But by the time Humble Pie began to tour America regularly in the early 1970s, Marriott allegedly developed a destructive cocaine and alcohol addiction, which is thought to have been the cause of his marriage break-ups and to have contributed to his premature death in a house fire. "He (Steve) became another person to cope with the pressures, he would say things like, "Please tell me that you'll leave me if I go on tour again because if you say that I’ll have justification not to go, if I go and have to be that other person again I'll just go mad." This would be said in a moment of truth but the next day had changed his mind and he'd be up and off... He was married to his music and I didn't mind that especially in the early years when he would play me new songs on an acoustic guitar but what didn't make me happy was when he was in the home studio, out of his brain, trying to come up with the next album because he was being pressurised into it. He would just disappear into the studio for three or four days at a time. He never slept and there would be all sorts of strange people in there with him. It was a crazy business and even the nicest people get mixed up. All sorts of chemicals were presented to him and he became addicted to them in the end. It was drugs that destroyed our relationship. Before the home studio was built Beehive Cottage was our sanctuary, afterwards it just became his workplace." – Jenny Rylance   Rylance finally left Marriott in 1973. She said: "The drugs and the drink I would tolerate no more. It broke my heart to leave Steve but it had to be done, I was ultimately the stronger". Due to the break-up of his marriage and growing drug use, some band members said that Marriott at times became domineering, aggressive and intolerable to work with. Humble Pie disbanded in 1975, citing musical differences as the reason for the split. Financial mismanagement and widespread substance abuse within the band also played a part. In an interview in 2000 with John Hellier, Jerry Shirley said:  "We were all doing too many drugs, we'd lost sight of our business arrangements and no-one within the band had any control over money matters. But the main reason was that we were making bad records, it all came to a head in early 1975. The rot had set in so deep it was inevitable." – Jerry Shirley (Humble Pie).