I keep on hearing what a nasty, vicious, unpleasant man Van Morrison is. Richard Carpenter hasn’t had a good press, and Roger Waters, by his own admission, has been a grumpy old bastard - an opinion shared by many others.
Who else in the music world is - or is supposed to be - a thoroughly unpleasant person?
Axl Rose
Alex and Eddie Van Halen
Glenn Danzig
Gene Simmons
Lars Ulrich
Need examples of their behaviour please, or this will be an uninteresting thread.
Dave Mustaine (Megadeth): at least according to Kerry King (Slayer).
Any by golly, if Kerry King says it, it MUST be true!
ETA: every interview I’ve seen of Dave, he ends up coming across as an ass - and I have always had a crush on him! Plus, if you google it, Dave always makes the top 10 list for “jerks in rock/metal”.
Most rock fans have probably heard of multiple examples of the unpleasant nature of the rockers on my list except maybe for Danzig. Here’s an example of Danzig being a dick and then getting what he deserves (video has foul language):
Noel Gallagher is one shining example.
Honestly, I couldn’t care one way or the other as a person’s private life should be, well, private. If they’re asses, fine, I can be too. Frankly, it’s more unfortunate that the bigger their egos got, the worse their music became.
Back to my “all Dave, all day” channel: he’s even got a wikipedia site about how much of a jackass he is. Do I win the thread?
quote:In 1978, Nugent began a relationship with seventeen-year-old Hawaii native Pele Massa. Due to the age difference they could not marry so Nugent joined Massa’s parents in signing documents to make himself her legal guardian, an arrangement that Spin magazine ranked in October 2000 as #63 on their list of the “100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock”/endquote
Sid Vicious was a tool of McLaren, and I reckon latter is the bigger asshole. Keeping in mind that Sid killed someone. Malcolm is a major fucking cunt.
In a similar story, Elvis was the world’s fool, but the wife substitute that made him do it was Tom Parker. I pick Tom Parker as the great whopping cock of the arrangement, you may disagree.
Gene Simmons because he’s really good at being Gene Simmons. Which is bad.
I don’t have any links but I do recall interviews with people who’ve worked with him and they all say that John Mellencamp is a tyrant. Impossible to work with / for, nothing’s ever good enough, and if it wasn’t done his way, it was done wrong.
Lou Reed is famous for being a horrible dick to interviewers.
Yes, but I don’t care!
I saw one of his concerts on TV a few years back. He constantly insinuated that his band was not as good as him. I’m thinking there was not a lot of “dwelling in the pocket” with that group.
Not to be unpleasant, but I think the head-scratching would be more prevalent if the thread were about “Pleasant people in rock” instead. As it is, I predict two or three pages before the wind goes out of the sails. 
The stories of trashed hotel rooms alone might spark dozens of instances to appear.
If not, then the outlandish demands for this and that oddity in the dressing room might add another large group of replies.
Seriously, who are some pleasant Rock Star types?
In terms of serious superstars, **Dave Grohl **has the rep of being the Nicest Guy in Rock™.
In terms of douchebags - didn’t** Jim Morrison **sit for the illustration in the dictionary for that one? Reading the book No One Here Gets Out Alive, he couldn’t come across like a bigger narcissitic, damaged idiot.
For unexpected dickishness, I offer Jonathan Richman. How could a guy whose songs sound almost like a kid’s album be such a jerk at his shows and in interviews?
Pete Buck of REM’s ‘airline incident’ may be the most famous example of his bad behavior, but he’s been nasty to a friend of mine in the music industry.
Some people apparently don’t deal with being on the road well.
I don’t have anything in particular against him, but I could watch that video 20 times a day and still find it funny.
It’s sort of being done here. It’s what inspired this.
I’ve just started reading Keith Richard’s Life, and someone who has finished it said that he comes out of it uncaring and narcissitic.
I could not agree more. What a sanctimonious, royal twa* that guy is. I heard a radio interview with him on NPR where I wanted to reach out and throttle him. He thinks he’s god’s gift to humanity. He came off so badly in the interview that he wouldn’t let NPR release it–but here it is on youtube.
So it is! I even posted there (Billy Graham! 
). I just wanted to say “Hi” to you and thought this might work. It did!