Having a criminal record can add greatly to your outlaw rock star cred.
But as some musicians have found to their cost, it can prove a tad inconvenient when attempting to tour certain countries. Incarceration can also interrupt a promising career. Here are 15 rock legends who found themselves lumbered with a rap sheet.
1. David Crosby
By the early ’80s, former Byrd and CSN&Y star David Crosby was in the throes of a serious drug addiction and couldn’t seem to stay out of trouble with the law. He was arrested in a Dallas nightclub in April 1982 for possessing a .45 calibre handgun and cocaine.
Crosby insisted that he’d been carrying a weapon since the murder of John Lennon on 8 December 1980, but seemed mystified by the local authorities’ approach to drug possession.
"A quarter-gram," Crosby later said. "That’s enough to cover your index fingernail. In California, they would have laughed. In Texas, five years." In August 1983, Crosby was sentenced to two concurrent prison terms in Texas.
That conviction was overturned when an appeals court ruled that police illegally entered Crosby’s dressing room, and Crosby was released on the proviso that he enter a drug rehabilitation program.
The singer checked into rehab but left after six or seven weeks after being told he wasn’t allowed to play the synthesizer that Graham Nash had sent him. Two days later, he was arrested in New York for possession of a small amount of cocaine and spent a week at the Rikers Island prison hospital.
Crosby began serving his sentence on 6 March 1986 but was paroled after six months; he later credited the jail stay with forcing him to quit taking cocaine.
2. Ozzy Osbourne
Before he decided on a career as a rock star, Ozzy Osbourne turned his hand to burglary, for which he proved spectacularly ill-suited. In fact, the breaking-and-entering career lasted just a few weeks. After breaking into a shop and stealing baby clothes at the age of 17, Ozzy tried to make off with a TV. But it fell on him.
Ozzy’s burgling gloves also didn’t fit, so he left prints everywhere. ‘Not exactly Einstein, are we?’ commented the rozzer who came to arrest him. Ozzy was fined £40, but couldn’t afford to pay, so he wound up at Her Majesty’s Pleasure at HM Prison Birmingham for six weeks, which put him off a life of crime altogether. ‘Fucking useless!’ was his later judgement on this foolish early career choice.
3. Paul McCartney
The Fabs were so popular that the cops apparently considered them untouchable, especially after they all got MBEs in 1965. Indeed, it’s claimed that police held off the drug bust at Keith Richards’ Redlands home in 1967 (see below) because George Harrison was initially present. All of which may have given Paul McCartney a sense of invulnerability even after the band split.
During a press conference prior to a Wings tour in 1973, a cheeky hack enquired, ‘Just what keeps you going?’ The former lovable moptop replied: ‘Drugs!’ Two months later, he was refused entry to Japan following an earlier marijuana conviction.
4. Arthur Lee (Love)
In 1967, LA psych-rock greats Love released their opus, Forever Changes, an album that juxtaposed lush arrangements with lyrics that found frontman Arthur Lee musing on mortality, racism, war, drugs and existential doom.
"Served my time, served it well, you made my soul a cell," Lee sang on ‘Live And Let Live’ – 30 years later, he was serving a prison sentence.
In 1996, Lee was convicted of possession of a firearm, gross negligence and discharge of a firearm for allegedly shooting a gun in the air during an argument with a neighbour (which Lee denied).
Lee’s troubled past caught up with him – he’d had previous run-ins with the law for drug, driving and assault charges – and he was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Lee was released from prison after five years and six months after the prosecutor of the original trial was found guilty of misconduct.
On release, Lee made up for lost time, touring Forever Changes to packed houses and festival crowds before he died due from complications of leukaemia on 3 August 2006, aged 61.
5. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
In contrast to those cheeky Beatles, the Rolling Stones maintained the image of surly degenerate outlaws – and were treated accordingly by the authorities. Jagger and Richards endured multiple arrests, mostly on drugs charges. But none was more notorious than what has become known as the Redlands bust.
This took place at Keith Richards’ home – Redlands, West Sussex – in February 1967, where the Stones and their entourage were enjoying a weekend party. Led by the Stones’ nemesis, Detective Sergeant Norman Pilcher of the Yard, 18 rozzers stormed in to find a scene of unprecedented degeneracy. Allegedly. The most notorious detail was to follow attendee and Mick Jagger’s then-girlfriend Marianne Faithfull for the rest of her life, although it is almost certainly untrue.
Matters took a surreal turn after Jagger and Ricards were arrested for drug possession, notably when William Rees-Mogg (father of hard-right Tory MP Jacob) wrote an editorial in The Times (entitled ‘Who Breaks a Butterfly on a Wheel?') criticising the prosecutions.
The Stones subsequently released the single ‘We Love You’ as a message of support to their fans, but it was not a notable success. Peter Whitehead’s promo film was good fun, however, being a re-enactment of the trial of Oscar Wilde, with Jagger, Richards and Faithfull as Wilde, the judge and Lord Alfred Douglas.
6. Janis Joplin
In 1963, a pre-fame Janis Joplin was arrested for shoplifting a dress in Port Arthur, Texas. Later, at the height of her stardom in 1969, she was arrested in Tampa, Florida, for vulgar and indecent language and disorderly conduct after aggressively challenging police officers who tried to restrict her onstage freedom and interaction with the crowd. To be precise, she yelled ‘Don't fuck with those people!’, for which she was fined $200 plus court costs.
7. Jerry Lee Lewis
By 1976, Jerry Lee Lewis was decades removed from his early rock ’n’ roll glory and deep into a period of chaos and notoriety. One night, drunk and furious, he drove to Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate and demanded to be let in. According to police reports, he had a loaded .38 Derringer pistol on the dashboard and had already crashed his Rolls-Royce into the gates.
Security called the police, who arrested Lewis for carrying a firearm while intoxicated. The incident became legend not just because of its danger, but because it symbolized two titans of early rock – one fading, one already gone – colliding in one surreal moment.
8. Vince Neil (Mötley Crüe)
In late 1984, Finnish hard rockers Hanoi Rocks were on their first US tour, when they visited Mötley Crüe singer Vince Neil at his LA home. An afternoon of drinking ensued, until the alcohol ran out – whereupon Neil volunteered to visit a local liquor store in his high-speed sports car.
As if that wasn’t a poor enough decision, he took along Hanoi Rocks drummer Nicholas ‘Razzle’ Dingley for the ride. The (inevitable) ensuing crash left Razzle dead, and the two occupants of the oncoming car with severe injuries and brain damage. Neil was charged with vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of alcohol. In September 1985, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fives years’ probation. He was paroled for good behaviour after serving a mere 15 days.
Mötley’s subsequent Theatre of Pain album was dedicated to the memory of Razzle. Neil went on to be arrested several more times, mostly for assault, and enjoyed several stints with Mötley Crüe. Hanoi Rocks, however, fared less well. Their seemingly upward career trajectory stalled after Razzle’s death and they split in 1985. Subsequent reformations proved less successful than hoped.
9. Chuck Berry
Rock and roll pioneer Chuck Berry was a very naughty boy indeed. He first recorded brush with a law came in 1959, when he was charged with taking a 14-year-old girl across state lines for ‘immoral purposes’. But Chuck’s most bizarre arrest came many years later in the 1980s, when he was accused of installing a video camera in the women’s toilet of a restaurant he owned called Southern Air.
He kept tapes of customers and staff members for his own private pleasure (possibly involving his Ding-a-Ling). Chuck subsequently faced a class action lawsuit brought by 59 women, which he settled out of court receiving only a suspended sentence.
10. Jim Morrison
Jimbo was arrested no fewer than six times during his short life, but the incident everybody remembers may not have happened. During a performance in Miami on March 1, 1969, the jaded Doors frontman allegedly outraged public decency by yanking Little Jim from his leather trousers and simulating masturbation. No evidence has ever been produced that this actually happened, and Oliver Stone’s Doors movie fudges the issue.
Nonetheless, a warrant was issued for Jim’s arrest and he tuned himself in a month later to be found guilty of public exposure and profanity. Alas, however, our naughty hero had that fatal encounter with a Parisian bathtub before his appeal could be heard. The deceased Door was later posthumously pardoned by Florida’s governor.
11. Phil Rudd (AC/DC)
In 2014, former AC/DC drummer Phil Rudd was arrested in New Zealand and charged with a number of crimes, including attempting to procure a murder and possession of metamphetamine and cannabis. The band simply carried on touring, with Chris Slade drafted in to replace Rudd.
Fortunately for the errant tub-thumper, the ‘attempting to procure a murder’ charge was swiftly withdrawn. But he was subsequently sentenced to eight months’ home detention for drug possession and threats to kill. In 2020, he officially rejoined AC/DC.
12. Axl Rose
As one might expect, the volatile Guns N’ Roses frontman has a lengthy rap sheet stretching back to his teenage years in Indiana. One of the more bizarre incidents occurred in 1989, when he was busted for assault with a deadly weapon after attacking an LA neighbour with an empty wine bottle. The female victim had complained about Axl playing loud music.
But our gallant frontman wasn’t done with his new enemy yet. The incident was revisited in the lyrics to ‘Right Next Door to Hell’ on 1991’s Use Your Illusion I album.
13. James Brown
James Brown’s relationship with the law was long and complicated, but the most infamous event came in 1988. After reportedly threatening people at his Augusta, Georgia office and carrying a shotgun, Brown led police on a high-speed chase across state lines into South Carolina. The pursuit only ended when officers shot out his tyres.
Brown was arrested and ultimately sentenced to six years, of which he served about three. The incident underscored a turbulent period marked by drug dependency, paranoia, and exhaustion – a dramatic contrast to the disciplined, electric performer who helped invent the funk genre.
14. Kurt Cobain
Five years before Nevermind changed the course of rock music, the teenage future Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was arrested for vandalism after being caught spray painting graffiti in his hometown of Aberdeen, Washington.
Cobain was accompanied by Buzz Osborne and Matt Dillard – a couple of friends who’d later find notoriety in grunge/noise band the Melvins.
Osborne later recalled the events of the evening, "All of a sudden there’s cops everywhere. And we just take off running in different directions… They had nabbed Cobain somehow. Like he was hiding somewhere. And he went to the joint."
According to police records, the graffiti that Cobain was busted for read, ‘Ain’t got no how whatchamacallit.’ Years later, Bikini Kill singer Kathleen Hanna spray painted the phrase ‘Kurt smells like teen spirit’ on his bedroom wall, giving him the inspiration for the title of the song that would change his life.
15. Sid Vicious
Although he was nominally the bass player with the Sex Pistols, Sid was famously hopeless as a musician. Lemmy from Motörhead tried to teach him how to play his chosen instrument, but gave up in despair. Sid proved for more adept at the rock’n’roll lifestyle – until he allegedly went too far and killed his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, after a drugs binge. While awaiting trial for murder, Sid died of a heroin overdose in New York.
16. Varg Vikernes
Most heavy metal Satanism is strictly of the Dennis Wheatley variety – all midnight séances, candles and Latin incantations. But someone clearly forgot to tell those crazy Norwegian black metallers of the early Nineties where the boundary lay.
Kristian ‘Varg’ Vikernes, also known as Count Grishnackh, who released music as Burzum, was the most notorious member of this peculiar scene. He certainly served the longest prison time after being convicted of both murder and the burning down of three of Norway’s historic wooden stave churches.
His victim was Mayhem guitarist Oystein Aarseth, who went by the stage name of Euronymous and ran the Helvete (‘Hell’) record shop in Oslo. The events of the night of 10 August 1993 are disputed, but what is not in doubt is that Varg wound up stabbing Euronymous to death in his apartment. In May 1994, he was sentenced to 21 years in prison. He was released after serving 15 years.
Vikernes continues to release music and is active in extreme right-wing politics.
17. David Bowie and Iggy Pop
In October 1972, David Bowie spent a day mixing Raw Power, the third album by US rock pioneers The Stooges, led by howling wildman Iggy Pop. The pair hit it off and four years later, Iggy joined Bowie’s Station To Station tour, with the pair hatching plans for his debut solo album, The Idiot, which was to be produced by Bowie.
On 20 March 1976, after a show at the Community War Memorial Arena, Rochester, New York, the duo retired to their hotel with a bunch of new friends for some late-night shenanigans.
Among their guests were a couple of undercover female police officers, who called in vice squad detectives after they saw evidence of marijuana use. Bowie, Iggy and two others were charged with possession after ‘about half a pound’ of weed was confiscated from their hotel room.
All four were held in custody before being released on bail, which Bowie paid. Five days later, Bowie pleaded not guilty to the charges, which were eventually dismissed after a grand jury declined to indict.
Bowie was never arrested again, not even for his 1985 collaboration with Mick Jagger, ‘Dancing In The Street’.
18. John Lydon
When a fan insisted Public Image star and former Sex Pistols frontman John Lydon joined him for a drink in a Dublin pub in October 1980, the night ended with the punk pioneer in jail.
"The barman wouldn’t serve me," Lydon wrote in his memoir, Anger Is An Energy.
"Words were exchanged and the police were called. I was arrested for attacking a policeman’s fist with my face and thrown in Mountjoy for the night. Some homecoming. The police and the screws made a big deal out of me, they tried to shatter my morale – well, good luck on that one."
When Lydon stood trial three months later, he was cleared. "The judge saw right through the contradictions in the two witnesses’ statements. They didn't even bother to turn up, at least not till after the case had been dismissed. I was acquitted, but not before I was asked to make a £100 donation to the 'poor box'. That’s Irish justice for you."
Lydon didn’t play in Ireland for 20 years after the incident.
19. Joe Strummer
The Clash’s frontman was no stranger to run-ins with the law. In 1977, he and the band’s drummer, Topper Headon, were arrested for spray-painting the band’s name on a hotel wall – a harmless enough bit of high-spirited self-promotion.
But a few years later, Strummer’s anger got the better of him with more serious repercussions. During a May 1980 show in Hamburg, local punks were lambasting the band for selling out and the situation became strained.
"It started getting really violent – and that was my fault in a way," Strummer told NME. "I saw this guy, sort of using the guy in front of him as a punch-bag, trying to be all tough. So I rapped him on the head with a Telecaster, I just lost my temper.
"And there was blood gushing down in front of his face. And the howl out of the audience – you shoulda heard it. From then on, it was jump in and punch."
Strummer was arrested by German police after the show but later cleared on charges.
20. Johnny Cash
In the late ’60s, Johnny Cash became synonymous with prisons, thanks to his legendary live albums At Folsom Prison and At San Quentin, as well as the songs he wrote putting himself in the shoes of the inmates of those prisons.
But the Man In Black never served a prison sentence himself – he had however, spent a handful of single nights locked up in local cells after being arrested several times, mostly for drug possession.
The most famous of these took place on 11 May 1965, in Starkville, Mississippi, where Cash was arrested for trespassing and public drunkenness when he was caught picking flowers on private property at 2am after a performance at Mississippi State University.
The incident inspired his song, ‘Starkville City Jail,’ which included the lyric, "At 8 AM, they let me out, I said, 'Give me them things of mine'/They gave me a sneer and a guitar pick and a yellow dandelion."
21. Keith Moon
The Who’s impish drummer was another who had regular run-ins with the law. But the events of 23 August 1967 take the biscuit – ‘Moon The Loon’ was celebrating his 21st birthday (he was actually 20, but was attempting to bypass US drinking laws) at a Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan, in his inimitable style.
A food fight escalated wildly and before long the drummer had left a trail of devastation in his wake, with trashed hotel rooms, fire extinguishers set off, exploded toilets and – for the cherry on top – a Lincoln Continental in the swimming pool with a nude Moon at the wheel.
Moon broke a tooth while attempting to escape the clutches of the local cops, so once they caught him, they escorted him to a local dentist, where he was so drunk he didn’t need any anaesthetic.
The cost of Moon’s birthday rampage? Holiday Inn sent The Who a bill for $24,000 damages and banned them from staying at any of their hotels. Did Moon learn his lesson? Not at all.
22. Steve Earle
Legendary country singer-songwriter Steve Earle was playing with fire from an early age. Earle first tried heroin at 14, the same year he started playing clubs and ran away from home.
His hard living inspired a landmark debut album, 1986’s Guitar Town, but by the early ’90s he’d succumbed to addiction and was too ill to tour or write. In 1994, Earle was arrested for possession of narcotics, a situation compounded when he jumped bail – he was sentenced to a year in jail in his absence.
He eventually turned himself in and ended up spending a month in Tennessee State Penitentiary, where he went cold turkey and started writing songs again after a four-year break.
On his release, he released a series of critically acclaimed albums, wrote a novel, a play and a book of short stories and acted in the hit HBO shows The Wire and Treme. "Going to jail is what saved my life," Earle later said.
23. Willie Nelson
You’d think that busting Willie Nelson for possession of marijuana is like arresting Santa for carrying a big bag of presents, but over the years, law enforcement officials have taken it upon themselves to crack down on America’s favourite stoner.
Things got serious in 2010, when Nelson’s tour bus was stopped at border control at 9am on a Friday morning. Despite the hour, agents’ suspicions were raised by a suspicious smell wafting from the vehicle. When they found six ounces of marijuana on the bus, the then-77-year-old Nelson admitted it was his and he was taken to Hudspeth County jail.
At the time, Texan sheriff Arvin West claimed, "He could get 180 days in county jail. If he does, I’m going to make him cook and clean."
Before the trial, a prosector caused controversy by telling a local judge that Nelson would be offered an unusual plea deal, saying, "I’m gonna let him plead, pay a small fine and he’s gotta sing ‘Blue Eyes Crying In The Rain’ with his guitar right there in the courtroom."
The judge hit back but eventually Nelson walked away with a fine of $500 plus costs and a dismissal condition – that he had to stay out of trouble for 30 days. After a month of keeping away from mischief – or at least not getting caught – Nelson was back on the road again.
24. Oasis
Back in February 1994, Oasis had yet to release their debut single, but were already creating a buzz with their incendiary live shows and off-stage antics. Their first trip to Europe was no exception, even though they didn’t end up playing any gigs.
The band were booked to support The Verve in Amsterdam on Friday 18 February and took the Thursday night ferry to the Netherlands capital. Once on board, Noel Gallagher retired to bed, but his bandmates and crew hit the bar, where they were joined by a group of rival football fans.
"The drink of choice for a few hours was Champagne and Jack Daniels," their sound engineer Mark Coyle remembered in the documentary Supersonic.
"The next thing, sporadic fighting is breaking out all around us and Liam [Gallagher, Oasis singer] got very excited by the prospect of a lot of chaos going on, and he goes and joins in. You can see him running through the windows along the deck. He’s having a great time. It looks like he’s in a school playground chasing leaves. The next time I see Liam, he’s still running up. He’s got policemen running after him."
Everyone in the Oasis party was arrested, bar Noel, and deported back to Britain, leaving Noel to phone their label boss, Alan McGee. "I said, 'Are you sitting down?'" Noel recalled in Supersonic. “'I’ve got some news, everybody’s been arrested.' The only thing he said was 'brilliant'."
25. Jimi Hendrix
When Jimi Hendrix was arrested at Toronto International Airport for drug possession on 3 May 1969, the virtuoso guitarist was at the height of his fame, but mysteriously, the news only made a few local papers.
What’s more, Hendrix’s camp had been warned the day before that a drug bust was imminent and had gone to great lengths to make sure that his band had no illegal substances on them – drummer Mitch Mitchell even wore a suit without pockets to ensure that nothing could be planted on his person.
Before they boarded their flight to Toronto, tour manager Tony Ruffino maintained that he’d emptied Hendrix’s bag personally. When authorities found a small amount of hashish and heroin in Hendrix’s luggage, he was arrested and detained, before being released on $10,000 bail so that he could play his show at Maple Leaf Gardens that evening.
He was told at a preliminary hearing in June that he would stand trial in December and could face 20 years in prison. At the trial, Hendrix’s defence was based on the guitarist not being aware of the contents of his bag as he received so many unsolicited gifts from fans.
After three days, Hendrix was found not guilty and acquitted of all charges, he later commented, "Canada has given me the best Christmas present I ever had."
26. Ian Brown (The Stone Roses)
Stone Roses frontman Ian Brown was jailed in 1998 for threatening behaviour on a British Airways flight from Paris to Manchester. He told a flight attendant he would ‘chop her hands off’ after she had mistakenly offered him duty free, and witnesses said he also banged on the cockpit door.
Brown later claimed the threat was a joke and said he tapped the door only to request the crew’s names for a complaint, but the stewardess testified that she was genuinely frightened. He was charged with endangering an aircraft and found guilty. The judge condemned his actions as ‘loutish’ and, given the setting, particularly serious. Brown received a four-month sentence and served two months in Strangeways Prison, Manchester before being released on parole.
27. Rick Wakeman
We end our Hall of Shame with a bit of a cheat, as prog rock titan Rick doesn’t appear to have a criminal record. But his fifth solo album, released in 1977, was indeed entitled Rick Wakeman’s Criminal Record, possibly as a nod to his detractors in the Year of Punk. Legend has it that Wakeman had been at a Christmas lunch in Montreux, where he was recording Going for the One with Yes, when he was asked whether he had a criminal record. He replied: ‘No. But I think I soon will have.’
The result was a mixed bag, with two of the grandest and most impressive tracks, ‘Birdman of Alcatraz’ and ‘Judas Iscariot’, sandwiching the jokey ‘The Breathalyser’, featuring vocals by Bill Oddie of The Goodies.
All pics Getty Images
Top pic David Bowie police photo after his arrest in 1976
