John Bonham

September 25, 1980. Age: 32. Booze.

Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham liked vodka. A lot. In fact, they say on the morning of his death he had 12 shots of it with his breakfast. But since it was only morning, he had plenty of daylight left to keep drinking band rehearsals for their upcoming tour; and he basically kept going on and on - like the fight scene between Keith David and Roddy Piper in They Live. Apparently neither the band nor their manager knew much about the dangers of imbibing enough alcohol to sterilize a small African village and put Bonham in his bed after he passed out. They were even kind enough to put Bonzo in his bed on his side, but it wasn't much help. He died from pulmonary edema, which is basically breathing in your own vomit, which isn't very rich in oxygen.

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Keith Moon

September 7, 1978. Age: 32. Prescription drug overdose.

Keith Moon, the legendary drummer for The Who (and arguably the greatest drummer of all time) died of a prescription drug overdose - and a double dose of irony also. After stints in rehab he decided to go cold turkey for his drinking problem and try to beat the affliction on his own, with the help of a prescription not intended for DIY alcoholism treatment. Oh, and did we mention that he really liked pills, too? Well, they must have had socialized medicine in England at the time because it was a new doctor who prescribed the pills to Moon in the first place, knowing little about the drummer's background and his history with pills and booze.

Irony #1 is that he went to the movies with Paul and Linda McCartney to see to see The Buddy Holly Story (more on Buddy in a little while), which starred Gary Busey in his most acclaimed role. And then when he got home he took 32 pills - 12 times the daily limit prescribed by the doctor and probably enough to have killed him six or seven times over. He was only supposed to take one pill when he felt like he needed a drink, so he must've felt like he needed 32 drinks at the time.

Irony #2 is that he died in the very same hotel room that Mama Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas died in four years before that (more on Cass in a little while, too). Needless to say, if you're ever in the Mayfair section of London it's probably not a good idea to stay in room 12 at 9 Curzon Place if you've thrown back a few pills. Or drinks. Or ham sandwiches (more on ham sandwiches in a little while, too).

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Ronnie Van Zant

October 20, 1977. Age: 29. Plane crash.

Ronnie Van Zant, lead singer of Lynyrd Skynyrd, formed a band while still in high school called My Backyard, which was a totally lame name. The band's high school gym teacher, Leonard Skinner, liked to punish boys with long hair with stuff like detentions and writing essays about badminton, soccer, and how not to get your long hair caught in the weight machines. Of course, Van Zant and his bandmates all had long hair (well, we're not really sure about the essays but they sound like a harsh punishment). Anyway, because their gym teacher was such a douche they decided to name their band after him and become one of the biggest southern rock bands ever, and thus Skynyrd was born, and ultimately they had the last laugh at Skinner's expense.

But then maybe Karma caught up with them in the fall of '77, when a plane taking the band to Baton Rouge from a stop on their tour in South Carolina crashed in Mississippi. The crash killed Van Zant and two other members of the band, Steve and Cassie Gaines, both of whom had joined the band only a year before. That'll teach them longhairs. Subsequently, the surviving members (most of whom were severely injured in the crash) decided to call it quits for the next decade, when they reunited with Van Zant's younger brother Johnny taking over on vocals.

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Elvis Presley

August 16, 1977. Age: 42. Prescription drugs.

Elvis Presley, who became synonymous with the term rock & roll - and thus the anointed King of it - had basically become quite familiar with prescription drugs from a young age (he allegedly used to steal them from his mother) and was even on them often during his service time in the U.S. Army. But after almost two decades of an obviously highly successful career, he pretty much began a steady decline after his 1973 divorce from wife Priscilla. After their split he overdosed twice, one of the times putting him in a nearly fatal coma. Then he began gaining weight, most likely from fried peanut butter & banana sandwiches, and started to get a bit reclusive and obsessive, like the musical version of Howard Hughes. He tried to go out and perform anyway but could barely even do that after clogging his arteries with lard.

After a string of poor performances on tour he was at home during a brief hiatus. On the eve of the next tour he was about to embark on he died on his toilet. What a way to go. His death was ruled the result of his years of taking prescription drugs, coupled with plenty of peanut butter & banana sandwiches fried in bacon fat.

Elvis at one point found himself addicted to Demerol, much like Michael Jackson. In fact, The King's daughter, Lisa Marie, who was married to Jackson at one time, recently wrote in her blog that her ex-husband feared he would suffer the same fate as her father, and he pretty much did.

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Cass Elliot

July 29, 1974. Age: 32. Heart attack

Mama Cass Elliot, the standout singer in the 60s pop quartet The Mamas and the Papas, had a wonderful singing voice, but the band's founder, John Phillips, was hesitant to let her into the group at first because she was a bit overweight. Like Stevie Nicks in the 90s overweight. But when he finally did let her sing in his group, they made up some cockamamie story about how she was hit on the head with some copper pipes and got a concussion. And then all of a sudden she could sing even better, and that's how she broke into the group and subsequently carried them for years after.

Then she'd had enough of Phillips' 'around the house' and 'Chinese phone book' cracks and left the band, embarking on a quite successful solo career in 1968. She released five albums and was tearing it up at the peak of her career; but, sadly, after wrapping up her tour in 1974, she ordered up some room service - a ham sandwich to be exact - ate half of it and went to bed. During the night she died in her sleep of a heart attack. But since the other half of the sandwich was still on the plate when she was found, it was instantly assumed that she choked to death on the portion she was eating, which was the only possible explanation for her not to finish a sandwich.

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