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

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Josh Morgan - Drummer British Indie Rock act The Subways
NME 15 February 2015

I hope like Susan Boyle and Ladyhawke he will find coping strategies

Being autistic and being in the music industry don't seem conducive to one another, but I've done a lot of research on Kurt Cobain's personal life, and much of it has resonated with me. He was a guy who simply wanted to be a punk rocker, and he stuck out like a sore thumb in his ultra-conservative hometown, but when he got down to making music, he ended up being exploited by the music industry. I love his music, but I hate what the record industry did to him.

I also think Kurt Cobain was somewhat autistic, so were George Harrison and Syd Barrett.

Amongst living musicians I'm sure John Frusciante and Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) are too.

Poor old Syd (RIP) started out normal enough. It was the drugs that got him.

I still like him and listen to his wacky music from time to time. Still got his albums.

Maybe he appeared "normal" until he couldn't anymore.

Perhaps so. I'd like to think he was one of us.

I think Kurt Cobain might still be alive today if he were diagnosed autistic and he pursued therapy. That said, he did run away from rehab shortly before his death, so therapy may not have helped.

It's funny you mention that, because I've been listening to a lot of Aphex Twin lately. Richard D. James doesn't exactly strike me as being an aspie, though he's definitely a bit eccentric. I'd also say he's an underrated musical genius, probably just as talented as, if not moreso, than Trent Reznor.

I think Maynard Keenan is quite likely, his music is incomparable and you have to be pretty damn obsessive to make wine as good as his. Lady Gaga is so bizarre I wouldn't be surprised at all, I knew a spectrumite girl who was almost as batty.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Ian Bavitz (Aesop Rock), his music contains so many cryptic allusions to social withdrawal, misanthropy, math, science, physics, darkness & hooliganry that I'm amazed I'm not related to him.

I guess that if he died it's because he had to. I don't know if therapy and diagnosis could have changed anything for him.

John Frusciante was in the same kind of s**t around that time, and probably wasn't knowing what felt wrong with him, but he didn't died because he retreated in his own world for 5 years and fixed himself to keep living.

Do you know the Analord serie Richard D. James released under the name AFX? To me this a perfect soundtrack about being autistic. (it's not easy listening music but if you let it grow inside you it might start resonating in your head)

Also :

There are a great many Aspien musicians, it's very common to find them in orchestras and ensembles where they fit in easily, because artists of all kinds are very accepting and non-judgemental - probably because they are often pretty weird themselves. A friend of mine conducts several major orchestras and teaches at the Royal College of Music in London, and has worked with and taught lots of people on the spectrum over the years. 'Aspies!' he once told me, 'orchestras are full of them, they're wonderful!'

I think that's a fairly ringing endorsement.

Hozier, the Irish singer songwriter that is well known for "Take Me To Church" his lyrics, personality, awkwardness, shyness, the way he speaks in interviews....I would bet money on him having Aspergers, I just get that vibe from him.

The sound engineers?

Roky Erickson.

Absolutely. I was including them under the heading of 'musicians', but should have been more specific, sorry. Plus the lighting engineers and all the other technicians without whom no performance can happen. I worked in the theatre so I know how vital they are.

I certainly know my way around an EQ, sometimes not quite as well as my producer friends but as much or more than most audiophiles. Audio has helped me a lot in understanding the wider EM spectra as well as things like impedences, amplification, waveform analyses and data interpretation at large (DSP, charge coupled devices, radar/LiDar/backscatter etc...)

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a huge chunk of musicians - certainly throughout history and still nowadays, although possibly less so, because of how commercialized modern music is - are either AS or heavy on the awkward/eccentric/talented character. Put it this way - you don't get to be a master guitarist/pianist/etc without long hours locked in your room doing the same thing over and over again.

With Mozart, Beethoven, etc it is blatantly obvious that they were AS, any description of their personality can point to that. Back then, the societies they were in recognized their gifts from an early age, found the place for them, and knew that the way that they acted was a symptom of that incredible gift, putting up with it was not a problem. Their work was more important than their image.

The mass media has changed that and made image more important. First of all, the legendary composers were way more autonomous than the big-name musicians of today. The composers wrote their music, from the heart, (the only way in which they knew how and were expected to) for managed performers to play, whereas modern music is basically written by and for the pursuit of profit and played by well-managed singers, guitarists, etc who in all actuality have a suspect role in the music they are so well known for. It is much harder to tell who they are at heart because not only do the record labels, music critics, etc have all the say in "their" music, they also control their media image, which is used to sell a certain shallow lifestyle to the public. Aspies aren't known for business approaches to things, not known for taking orders so readily, and most importantly not known for public image - so our role in music has probably declined since the 1960's. And that's just looking at it economically. I could get more into how the manufactured music of the past 50 years maybe part of some agenda that the mass media has - MKULTRA, Jim Morrison's dad, Laurel Canyon, etc - but that is when the claims shift more towards accusation.