Musicians who have (or may have?) Asperger's Syndrome.

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What about Graham Coxon from Blur?

What about Tom Petty?

I am a classically trained pianist with Asperger's syndrome and admire those other musicians from the autism spectrum (James Durbin, for example). People always say I have such passion and intensity when I play and I hope to have the same intensity for the rest of my life.

I think Jonas Renkse from Katatonia has Aspergers. His lyrics are all about isolation and feeling alienated and distant. He's an extremely shy and quiet person. Even during his live performances he rarely looks at the crowd. Usually he either hides behind his hair or has his eyes closed....

Another musician with Aspergers....me

I am a full-time professional musician. I have toured literally all over the world and performed for tens of millions of people.

I am new to this and just discovering much about Aspergers. I am not diagnosed, but suspect that I may have it as it explains a LOT of my life.

I can get out on the stage and perform really well, but am very anti-social. I much prefer sitting at my house and doing nothing or as little as possible.

There's an interesting NPR interview Questlove did recently, he and Terry Gross discuss things like his characteristic "nonchalance," obsessive memory and developmental concerns his parents had. When asked if he could have been diagnosed with something as a child, he replies "I think there are different degrees of autism," and while he didn't fit any known criterion then, his parents were concerned enough about things like his obsession with spinning objects (could watch a record player for hours) to take him to "find out if something was wrong."

He talks about finding things easy that others find hard, like writing long compositions with multiple parts and time changes, but not having the "pop sensibility" to write anything simple. Also responds that if quizzed about it, he'd "without a doubt" know the BPM of most of the 70,000 songs on a harddrive he DJs with. There are some other developmental things, like early technical interests, and obsessions with minutiae such as the instances a green & yellow color scheme was used on Soul Train (Would link to it but for WP's algorithmic spammer defenses). He seems a true craftsman, and I can say from experience he's a humble yet riveting stage presence.

Gary Numan is actually how I found out about AS. I read an article where he talked about it and thought "wow, that sounds like all the stuff I deal with." From there I just started researching it.

Now his lyrics take on a whole new meaning for me. "Cars" was always my least favorite of his songs, but now I realize that "cars" is just a metaphor. About half the songs on the Pleasure Principle are about social isolation.

"Me, I Disconnect from You" from Replicas. I guess that one is kinda self explanatory.

Just find it kinda fascinating that he wrote these songs before he knew about AS, and I related to them before I knew about it.

Also I think Nick Drake may have had AS. He rarely performed live, and became more and more withdrawn, to the point that he barely even spoke to his parents. I've read a bio about him and there may have been more to it than that.

Anyway, feel like im just rambling here, almost deleted this, oh well.

I want to perform my video game music arrangements all over the world on piano. Check out my youtube channel and subscribe today, I specialize in all music from The Super Mario Bros. and Zelda series.

Matt Bellamy (muse) I have been observing him for a while in everything he has done interviews etc. what people who have worked with him say and I believe that he probably has AS or ADHD. not saying he has anything for certain but I would not be surprised at all if he does.

Surprised that no one here has mentioned J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. To me he comes off as the ultimate Asperger's posterchild- VERY monotone voice, flattened affect, not a lot of eye contact, kind of lives off in his own little world, etc. There's a book I own on the 80s American underground called Our Band Could Be Your Life that has a chapter in it on Dinosaur Jr, and one of the things they mentioned was how during J's college years he would always sit around by himself in the cafeteria making sculptures out of his food. Sounds like definite Aspie behavior to me, and I'm pretty sure there were other things they mentioned that had me wondering as well. I know he's straight edge which would rule out drugs, so there's gotta be at least something going on there.

Watch this and you'll see what I mean:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq3mKEJsltI[/youtube]

Another one I've always wondered about is Greg Ginn of Black Flag, who if memory recalls from reading Our Band Could Be Your Life was obsessed with ham radios as a kid and had a business selling ham radio parts. The general consensus among the people interviewed about him in the book was that he was kind of aloof and distant and a tough guy to read. I've also seen a couple interviews of him and he seemed a bit stiff and awkward and unsure of what to do with himself. Just my impression...

[insert names of favorite dead musicians/ composers here]

[insert persuasive argument that listed names are aspies based on theoretical, non-empirical evidence]

[bask in the warm, beautiful belief that my favorite musicians/ composers are neurologically similar to myself]

There are 25 responses to this, but I wonder if anyone mentioned Ladyhawke. She has not only admitted to having Asperger's, but wrote a few songs about it on her second album.