Special Guest Blogger: Rick Danko

The Band may sound like an unremarkable name for a legendary rock group but I wasn’t exactly the flashy headline-grabbing frontman although i did mange to pack in more tragedy, addiction, drama, and danger than most rock stars could ever dream of in my 56 short years on the planet.
Regarded as one of the pioneers of the Americana genre, the twist was we were actually Canadian but i started out in The Starlights but was sacked for being anti-social so joined The Levon and it turned out the girl I had been dating already had a boyfriend who tipped off border officers that I was  smuggling a trunkful of pot. The result?
Chaos, suspicion but not a trunkful of pot, just a small amount in our pockets but they were still going to bust us for that anyway.
Our drummer came up with a plan to get his girlfriend to seduce one of the key officers in a seedy Toronto motel and then afterwards, telling him she was underage and it worked because he fled and the case fell apart.  
Bob Dylan hired us as his backing band but it was just as he was turning to electric guitars and the atmosphere was awful but we still had fun on tour, or we did until one night when i was a little too drunk and a little too high and challenged a bandmate to a car race through the twisting mountain roads and I plowed right into a tree.
I almost died, breaking my neck and back and facing months in traction and a giant scar on my face and a shaved head with a metal brace bolted to it but credit to the band, they never sought a replacement and with the help of strong pain medication and some unprescribed medication to hold back the pain from the injuries, we went on a world tour.
The demand for tickets was reaching hysteria level but with sold-out shows and venues were bigger than anything we had ever played and I began indulging in some destructive habits with our new pals Eric Clapton and John Belushi.  
After our pianist, Richard Manual, was feeling a bit down and took a desperate step inside the bathroom of a hotel, hanging himself with his belt it was the wake-up call i needed to ditch the drink and drugs and start living clean but my attempt to lead a healthier life only brought new struggles and i ballooned to 350 pounds and during one concert i had to stop the show to catch my breath.
On December 10, 1999, just one day after celebrating my 56th birthday, my wife found my lifeless in bed at our home as the years of hard living finally caught up with me, and i passed in a not very rock n roll way, going peacefully in my sleep.