There's nothing wrong with constructing a stage persona. I can remember Bob Dylan made up up a lot of stories about how he had run away from home when he was a kid, worked for a carnival, been brought back.....

I certainly never had the imagination to think up b\z
~ I think when De Quincey was writing his Confessions of an Opium Eater - there was a certain mythologising. Coleridge just started on the junk because he had bad teeth and the dentists of the time weren't very skilled.

However with these big stars - young people are watching. When we were kids we all smoked Players Gold Leaf because Bert Jansch left his packet of fags on display on the cover of It Don't Bother Me.

I hope no young kid listening to Shane doesn't become an alcoholic or join a paramilitary group.