Think you know everything there is to know about music? Prepare to be blown away as we take a look at some of the most interesting, unbelievable facts about musicians and the music industry.
1. There are myriad tales of cocaine-crazed madness associated with David Bowie, from giving Nazi salutes to subsisting on a diet of nothing but peppers and milk, but our favourite one is the story of him, circa ‘Diamond Dogs’, hiding his own piss in the fridge because he was convinced a wizard might steal it.
2. Where to start with Lady Gaga? The kermit-head jacket? Wearing a telephone on her head and carrying a teacup for no reason? Posting obscure messages on Twitter such as “Mental. Vomit. Bubble dreams”? Or is it all just an act to cover up the fact that she’s really quite dim and doesn’t have much of interest to say?
3. Michael Jackson. From inventing and patenting anti-gravity boots to dangling a baby out of a window – not to mention racking up half a billion dollars in debt at the time of his death – few stars hold a candle to Jacko when it comes to scarcely believable acts of delusional egomania.
4. Not so much ‘eccentric’ as properly mentally ill (so we shouldn’t mock), Beach Boy Brian Wilson once stopped bathing because he was scared of water. At the height of his loopiness in 1970, he introduced himself to some visitors backstage with the words “I’m Brian.” “We know,” they replied. “We’re your children.”
5. The Knife are a pretty weird band – those masks should be a clue – but the female half of the duo, Karin Dreijer Andersson, took things one stage further with her solo project, Fever Ray, whose debut album is packed with terrifyingly bizarre, sleep-deprived lyrics such as: “I’m very good with plants, when my friends were away, they let me keep the soil moist“.
6. Dexy’s Midnight Runners frontman Kevin Rowland has had an eventful career, involving bankruptcy, a brief stint in a religious cult, cocaine addiction, and one of the most bizarre comebacks ever – the 1999 album ‘My Beauty’, promotional duties for which found him wearing a dress and panties.
7. When Guns N’ Roses first found fame, Axl Rose wasted no time in becoming the archetypal, ego-crazed rock star douchebag. In 1990 he had two giant topiary elephants delivered to a new house – which he never even bothered moving in to. In later years he became obsessed with homeopathic medicine, and – of course – wasted 15 years and millions of dollars recording the woeful ‘Chinese Democracy’.
Weird Music History
Prince is a Jehovah’s Witness
We all know about Prince changing his name
to a squiggle (officially, ‘Love Symbol No. 2’),
but that’s not his only quirk: since 2006 he’s
been a Jehovah’s Witness, and – in accordance
with the faith – he goes door-to-door in his
LA neighbourhood.
“Sometimes people act surprised,” he told
The New Yorker. “But mostly they’re totally
cool about it.”