Rock musicians – and those who surround them – are just as prone to making poor decisions as the rest of us.
The problem is that said rockers have more money and influence, which tends to get them noticed. Reasons can range from bad judgment to too many drugs, with a bit of mental illness thrown in, but the results are invariably astonishing.
1. The guy who turned down the Beatles, 1962
'Guitar groups are on the way out,' was Dick Rowe’s alleged verdict on The Beatles in 1962. The Head of A&R at Decca Records later denied having said it, but his decision not to sign the band for Decca after their 1 January audition this has gone down as the worst decision in music history.
Rowe subsequently claimed that he had to decide between two groups: The Beatles and The Tremeloes. The latter won simply because they were local rather than from Liverpool, and they did indeed enjoy a fairly successful career. But that’s not the way music history sees it, as Rowe is generally perceived as a figure of fun.
In the Beatles parody film The Rutles, for example, interviewer Eric Idle asks the Rowe figure: 'What’s it like to be such an asshole?' One thing’s for sure: he was eager not to make the same mistake twice. His subsequent signings included The Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, The Moody Blues, Tom Jones and Cat Stevens.
2. The Rolling Stones hire the Hells Angels, 1969
Altamont Speedway, December 6 1969. The day the hippy dream died. Stung by accusations of high ticket prices on their US Tour, the Stones had decided to end it with a Woodstock-style free concert just outside California. Beautiful, huh?
But their mistake was to hire the Hells Angels as security, on the advice of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane. And to permit them to sit on the stage. And pay them in beer. The subsequent death of young black man Meredith Hunter, who was beaten and stabbed by the Angels, was inadvertently captured on camera by the Maysles brothers for their documentary ‘Gimme Shelter’.
3. Jimi Hendrix tours with The Monkees, 1967
The most mismatched concert tour of all time took place during the summer of love itself (1967) when the Jimi Hendrix Experience opened for The Monkees on a short run of concerts in the US. Although Jimi had mad his mark in the UK by then, he was relatively unknown back home, so manager Mike Jeffrey jumped at the chance for him to support The Monkees, who were riding high on the success of their TV show.
Apparently, the band members got on just fine but audiences simply weren’t expecting the show to open with such a fiery brand of rock. The Monkees’ young audience were suitably freaked out – as were their accompanying parents – as the counterculture slammed into the mainstream in the most dramatic fashion imaginable.
4. KISS takes off the make-up, 1983
The merchandising juggernaut that was KISS succeeded in scooping up most of America’s pocket money in the Seventies. But by the 1980s, fashions were changing – and the band decided, somewhat reluctantly, that they had to change too. So how do you change when you’re best known for your outlandish slap?
Why, by taking it off, of course. So it was that on September 18, 1983, KISS revealed their faces on MTV. It wasn’t a pretty sight, but it certainly worked in terms of turning around their declining fortunes. The subsequent Lick It Up album was a huge success. They remained makeup free for the next 13 years, whereupon the original line-up got back together and they trowelled it all back on again.
5. David Geffen sues Neil Young for not sounding like Neil Young, 1983
You’d have thought that any record label signing ornery old Neil Young might have an inkling of what they were getting. What Geffen got, in 1982, was Trans – an album filled with vocoder, electronic beats and synthesisers. This proved a minor hit, so the label seemed content to let it slide while making their unhappiness known to the artist.
But Young followed his with a rockabilly album, 1983's Everybody’s Rockin’, whose brevity was its best feature. Geffen decided they’d had enough and promptly sued Young for making records that were 'unrepresentative' and 'uncharacteristic'. The press had much fun with the idea of Neil Young being sued for recordings that didn’t sound like Neil Young.
The next three releases – Old Ways (1985), 1986's Landing on Water and Life from 1987 – were much more to the label’s liking, but by then the public had had enough. He swiftly returned to Reprise, where he had a hit with ‘This Note’s For You’.
6. Yes team up with Buggles, 1980
It seemed like an all-time most unlikely combination. And it was certainly more a marriage of convenience than passion when the guys responsible for the novelty pop hit ‘Video Killed the Radio Star’ joined one of the most revered prog rock bands back in 1980. The team-up came about because Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman had both quietly left Yes after the fairly dreadful Tormato album, leaving manager Brian Lane with a problem.
Fortunately, he also managed Buggles, a pop duo featuring Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes, so a solution presented itself. Bassist Chris Squire was the main instigator of the reconfigured Yes, who recorded 1980's very decent Drama album. Much heavier than previous releases by the band, this was a major improvement musically, but fans didn’t take to the new line-up – especially Trevor Horn as frontman.
He was promptly fired, as was manager Lane, and the band split for the first time. So began the great Yes soap opera, though Geoff Downes continues as their keyboard player to this day.
7. Van Halen hire Gary Cherone, 1996
Well, it had worked once before, so why not twice?
Back in 1985, David Lee Roth had left Van Halen to embark on a solo career. The Van Halens' decision to replace Mr. Personality with meat’n’potatoes rocker Sammy Hagar seemed on paper to be a poor one. But it proved a huge financial success, giving the band four number-one, multi-platinum albums (including 1986's 5150 and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge from 1991).
- Van Halen are one of rock's rollercoaster bands...
- ... and Sammy Hagar had just come from one of rock's most underachieving supergroups
So when Hagar left in 1996, and a first reunion with Roth failed, the bros must have thought they could easily repeat the trick. Extreme had been having enormous success at the time, so the recruitment of their singer Gary Cherone seemed like a no-brainer. Alas, although the subsequent Van Halen III album debuted on the Billboard chart at number four, it was considered a flop by Van Halen standards, as was the accompanying tour.
Cherone subsequently left Van Halen, who reconvened with Hagar and, eventually, with Roth. Eddie Van Halen’s death in 2020 finally seemed to spell the end for the band.
8. David Bowie and the Nazis, 1976
The mid-70s were an odd time for rock stars, some of whom flirted with far-right ideology. Others were simply accused of doing so by the ever-excitable NME, which was a different thing altogether. Eric Clapton famously inspired the foundation of Rock Against Racism after a racist rant during a concert in Birmingham in 1976. At the same time, David Bowie, in his Thin White Duke persona, was expressing support for the Nazis, infamously describing Adolf Hitler as 'one of the first rock stars'.
The most notorious Bowie incident occurred outside London’s Victoria Station in 1976, where he allegedly gave a Nazi salute to a group of fans. Bowie denied this, saying he was simply waving. In later life, he blamed his behaviour and comments at this time on his 'astronomical' use of cocaine.
9. Peter Green points a gun at his accountant, 1977
Guitar great and the original leader of Fleetwood Mac, Peter Green was a troubled man who was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the 1970s. Apparently, Green’s ill-health all stemmed from an incident in Munich in 1970, during which his drink was spiked with LSD. In 1977, he was arrested for threatening his accountant David Simmons with a shotgun, apparently demanding that the moneyman – get this – *stop* sending him money. He eventually emerged from obscurity and began performing again in the mid-1990s. Green died peacefully in 2020.
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10. Elvis Presley asks to join the war on drugs, 1970
On December 21, 1970, Elvis Presley famously initiated a surreal summit with President Richard Nixon. While on a red-eye flight from Los Angeles, the King scribbled a six-page letter on American Airlines stationery, expressing deep concern over the 'drug culture' and 'Communist brainwashing'. Arriving at the White House gates at 6.30 a.m., he hand-delivered the note, requesting a meeting and a specific prize: a Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) badge.
Elvis believed 'Federal Agent-at-Large' credentials would grant him 'ultimate power' – the legal right to carry firearms and drugs across borders. Nixon, amused by the encounter and the gift of a World War II-era Colt .45 pistol, granted the honorary badge. Today, the resulting Oval Office photograph remains the most requested item in the U.S. National Archives.
The irony of Elvis's request (that, while touring himself as a moral guardian against hippy depravity, he was himself hugely addicted to prescription pharmaceuticals) should not be lost.
11. Ozzy Osbourne and the bat, 1982
On January 20, 1982, Ozzy Osbourne cemented his 'Prince of Darkness' persona during a concert in Des Moines, Iowa. During his performance, a 17-year-old fan named Mark Neal threw a bat onto the stage. The former Black Sabbath frontman, accustomed to fans tossing rubber toys, picked it up and bit off its head. He immediately realized his mistake as his mouth filled with 'warm, gloopy liquid'.
While the fan claimed the bat was already dead and decaying, Ozzy famously insisted he felt it twitch. The aftermath was far from glamorous: the singer was rushed to a local hospital for a gruelling series of rabies shots. Decades later, the incident remains rock’s most enduring urban legend, immortalized by Ozzy-branded plush bats with detachable heads.
12. Axl Rose starts a riot, 1991
On July 2, 1991, Guns N' Roses performed at the Riverport Amphitheatre near St. Louis, an evening that would end in a full-scale riot. Ninety minutes into the set, Axl Rose spotted a fan (later identified as a local biker) taking unauthorized photos. After security failed to intervene, Axl famously screamed, 'I'll take it, goddamn it!' and dove headfirst into the crowd to tackle the man.
Upon returning to the stage, a fuming Axl declared, 'Thanks to the lame-ass security, I'm going home,' slammed his microphone like a gunshot, and walked off. The abandoned crowd erupted, trashing the new venue and causing over $200,000 in damages. The band's lingering spite was immortalized in the Use Your Illusion liner notes: 'F*** You, St. Louis!'
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