I've interviewed countless pop stars - this is why so many like Liam Payne die so young

Rock'n'roll, that maelstrom of madness and self-destruction, is a bit like politics. Just as MPs board the bus to make a difference but are sometimes waylaid and seduced, in the music game the story's about the same.

Musicians tend to be dysfunctional. Many are feeble and strange. More than a few hail from backgrounds of abuse and neglect. All of them crave attention and affection. Nursing a blazing need to fill a void and to be someone, they are children teetering on the edge of a gleaming pool, going: "Look, Mum, anyone, look at me!"

The truly creative soon realise that they can relieve their pain and suffering, whether real or imagined, with songs that ordinary people can identify with. They make total strangers love them and start to believe they walk on water.

Global fame and filthy wealth are where it goes wrong.

Everyone loves a pop star, but where is the one person who truly does? Paranoia kicks in. Every soul mate is a fraud, only out for their money.

As for sex, they'll have it with anyone, because it's what rock stars do. Before they know it, everyone is taking from them. Every significant other becomes a parasite. Once they convince themselves that fame has been one big con, they self-destruct. Booze and drugs, so freely available because they can easily afford them, loosen their grip on reality. They are soon in denial about their dependency.

Ultimately, they give up. They blow their brains out like 27-year-old Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. Booze their way to oblivion like Amy Winehouse, same age, or starve themselves into an early grave like 32-year-old Karen Carpenter.

The latest tragically young death, of course, is Liam Payne, the 31-year-old boyband star who plunged to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires this week, having just been dropped by his record company, Universal Music, facing legal action from a former girlfriend, and following years of apparent addiction and mental health struggles.

Not even the thought of his beloved son Bear, seven, whose mother is Liam's ex, singer Cheryl Cole, could save him. He didn't have the support he needed to keep him safe. Nor did he flourish as a solo artist once his band was done.

Most artists who live fast, die young and leave a beautiful corpse - Brian Jones, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Cass Elliot, Jim Morrison, Keith Moon, John Bonham, rock history is littered with them - make their mark and then become legends.

Would they have been able to sustain long-term the creative output that made them famous is the question. Did fear of waning ability or of imposter syndrome beckon them down the path to self-destruction? Did mediocrity and obscurity await them at the other end?

In which case, do such people end their young lives deliberately, because it's better to go out on a high and remain youthful and apparently hopeful to eternity?

I have lost count of the number of rock and pop artists I have interviewed. The number of years I have squandered in their company. Spend enough time around such people and you soon know the signs. Although they may differ on the surface, they are alike in fundamental ways. They rejuvenate on the nectar of adoration the way vampires feast on blood. They have no choice. Out there, doing what they do, we marvel at their talent.

Off stage we can only pity them. Because popular music, sublime and life-enhancing though it can be, sells a dream that doesn't exist. When yet another artist self-destructs, we tend to say that we saw it coming. That it was only ever a matter of bleeding time.

Car headlights are unbearably bright and must be banned

Labour peer Baroness Dianne Hayter has been campaigning against car headlights with unbearably bright headlight bulbs. Some are so dazzling to oncoming motorists that many have given up driving in the dark. Tell me about it. The Government assures us it is in the process of commissioning independent research to establish the root cause of headlamp glare. Isn't it blindingly obvious?

Can't get enough of Gogh

PATRICK Humphries, author of the superb With The Beatles, went to see the current van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery. It was 'a bunfight', my pal reports. But being a wheelchair user has its advantages. His enabled him to roll in close enough to boggle point-blank without obstructing the madding crowd's view.

He sat marvelling at tragic Vincent's paintings, at "how he draws you into his turbulent world," and was thrilled to learn that the Starry Night dauber had once lodged in Brixton.

The late, great Ian Dury came to mind: "Van Gogh did some eyeball pleasers/He must have been a pencil squeezer/He didn't do the Mona Lisa/That was an Italian geezer."

The lyrics hail from the B-side of 1978's Hit Me with your Rhythm Stick. Its glorious title is There Ain't Half Been Some Clever B*****s. Royal College of Art alumnus Dury was one of them.

Acknowledge work greetings - or pay the consequences

A recruitment manager wins an unfair dismissal case after her boss ignored her when he should have said hello. Nadine Hanson greeted MD Andrew Gilchrist three times when she arrived at her desk in Scunthorpe, but received not so much as a grunt in return.

This undermined trust and confidence, she claimed. And reported him. There was more to it, but you get the gist. She sued the company. Compensation will be forked. My office is in my house. My boss is the one in the mirror. I have taken to smiling and waving just in case. You can't be too careful these days.

Why does Taylor Swift get armed escort?

DID anybody pay for their tickets to see sparkly Tay-Tay in concert at Wembley Stadium this summer? And if Taylor Swift is entitled to an armed police escort complete with zippy outriders across the capital at the taxpayers' expense, why aren't Harry and Meghan? Asking for a friend.

Thomas Tuchel's quids in with new England job

THE impossible job, football's equivalent of prime minister, goes to Thomas Tuchel and the nation erupts. But it's hardly the first time the FA has appointed a foreigner to manage England's senior men's team, is it? Sven Göran Eriksson and Fabio Capello, anyone? Memories recede, and ancient rivalries die hard. We are told that somewhere in our hearts, we believe the England coach should be English because anything less offends the integrity of the international game. It isn't that, though, is it. It's because 51-year-old Tuchel is German. The old enemy and all that. Nobody mention the war.

There is outrage at his package: £5million a year on an 18-month contract. Come on, I'd have a go for that. He has been appointed to win the 2026 FIFA World Cup. He has as much chance of winning it as I would. Next.

Over wrought sob stories ruin talent shows

I'M not usually one for Saturday night telly. But being as I'm chained to my desk at the moment, writing a book to a brutal deadline, I've been watching The Voice on my biscuit breaks. Tom Jones, will.i.am., the McFlys Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones, and American singer songwriter LeAnn Rimes know their music. If I were the betting sort, I'd put money on 20-year-old Ace, one of the Boyo's catches, to win the series. Her rendition of Carolyn Franklin's song Ain't No Way, written for her sister Aretha, flashed a look around the studio during the blind auditions as if to say, we might as well go home now.

So exquisitely talented is this unique young artist that all they had to do was let her sing. Were revelations of her quest to quit boyhood and her painful trans journey really relevant to the cause? The emphasis on personal back stories was what killed The X Factor.

The Voice, essentially a great show, must take care not to shoot itself in the foot. Diversity depends on acceptance and inclusion. Simply that.