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. 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.
2. Ozzy Osbourne
Before he decided on a career as a rock star, Ozzy 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. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards
In contrast to those cheeky Beatles, the 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Vince Neil
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.
8. 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.
9. Phil Rudd
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.
10. 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.
11. 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.
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. Ian Brown
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.
15. 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 Mick Jagger (left) and Keith Richards in front of Redlands, Richards' West Sussex, UK home where a notorious arrest took place in 1967
