# Musicians Whose Personality Drastically Changed? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 6, 2020, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004 "2020-01-06T00:54:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2020, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/41 "2020-01-10T00:23:26Z")
> [@Frank\_Burly](#): > > Peter Green went insane and joined a cult after the first Fleetwood Mac album. > [@MortSahlFan](#): > > He and Danny Kirwan, and I don’t think it was a coincidence. Just to clarify this, Peter Green did not join a cult. He spent one night on acid in a German commune jamming before being “rescued.” Mental illness plagued him for much of the 1970s and '80s before he returned to performing in the '90s. Danny Kirwan did not join a cult, either. He became a homeless alcoholic and died in 2018. Jeremy Spencer joined a cult, to which he belongs to this day. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2020, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/42 "2020-01-10T00:57:30Z")
> [@Frank\_Burly](#): > > Peter Green went insane and joined a cult after the first Fleetwood Mac album. Green had schzophrenia, but it was Jeremy Spencer who joined the cult. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2020, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/43 "2020-01-10T01:32:34Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Nigel Kennedy. > [@RioRico](#): > > ?? I thought he was ALWAYS a twit. He changed? How? > > BTW one of the crappiest recordings I ever regretted buying (it was cheap, thankfully) was some concerto where his fiddling sounded LITERALLY to have been phoned in - the orchestra was fine but he might have been on a 1924 AT&T headpiece. His personality changed before he became famous. He was a posh kid, but as soon as he became this punk violinist with a fake Cockney accent he got all this recognition at the same time. It’s all a persona. ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2020, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/44 "2020-01-10T01:36:36Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > I’m assuming overcoming alcohol or drug addiction doesn’t count as a “personality change”, otherwise we’d have a list a mile long… Even so, I once met a sound mixer guy who used to work with lots of big names, including Steven Tyler, who he said he had worked with both before and after he got sober. I asked him whether sobriety made him different. He said, “You could actually talk to him after he got clean.” ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2020, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/45 "2020-01-14T02:18:47Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > Dion DiMucci, yeah! With Dion & the Belmonts, he was straight, clean - TEENAGER IN LOVE, yada yada. (I like the version that goes, “Each night I ask the judge who sets bail / Why must I be-e a teenager in jail?” Then he started shooting heroin, hanging with streetcorner doo-wops, got funky, and did THE WANDERER, RUNAROUND SUE, etc. > > Let’s not explore Pat Boone’s death-metal phase. But then Dion got clean and found Jesus. But he’s the biggest jerk I ever met in show business. Eventually I started thinking, you know, maybe I just met him on a bad night and he’s not usually like that. But from everything I hear, he really is that. He’s a clean and sober Christian asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2020, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/46 "2020-01-14T02:46:41Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > punk violinist Is that really a thing? I can’t imagine two things more antipodal. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2020, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/47 "2020-01-14T03:41:28Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Is that really a thing? I can’t imagine two things more antipodal. I don’t know if it’s a thing, but there’s nothing really about the punk ethos, I think, that would preclude a violin player from joining in. Really, any instrument can be punk. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [January 14, 2020, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/48 "2020-01-14T18:34:27Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t know if it’s a thing, but there’s nothing really about the punk ethos, I think, that would preclude a violin player from joining in. Really, any instrument can be punk. Here’s a punk song with violins: The Clash (with Tymon Dogg)- [Lose This Skin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxRCAf75s_M) ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/49 "2020-01-15T05:56:23Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I don’t know if it’s a thing, but there’s nothing really about the punk ethos, I think, that would preclude a violin player from joining in. Really, any instrument can be punk. Punk or almost any genre depend on attitude and style, not instrumentation. Western classical (some, anyway) can be played on musical saw and washtub bass. Punks can wail on pipe organs. It’s all in the mindset. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2020, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/50 "2020-01-15T06:56:16Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Is that really a thing? I can’t imagine two things more antipodal. Yes, as others have said, Punk is a culture, not just a music style. Nigel Kennedy eschewed the stuffiness of classical music, and though he still played it extremely adroitly he accompanied it with lifestyle changes and attitudes that were meant to upset the establishment. To be fair, not many people really believed it was anything more than a kid acting up and going through a rebellious phase. ---
**Author:** ![atimnie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atimnie/32/11_2.png) [@atimnie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/atimnie)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2020, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/51 "2020-01-16T23:34:10Z")
Phil Collins. With Genesis, with Peter Gabriel on vocals, he was an amiable drummer. After Gabriel’s departure, he was an amiable frontman, with a bit of an ego. When he went solo, he became more sanctimonious with each album and holier-than-thou hit. I don’t know how that translated to his offstage personality, but I stopped listening to the prick after his third solo album. ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2020, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/52 "2020-01-17T00:41:17Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > “Baited”? He should explain it! And then he should apologize. And then go away permanently. As far as such things go with people I’ll never meet, I have not forgiven Yusef for that. You’re demanding him to explain something he might never have said. Here’s his version of what happened, from [a _Rolling Stone i_nterview](https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/cat-stevens-breaks-his-silence-202844/)back in 2000: > [@](#): > > At a lecture, back in 1989, I was asked a question about blasphemy according to Islamic Law, I simply repeated the legal view according to my limited knowledge of the Scriptural texts, based directly on historical commentaries of the Qur’an. The next day the newspaper headlines read, “Cat Says, Kill Rushdie.” I was abhorred, but what could I do? I was a new Muslim. If you ask a Bible student to quote the legal punishment of a person who commits blasphemy in the Bible, he would be dishonest if he didn’t mention Leviticus 24:16. > … > > For years after that, I have been viewed as someone capable of saying such words and doing such things, which I never actually said or did! The fact is I have always held strong humanitarian views; I always stood for the elimination of conflict and wars, and any of those causes that ignite them. One only has to view my music and all the charitable efforts I’ve been involved in since I left the music business and even before that. Rolling Stone notes in the intro to the interview, > [@](#): > > For more than a decade, Islam’s name has been mud for “endorsing” the Ayatollah’s fatwa against author Salman Rushdie for writing The Satanic Verses. If you’re enamored with the notion of an endless scavenger hunt, try to find that endorsement somewhere in writing. As happens, with the passing of time fiction become fact, myth becomes legend. I form no conclusions from this. Islam may have endorsed the fatwa, but I’m no longer fully convinced he did. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2020, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/53 "2020-01-17T03:52:21Z")
> [@Cat Stevens?](#): > > At a lecture, back in 1989, I was asked a question about blasphemy according to Islamic Law, I simply repeated the legal view according to my limited knowledge of the Scriptural texts, based directly on historical commentaries of the Qur’an. I would love to see the text of this ‘legal view’ he claims to have given based on his ‘limited knowledge.’ > [@Cat Stevens?](#): > > The next day the newspaper headlines read, “Cat Says, Kill Rushdie.” I was abhorred, but what could I do? Well for starters, you could vehemently deny it. ---
**Author:** ![Chad\_Sudan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chad_sudan/32/4509_2.png) [@Chad\_Sudan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chad_Sudan)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2020, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/54 "2020-01-17T13:42:45Z")
David Ruffin of the Temptations… due to cocaine use and an out-of-control ego. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David\_Ruffin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ruffin) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2020, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/55 "2020-01-17T13:57:21Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > Well for starters, you could vehemently deny it. Did you actually read the article? > [@Cat Stevens](#): > > Did you ever think about issuing a statement to clear up misconceptions about the incident? > I issued a statement myself to clear up the misinformation, but the truth never made the headlines. My statement was almost entirely ignored — and thus the myth was perpetuated. Various things were said, such as the fictitious report about me living in Tehran and begging on the streets! When I had never left my home in England, even up to today I still have never stepped foot in Iran. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2020, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004/56 "2020-01-17T14:58:50Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Did you actually read the article? Yes. I found it unconvincing. Here’s something from a somewhat more respected source: [Cat Stevens Gives Support To Call for Death of Rushdie](https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/99/04/18/specials/rushdie-cat.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musicians-whose-personality-drastically-changed/846004.md?page=2)