EX-DRUG USING MUSICIAN PLAYS MUSIC IN ATTEMPT TO HELP PEOPLE ON DRUGS

Music is Mike Deasy's weapon against drug and alcohol abuse. As one who has overdosed, he uses it with mission-like precision.

Deasy, who played music with legends Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix, Friday brought that weapon to Academic Auditorium at Southeast Missouri State University as part of the Region 6 meeting of the Future Homemakers of America. About 845 FHA members, advisers and officers from 26 schools in Southeast Missouri attended.

Deasy, 50, of Broken Arrow, Okla., told the crowd drugs will "steal your dreams." It always starts out simple, he said, with someone doing a little mescaline or cocaine for fun.

"I'll tell you what, man: the devil will give you the best he has and it's a downhill slide," said Deasy, who referred to himself as a Christian. "And he'll steal your lunch and eat it in front of you and laugh, man."

Hendrix, he said, died of drugs. "Hendrix did one hit of coke and choked drowned on his own vomit. What a waste of talent."

Originally from Southern California, Deasy said he also played music with the Beach Boys. Drummer Dennis Wilson, a friend, drowned when he went swimming and didn't come up for air, he told the audience.

"Why do you suppose he did something so stupid? Because he was drunk. He didn't plan to drown," Deasy said.

Throughout his session, Deasy dressed in jeans, boots and a light-black overcoat cut at the knees mixed his message with rock songs and strings of music. Deasy wound out the songs in solo on a selection of electric guitars aided by on-stage equipment. Among the songs he played were "Superstition," "La Bamba," and "Don't Be Cruel," which he said he recorded with Presley.

The crowd was enthusiastic.

Deasy made his point with both frankness and humor. As if to symbolize his fight against drug and alcohol abuse, he played some music from a black guitar crafted into the shape of a rifle. At one point the on-stage equipment issued a volley of gunfire.

An amber-colored guitar Deasy showed off bore a carving by a California sculptor that had the verse of John 3:16 etched in it, along with the three crosses of Jesus and the two thieves. Deasy said the bass player for Ricky Nelson had originally used the guitar, built in 1952 by Leo Fender.

He picked up the guitar, he said, in a trade for a .300-caliber Magnum rifle.

"But I got the best weapon," he said after the session. "There's no better weapon to communicate ideas than music. Everybody likes the vintage rock 'n' roll."

Deasy performed three shows; the others dealt with how music programs people with its message, he said.

"Nothing programs the human mind like music. That's the way God made music to do."

Deasy said he went on the road in 1959 with the Coasters when he graduated high school. He also traveled the road with Eddie Cochran and Chubby Checker on Dick Clark's "Caravan of Stars," he said, and has played on records with the Beach Boys and Michael Jackson. His list of credits also includes Clint Eastwood movies, he said.

During the late '60s, Deasy said, he overdosed on psychedelic drugs. Deasy said he did whatever drugs "anybody would hand me."

Following his overdose, he said, he tried all kinds of things, including yoga, Buddhism, and transcendental meditation. Then he went to a Billy Graham Crusade at Anaheim Stadium in California and met Jesus, he said.

"Jesus is alive, a living person; God manifested on the Earth," he said.

Deasy said he performs his shows all over the world at schools, prisons and public forums. From Dec. 10-27, he said, he'll go to the Soviet Union for the fourth time.

He performs the shows, he said, because "every 30 seconds there's an unwanted adolescent pregnancy in America."

"Young girls are using abortion as a means of birth control. Every 60 minutes a teenager in this nation tries suicide; every 90 minutes one succeeds.

"All these are alcohol and drug related. If I can keep one kid from making the same mistakes I did, I've done my job."