“Are You Experienced?” asked Jimi Hendrix on his 1967 breakthrough album. Four decades on, were he still alive, the man who transformed rock and roll would most likely ask: “Are you thirsty?”
Thirty six years after his death, the title of Jimi Hendrix’s first album is being used for a soft drink. Beverage Concepts, a Calfornian company, says its non-alcoholic Liquid Experience drinks — recalling the rock star — will be launched in April.
It said it had spotted an opportunity for a “high-quality, all natural beverage line in a ‘value intense’ package that connects its customers in the form of a music icon that has a brand identity”.
The soft drink, however, has already provoked an outcry.
“To see his image and the beautiful feelings it has created during my lifetime cheapened by base advertising … is very disappointing to me,” said Red Hot Chili Peppers’ bassist Michael Balzary, better known as Flea.
Hendrix died in 1970 in London after drinking wine and taking sleeping pills before choking on his own vomit.
Authentic Hendrix, the Seattle company that controls the use of his name and image, has authorised 700 Hendrix products, including Hendrix nappies, lava lamps, incense, coffee mugs, and the Axis: Bold as Love hanging star lamp.
Beverage Concepts’ chief executive, Josh Glass, said his firm would donate some of the profits from the Liquid Experience drinks range to a music education foundation. The company’s website states that its founders saw that while clothing firms had successfully tied products to musical figures, beverages had not.
The firm plans to launch the energy drink by using another Hendrix title: the Jimi Hendrix Liquid Experience Red House Tour. – Guardian Unlimited Â