Losing the Sound of Metal: the rock stars who went deaf, but played on

It’s a normal day for Ruben Stone when the sound goes off. Going about his business at a show with his band Blackgammon, in which he plays drums, Ruben’s world is suddenly flipped when, without warning or incident, his hearing almost completely disappears. As the noise of the world vanishes down to an indistinct hum, the effect is immense. Having spent the past four years touring around America in an RV with his girlfriend and bandmate Lou, the band has been a lifeline in his recovery from heroin addiction, as well as a strong root for their relationship.

This is the premise of Sound Of Metal, the new movie from director Darius Marder. From here, the film subtly and brilliantly communicates a world in which one fifth of our senses is severely diminished (thanks to the ingenious work of sound expert Nicholas Becker), as well as the effects this new reality has on its main character (played superbly by Riz Ahmed). At first he panics and tries to tell himself that it’s just a blip, and that things will naturally sort themselves out. When they don’t, it makes Ruben feel like he’s lost a large part of who he is, having defined himself and so much of his recovery through music.

But the film’s greatest strength is in how Ruben learns to live with his hearing loss, finding within it a new stillness. Empathetic and sensitive, Sound Of Metal excels in helping the viewer to understand its subject. It received praise when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival two years ago for its use of un-captioned American Sign Language segments, while Ahmed’s powerful performance has been deservedly tipped for an Oscar off the back of its full release this week.

For musicians and fans alike, the story of Sound Of Metal is both a fear and an occupational hazard. Most of us have, at some point, come home from a gig feeling like our ears are full of water and with sounds reduced to a dull thump. But that’s part of the whole night out, isn’t it? Whether worn as a badge of honour, or as an unfortunate by-product of necessary decibel levels. Even without chasing World’s Loudest Band records (something Guinness have stopped measuring due to safety concerns), live music is, by necessity, a noisy thing.

As a teenage metal fan with a history of hearing problems as a kid, I found a certain adolescent machismo in how loud a band could play, and bonding with friends over shared impairments the next day at school. Even now, as a grown-up who never leaves the house without earplugs on my keys, there’s still a perverse thrill in volume. A couple of years ago, a promoter took me into a photo-pit to experience American drone act Sunn O))) – a band whose literal wall of amps is nicknamed ‘Tonehenge’ – at close range. Elsewhere in the venue, the soundwaves were so intense that they were giving people nosebleeds and causing structural damage to the building. Naturally, I took my earplugs out just to see what would happen. It felt like my head was being put in a juicer.

Unsurprisingly, recent data says musicians are among the most likely people to have a hearing problem. “Research has shown that between 37-58 per cent of classical musicians, and 46-49 per cent of rock or pop musicians have found to have hearing impairments, with the general population coming in at around 13 per cent,” says Paul Checkley, Clinical Director at Musicians’ Hearing Services.

“The music industry is somewhat behind when making a comparison to the management of noise exposure in the industrial and construction sectors. The use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) on building sites is enforceable, meaning that without use of the appropriate hearing protection, you could be removed from site. This is not the case in the music industry, despite the levels of noise being comparable at times.”

Although Paul points out that the increase in headphone use blurs the line somewhat between damage done by listening to music on your phone and being bombarded by decibels at a gig, the number of stars who have damaged their hearing while on the job is nevertheless long. Ozzy Osbourne told me last year that, “I come offstage and I’m deaf as a f---in’ post, man. I’ve been standing in front of f---ing amps and drums for 50 f---iin’ years, so now I spend half my time going, ‘What?!’”

His Black Sabbath bandmate Tony Iommi, meanwhile, has a similar issue. “I’ve lost a lot of frequencies from standing close to the drums,” he once said. “It’s the same frequency as the telephone. I can be at home and the phone rings and I just don’t hear anything.” The list goes on. Phil Collins has described his hearing in one ear suddenly just going, much like Ruben’s (“My left ear simply closed down, as if I had been underwater”), while Coldplay’s Chris Martin has also revealed that he suffers from tinnitus as a result of not wearing hearing protection when he was younger.

This is something Arya Goggin, drummer with British metal band Skindred, also wishes he had done. Having played since he was a teen, for years he’d chalked up a bit of ear damage as just part of the deal. “When you’re younger there is always advice or warnings that you ignore,” he tells me. “I knew that playing drums in a band would affect my hearing but at the time I didn’t care. Who does when you’re 16? It used to be so loud in drum-world and I really used to love it. I play heavy and would have everything blasting away in my drum wedge, not only the band but all my drums. It was like double bubble.”

Eventually, though, he did himself long-lasting harm during a recording session a decade ago, when he felt an intense pain while playing with headphones on. “There was a sharp sensation in my left ear and sudden headache which I hadn’t felt before,” he says. “It had been no different to any other recording or gig [up until then]. It felt different, and days after, the ringing wouldn’t go away.”

Like so many musicians, Goggin found that he had tinnitus. Today, he keeps on top of his audial health by getting check-ups after every tour and using in-ear monitors onstage, but it’s a condition that goes beyond problems with hearing. Often seen as just a ringing in the ears, it can be a hugely intrusive disorder, especially “the anxiety that accompanies it”.

“It can really affect my mood and especially my sleep,” Goggin says. “For me it makes my anxiety skyrocket. On tour it’s actually easier to deal with, as you’re in the eye of the storm – everything is loud all the time. But as soon as you get off the road or take a break it’s there. Waking up with ringing in your ears and it not going away is tormenting. You’re overcome with a feeling of dread, and when it’s bad is all you can think about. That in itself puts you into a downward spiral. Fast forward to going to bed, and all you can hear and think about is the ringing again.”

It’s not just tinnitus that can affect a person’s mental health. Paul Checkley also lists hyperacusis (where everyday sounds seem much louder than they should) and diplacusis (where the same sound can be perceived as being different in pitch between the two ears) as potential hearing problems that can cause a person problems beyond their ears. “These symptoms, along with the hearing loss, can affect a person's confidence, and does often impact their mental health,” he says.

“The presence of a hearing loss alone can also cause people to isolate because they are embarrassed about not hearing well, which then has further effect on their mental health. Managing the hearing loss can help to reverse the isolation, allowing the person to become more confident with their interactions and therefore improve their well-being.”

Arya Goggin’s issues haven’t stopped him from being able to continue a career as a busy professional musician. But for some, this type of deterioration has had an effect on their ability to actually do their job. Part of Neil Young’s reasoning for releasing his softer Harvest Moon album in 1992 was because “I didn’t want to hear any loud sounds” after working on the previous year’s Weld, which left him painfully sensitive to volume.

More recently, having lived with hearing problems since the ‘80s, in 2018 Huey Lewis was diagnosed with Meniere’s disease, a condition affecting the inner ear. It meant that The News’ 2020 album Weather was only seven tracks long, and is likely to be their last. “I can't hear the notes,” he said of how it impacted his playing, “I just hear cacophony.” He told Telegraph music critic Neil McCormick that it was like “listening to the world on a blown speaker.”

And while Pete Townshend puts his deafness in one ear down to extreme volume on headphones, rather than the legend that he stood too close to Keith Moon’s kit as the drummer literally blew it up, it’s enough to have The Who not touring at the rate they might, and has seen the guitarist sat behind Plexiglas protectors onstage. “I have severe hearing damage,” he’s said. “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.”

Like Townshend, AC/DC singer Brian Johnson reckons it wasn’t music that caused him such problems that he was forced to temporarily leave the band in 2016, but his love of motor racing. “I got it from sitting in a race car too long without ear plugs,” he told the US DJ Howard Stern. “I heard my ear drum burst, because I forgot to put me plugs in under my helmet. That's how it happened. Music had nothing to do with it."

Whether or not decades of playing stadium shows in which cannons are fired onstage are entirely blameless here, Johnson’s hearing loss meant that he literally couldn’t perform for a time. “I couldn’t hear the tone of the guitars at all. It was a horrible kind of deafness. I was literally getting by on muscle memory and mouth shapes,” he told Rolling Stone. “I was starting to really feel bad about the performances in front of the boys, in front of the audience. It was crippling. There’s nothing worse than standing there and not being sure.”

Despite one doctor telling him that, “Deaf is deaf, son,” Johnson is back in AC/DC. This is thanks to the experimental technology ADEL (Ambrose Diaphonic Ear Lens) pioneered by Asius, which is now hearing aid sized.

It wasn’t the first time Asius head Stephen Ambrose showed Johnson what they were working on, however. “The first time he came down he brought this thing that looked like a car battery,” Johnson recalled. “I went, ‘What in the hell is that?’ He said, ‘We’re going to miniaturise it.’ It took two and a half years. He came down once a month. We’d sit there and it was boring as shit with all these wires and computer screens and noises. But it was well worth it. The only thing I can tell you is that it uses the bone structure in the skull as a receiver.”

But even with tech like this, as Sound Of Metal shows, losing your hearing needn’t mean the end of music. Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie has won two Grammy Awards and led an army of drummers at the 2012 Olympic Opening ceremony, despite being profoundly deaf since she was 12. Jazz singer and pianist Mandy Harvey, who lost her hearing at 18 due to an auto-immune disorder, uses her perfect pitch to sing.

And for hearing-impaired fans, on-stage signing of lyrics has become increasingly common. As an industry too, the wellbeing of ears is becoming an increasing priority. Many gigs and nightclubs now offer free earplugs, and the advances in high-end protection mean that good protection now doesn’t mean compromising the quality of what you’re hearing.

In the UK, the Musicians Union offer a Musicians' Hearing Health Scheme, which offers free check-ups and professional earplugs, as well as subsidised treatments like wax removal. And although treatment like the one that worked for Brian Johnson after the fact is good, all audiologists will tell you that protection is the best cure.

“Don't wait for there to be a problem with your hearing; be proactive,” says Paul Checkley. “Having annual hearing tests will allow your hearing to be monitored and means that it will be much easier to pinpoint any potential changes and manage them quickly and efficiently. There are patients who have significant hearing losses who initially thought they might have to stop playing music, but through careful use of hearing aids with specific settings for their musical endeavours, and the understanding that there are adaptations that might be required, many are able to continue playing and performing music.”

Arya Goggin, for one, knows the importance of keeping on top of this. “I didn’t ever think I would be in the privileged position 20 years after I started to call drumming my job,” he says. “To have longevity in a band you have to respect it, and your hearing is at the top of that list. There is awareness, there just needs to more and not just for performers, but for concert goers. Most people know that if they listen to loud music or go to a loud club their ears will take a battering and that’s just the price. There is another way, and that’s to protect yourself.”

The Sound of Metal is on Amazon Prime now