cannot give opinion. For those who are fascinated, obsessed or simply curious I believe any information or idea on the matter would be worth a read. Certainly all we have now is the question and mystery of it all. Perhaps Segalstad and Hunter may enlighten us in some way?

In the end, perhaps we should just stop trying to find an explanation. And perhaps, it is not for us to know, although some will already have their own concrete conclusions. But I think we can say this: it does matter.

It matters to us as a culture. It matters to us musically, artistically, curiously, and it matters to us personally. Not only have these people whom we have adored and revered, passed away from our reaching grasping fingers, but they have died in the beauty and magic of youth.

They are a part of our history, our memories, our collective souls. And more importantly, they represented our own youth. They were us. Parts of the same whole.

The kid next door, the student in the desk behind us we use to tease, the girl who used to babysit us. They were the guy at the car wash, the pizza parlor, the theater concession stand who we jammed with once or twice in some friends garage then left town and "got big."

They spoke for us when we couldn't and they spoke for us so very well. They made us cry. They made us proud. And what they left for us musically, will last for generations. This is why it matters.
And because... they have made us dream of them forever.