Musicians & Actors with Tinnitus/Hearing Damage:

There are two pieces of standard equipment that musicians and singers sometimes take for granted - your ears. The fact is that hearing loss is a very real threat to every one but especially so to musicians and music lovers. No matter which category you fall into, your ears are not replaceable. Repeated exposure to loud noises including music can permanently damage your hearing and once it's gone - it's gone.

Noise causes nerve deafness by damaging hair cells in your inner ears. It's usually painless and develops slowly. You may experience ringing in your ears that goes away. Then you expose yourself again and get permanent hearing loss.

Remember, if others can hear the music from your headphones or ear buds - your ears are at risk.
A rock concert noise level can be equal to a jet engine, depending on where you stand.

Musicians and hearing loss is serious. Treat your ears as precious equipment and enjoy the music. It's hardly surprising that musicians and singers suffer from tinnitus, other hearing problems and even deafness after long-term exposure to loud music. However, the more general trend is that more and more young people suffer from hearing loss due to loud noise exposure from mp3 players, iPods, night clubs and concerts.

 

Pete Townsend – The Who

"I have severe hearing damage. It's manifested itself as tinnitus, ringing in the ears at frequencies that I play guitar. It hurts, it's painful, and it's frustrating."

"The recent return to touring and to me playing electric guitar - albeit more quietly than in the 1970s - led to further deterioration of my hearing"

“Don’t misuse your iPod”warns The Who guitarist Pete Townshend, the famous guitarist of the British rock band, The Who, warns young people about the risk of listening to music on mp3 players and other digital audio players. He recommends turning the volume down before it is too late for your hearing. “Hearing loss is a terrible thing because it cannot be repaired. If you use an iPod or anything like it, or your child uses one, you may be ok. But my intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead,” Pete Townshend stated on his website - www.petetownshend.co.uk. "I have unwittingly helped to invent and refine a type of music that makes its principal components deaf," wrote Pete Townshend on his website.

 

Kevin Shields - guitarist/singer for My Bloody Valentine:

"I did the damage to my ears listening to mixes in headphones at very loud levels without
giving my ears time to recover." 

 

Blinda Butcher - bassist/singer for My Bloody Valentine:

"I had a punctured ear drum which fortunately they were able to put right but for a while I couldn't hear out of one ear and it was very depressing. On stage we all wear hearing protection and encourage anyone who sees us regularly to do the usame." 

Noisy cult rockers MY BLOODY VALENTINE are to offer fans earplugs at all future concerts after the group was booed throughout its set at the All Points West festival in New Jersey at the weekend. Music fans unfamiliar with the reformed act's sound voiced their disapproval at the festival on Saturday (01Aug09), and now the band has teamed up with a British firm to provide disposable plugs, which fans can pick up on their way into the band's shows. Shaun Thornburgh, the brains behind the new plug deal, says, "I am very pleased to have struck a deal with such an ear-splittingly loud band as My Bloody Valentine, and respect to them for taking ear damage so seriously. By handing out these disposable earplugs at their gigs, the band is highlighting how important it is to protect ears from damage which, once set in, is irreversible."
My Bloody Valentine frontman Kevin Shields and guitarist Belinda Butcher both suffer from hearing issues - Shields fights tinnitus, while Butcher once perforated an eardrum, according to NME.com.

 

Eric Clapton 

Developed the hearing problem tinnitus after spending years playing in front of blaring speaker stacks.
The SUNSHINE OF YOUR LOVE rocker wishes he could go back and turn down the volume on some of his barnstorming 1960s performances with supergroup CREAM. He says,

"My hearing isn't ruined but if I stop and listen, I've got whistling all the time, which I suppose is mild tinnitus.
I probably had two 100-watt stacks at the height of things and I would turn one on for solos. Just mad."

Barbra Streisand

"Streisand has ascribed her volatile temperament to the tinnitus from which she has suffered since she was seven." source: news.independent.co.uk

David Letterman 

"I'm deaf as a doornail"

Tinnitus in one ear, has had tinnitus a long time: Dave mentioned to William Shatner that he too had ringing in his ears, and has had it for a long time. On a different show episode, Letterman talked about how well he did on a hearing test. He asked Paul about his and Paul said,"I'm deaf as a doornail"

 

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Paul Schaffer 

"He's got that?! I've got that!"

on Billy Bob Thornton's character with Tinnitus in 'BANDITS'

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 

Influential eighteenth century political philosopher. From "Confessions" (1780) "...a great noise started up in my ears, a noise that was triple or rather quadruple, compounded of a low and muffled humming, a softer murmuring as though of running water, a piercing whistle...This internal noise was so loud that it robbed me of the keen ear I had previously enjoyed and made me, not completely deaf, but hard of hearing... in spite of the throbbing in my arteries and the humming in my ears, which since that time, some thirty years ago now, have never left me for a moment...The noise was irksome, but it caused me no suffering: it was not accompanied by any chronic affliction, apart from insomnia at night..." (P. 222, Oxford World's Classics paperback edition, Oxford University Press, 2000)

 

Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832)

Champollion was a French Egyptologist and scholar who is acknowledged as the father of modern Egyptology. He is best known for deciphering the Egyptian Hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone. His deciphering of hieroglyphics laid the foundations for modern Egyptology and Egyptian archaeology. In the book "The Keys to Egypt", it describes how Champollion drove himself to complete an encyclopedia of his work. "Depressed and feeling more and more unwell, Champollion now wrote to his brother about the damage done by the strain of work: 'My poor head hurts, my tinnitus, the humming and buzzing noises, has worsened and leaves me neither day nor night. I have frequent spasms and am incapable of occupying myself seriously for more than a quarter hour...' "

Jeff Beck (Yardbirds)

(from loud music), From an interview with rock guitarist Jeff Beck:

"Yes, it's in my left ear. It's excruciating... I mean, it's the worst thing 'cause it's not... It never... It does go away - it's not true to say that it doesn't but, uhh... It doesn't... The doctors say it won't... It isn't actually going away - you've just gotta suppress... They try to come to terms with what it actually... Why some people fear it - that's the psychology behind it. They know it's there but why is it such a horrible sound? Well, you can say why is a guy scratching at a window with his nails such a horrible sound - I couldn't put up with that! This is worse!" 


As Jeff told MTV - June 1993, He was asked to do a special guest spot with Guns 'n' Roses but had to cancel out. Jeff was going to play "Locomotive" with the band, but during the rehearsals, he used Slash's amp rig which aggravated his tinnitus forcing him to drop out of the gig.

 

Eric Johnson 

Has developed Tinnitus (loud music/amps); source from Guitar Player Magazine interview: "I'd run two Marshall stacks onstage and crank the monitors. I started using Fender Deluxe Reverb amps and 50-watt Marshalls around '97, after I started having some problems with tinnitus. It was my own doing -- being irresponsible and thinking I was invincible...Yes, though it has been better lately. Take care and wear plugs. Don't think it can't happen to you. When I had a speaker reconed at the been here for years reconing shop in Austin the owner said, "I've reconed speakers for every guitarist in Austin for years and as far as I know there aren't any rock 'n roll lead guitarists here who don't have tinnitus to some degree or another. Many have it so bad they have trouble sleeping."

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  • James Hetfield - Metallica rhythm guitar and uses Sonic II Ear plugs
  • Lars Ulrich - Drummer for Metallica
  • Thom Yorke - Radiohead singer
  • Colin Greenwood - Radiohead bassist. (Source from: prefixmag )
  • Ryan Adams - Singer/songwriter diagnosed with Meniere’s Disease in 2009. (Source from: rollingstone )
  • George Harrison - Had hearing damage from loud music
  • Thomas Edison
  • Graham Cole - UK actor and singer, suffers tinnitus and hearing loss.
  • Sylvester Stallone
  • Rick Emmett - Triumph guitarist, source from Guitar Player Magazine
  • Bono - U2 lead singer, he even sings about it in his lyrics. Bono derived his name from a hearing aid store in his hometown of Dublin, Ireland which had a sign that read 'Bonavox Hearing Aids'.
  • The Edge - U2 guitar player
  • Ben Bossi - Saxophone player for Romeo Void. From a VH1 interview: His ears had started ringing and he was losing his hearing when the band was in it's heyday. He quit playing the sax after the band broke up and hasn't played since. 
  • Carmine Giovinazzo - CSI actor
  • Robert Fisk - Journalist/correspondent
  • Jack Straw - British politician
  • Howard Hughes 
  • Cesar Franck - Classical music composer
  • Ayumi Hamasaki - Female vocalist
  • Moby - Contemporary rock musician
  • Myles Kennedy - Contemporary musician
  • Anthony Kiedis - Red Hot Chili Pepper vocalist

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  • Al Jardine - Beach Boys guitarist/vocalist
  • Jerry Stiller - Frank Costanza on Seinfeld
  • Stephanie Beacham - Actress, She is completely deaf in one ear, partially in her other, and is associated with the Tinnitus Society of Great Britain. 
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower
  • Martin Luther
  • Joan of Arc
  • Oscar Wilde
  • Sheikh Hasina Wajed - Former prime minister of Bangladesh, has gone deaf in her right ear after suffering an injury in a grenade attack. (Source from: deafweekly.com )
  • Phil Collins - From Sky News: He will have to severely cut back on live performances "thanks to the buzzing in his ears." 
    "Phil Collins recently declared an end to his concert touring because of the hearing loss he has suffered. The 51 year-old former Genesis drummer and vocalist announced that he will perform live only occasionally to avoid further hearing loss on his hearing damaged left ear." (source from hear-it.org)
  • Cher 
  • Blixa Bargeld - (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds / Einstuerzende Neubauten) 
  • Ozzy Ozborne
  • Huey Lewis
  • Tony Franklin
  • Vincent Van Gogh 
  • Francisco de Goya (1746-1828) - Spanish artist that had tinnitus and hearing loss from a severe illness.
  • Ludwig Van Beethoven - Famously deaf, Beethoven was also a famous tinnitus sufferer. The great composer was driven mad by "rushing and roaring sounds" in his head.
  • Robert Schumann - Composer
  • Charles Darwin - Kept records of its daily amplitude and frequency
  • Mick Fleetwood - Fleetwood Mac drummer; "The world's worst is when you find yourself going like Mother Hubbard and cupping your hand behind your ear. I was a major glutton for volume: 'Gotta feel it, gotta hear it.' Sooner or later you're going to pay the reaper." (source: Rolling Stone Magazine )
  • Stewart Copeland 
  • Keanu Reeves - Plays bass in the band Dogstar
  • Larry King - Said he has tinnitus on his left ear. He also said his is very low and it dosn't bother him.Steve Tarkanish - Former drummer now music agent promoter. "Tinnitus from loud music and cymbals."

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  • Charles Arthur - Guitar player 
  • Kathy Peck - Bass player/singer-songwriter: "My life had really changed when I experienced the loss of my hearing and Tinnitus damage after the Contractions opened up for Duran Duran." 
  • Michael Tomlinson - Musician/singer-songwriter: After an ear infection, he temporarily lost 90% of his hearing for a few weeks, but still has Tinnitus in one ear. Source from: E-mail correspondence
  • John Densmore - Drummer for The Doors, Ray Manzarek says that things are looking grim for Densmore, in terms of his future as a musician: "Tinnitus, man, you can't...You know, there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't get better. It can only get worse--that's the hell of that thing. You'd say, 'Well, you know, when it's better, you're gonna play, man.' Well, it doesn't get better. The nature of that problem is that it can only get worse."
  • Michael Church - "I acquired my own tinnitus in the stupidest possible way: on the rifle range at Catterick army camp, while training as an officer cadet. St Albans School in the late Fifties was a grotesquely spartan place, where ear-defenders were unheard of (my fellow victim Stephen Hawking improvised earplugs from blotting paper, and the doctor had to dig them out). After a noisy afternoon with a Bren firing 12 inches from my left ear, I returned home deafened, and though my hearing eventually returned (minus the high frequencies), I was left with a loud hiss. (Yes, I should have sued both the school and the MoD, but 16-year-olds don't have time for such niceties.)" (Source from: news.independent.co.uk)
  • Francis Rossi - Lead singer and guitarist for the band Status Quo.
  • Mick Ronson - David Bowie's guitarist, had tinnitus in the ear that was closest to his speaker column.
  • Hansi Kursch - Lead singer and bass player for the band Blind Guardian. Kursch actually lost all hearing on one side, and then suffered tinnitus in the same ear. (source from DynamiteMetal.com)
  • Jarmo Miettinen - Rhythm guitar & vocals for the band Status Quiz 
  • Todd Rundgren - Musician
  • Trent Reznor - Nine Inch Nails
  • Richard Pleasance - Guitarist for Boom Crash Opera, took time off in 1990 from touring with this band due to tinnitus. (Source from: www.vh1.com)
  • Danny Elfman - Film scores/composer. Touring took a major toll on his hearing and he still suffers from tinnitus. "The last five or six years I was in the band, my instincts were telling me I was doing myself a lot of harm - and I was right. I really should have gotten out sooner than I did, and I'm incredibly regretful that I didn't because I'm paying the price for it now." (Source from: OCRegister)
  • Steve Lukather - Guitarist/song writer for Toto, developed tinnitus sometime in the 1980's. "Yes I have tinnitus, what a drag. I wear earplugs now 'cause of it. I found that it was all the years wearing headphones that did me in more than live playing. I used to have the real expensive plugs, but I found some 2 dollar ones that work just as good and you don't feel bad losing them, hahaha. My hearing is damaged though. I always have to say "WHAT???", hahaha. Be careful guys, this could happen to you!" (Source from: www.stevelukather.net)
  • Andy Partridge - Guitarist/song writer and former front man of XTC. "Right now, I'm taking twin noise generators out of my ears. They’re hearing aids in reverse. They are retraining my brain to not hear tinnitus over the next 18 months. I've been wearing them for the last month or so...The first time I was suicidal was when I found I had tinnitus." (Source from: wired.com)
  • James McBride - Author and jazz tenor saxophonist. That familiar ring, in his ears: McBride is so attuned to life from a musical standpoint that "I can tell you the pitches of the tinnitus in my ears: G-sharp in one, D-sharp in the other." (Source from: .chicagotribune.com)
  • Garrison Keillor - Author and host of "A Prairie Home Companion." Here is an excerpt from a column he wrote for the Chicago Tribune on June 20, 2007: "Some people consider cicadas pests but I found them comforting. I suffer from tinnitus, the ringing in the ears, and the cicadas chitter in the same frequency range as my inner ear and mask the ringing very nicely. I stood in the park where they were whirring around and I felt relief. Tinnitus can drive you nuts, especially if you spend a lot of time in quiet rooms, but luckily I am able to ignore it, thanks to my innate talent for obliviousness." (Source from: chicagotribune.com)

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  • Chad Peery - " I acquired tinnitus in both ears in 1966 while in the US Army during basic training. Played bass guitar with Bob Welch (of Fleetwood Mac) Peter Banks (of Yes) and John Kay & Steppenwolf. I used form-fitted hearing protection in rehearsals and on-stage because I had a sensitivity to loud sounds. So, I would put in my silicone ear plugs, crank it up, and blast away! I played venues from small clubs to stadiums, and my hearing held up pretty well. But, by 1983, one of the reasons I left the music business in 1983 and got into broadcasting was the deterioration of my tinnitus and hearing acuity. I'm now 62, and it hasn't gotten any better. So many musicians I have known refused to wear hearing protection. Especially now, with Musician's Ear Plugs, there's no excuse. “ 
  • Neil Young  (from loud music) - Main reason for his "acoustic" music during early 90's
  • John Entwhistle  - According to Who scholar Andy Neill, Entwhistle was pretty deaf, and tended to rely on lip-reading. He didn't have tinnitus but still played bass at his usual "everything on 11" volume. 
  • William Shatner - He acquired tinnitus from a loud stage/prop explosion on the set of an episode of StarTrek (during the mid 1960's). He says it contributed to the breakup of his second marriage, and even made him consider suicide. (source from Carleton University )
  • Leonard Nimoy - stage/prop explosion on set of StarTrek (during mid 1960's)
  • Tony Randall
  • Engelbert Humperdinck
  • Rosalynn Carter
  • Steve Martin - musician (banjo player), actor, comedian. He acquired Tinnitus while filming a pistol-shooting scene in "¡Three Amigos!" in 1986. "You just get used to it." 
  • Leslie Nielsen 
    Actor in such movie spoofs as "Police Squad!", "Airplane!", "The Naked Gun" series.
  • Ronald Reagan
  • Richard Thomas
  • Dave Pirner  - (Soul Asylum) (from loud music)
  • Bob Mould  - (alternative music icon)
  • Neve Campbell - (from loud dance clubs)

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