Neil Peart.
I’d say Bon Scott. He did some prison time and had some scary tattoos way before that became common in rock. Nearly every song he wrote was an ode to misbehavior of one sort or another.
He also transformed over time from a teen idol pop-rock singer in Australia in the in the 1960s (not too different from the early Bee Gees) to a pretentious, “serious” progressive musician (in Fraternity) during the early 1970s before just going for broke and becoming an all out screaming demon in AC/DC by 1975 until he died during a night of drinking in 1980.
Cliff Richard comes to mind, as do the members of Abba.
Who, ironically, was a huge Who fan in his youth.
Another “anti-rock star” who comes to mind is possibly Henry Rollins. He’s massively intelligent, and I could be totally off the mark on this, but as a straight woman, he strikes me as being completely asexual.
FWIW, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins was a really nice man. I interviewed/hung out with him for around an hour before his concert in SF circa 1984. This was after Down By Law was released and he was reliving some popularity with “I put a spell on you.”
I’d go with Jim Morrison (assuming ~30 as the cut off for live fast die young). I’d give Keith Moon his 32 years but some of his excesses really seemed to be an act (hmmm, they expect me to drive a limo into the hotel pool, fuck it, why not?) type thing.
On the punk side of the house, Darby Crash of the Germsgets an honorable mention. Sid Vicious was just kind of a sad individual.
Well played.
There’s a documentary about GG on YouTube - it’s graphic. I mean, “have a bucket nearby” graphic. I also found some footage of his last gig and the entourage walking the streets on their way to the after party, where he died of an overdose. It is rumored that after he died, no one at the party realized he was dead, so they started taking pictures with him, thinking he was passed out.
Now, I don’t think he falls into the OP’s category, because he didn’t do any lavish spending - he was flat broke all the time. One of the things that seems to qualify these rock stars for expensive habits is success. If they didn’t have millions they wouldn’t have the money for expensive drugs, cars, and hotel bills.
While Robert Johnson did lay down the foundations for the wild and crazy lifestyle of the pop musician, he did not openly brag about selling his soul to the devil down the crossroads, &c – that was Tommy Johnson
The devil/soul/crossroads story about Robert Johnson doesn’t actually start to appear in popular culture until quite a while after his death.
(Stories of selling one’s soul to the devil in exchange for musical prowess go back quite a long way in European and American folklore; if you’re interested in that sort of thing, you can check out Yronwode, Catherine. ‘The Crossroads in Hoodoo and Magic, and the Ritual of Selling Yourself to the Devil.’ Hoodoo in Theory and Practice. Lucky Mojo Curiosity Co. <http://www.luckymojo.com/crossroads.html>.
I put together an article a conference a few years back that dealt in some detail about musicians from the Middle Ages onwards doing the whole music-lessons-from-the-devil thing – If I get a chance, I’ll have a sift through my old drafts, I’ve also got a source for a guy who compiled a hell of a lot of these folk-stories earlier in the 20th century via oral histories and interviews – he found tales of people selling their souls for prowess at guitar, violin, banjo, and in at least one instance, accordian. You’ll never look at Weird Al the same way again…)
Are you talking about “Hated”? One of my hobbies is watching documentaries about things only I and the people who made the movie are interested in, and yes, I have seen it. It’s not pleasant viewing, but I knew that ahead of time.
I watched it on Netflix, and the DVD extras are grosser than the movie.
Don’t make me get all medieval on your ass…
Ms Boods speaks truth. The story of the artist who lives a “rock and roll” lifestyle goes back forever…
Was he the guy who ate his (or someone else’s) shit onstage?
Among other things, yes.
Some years back, I stumbled onto a groupie message board; I have no idea if it’s still up any more. My favorite thread was the one started by a woman who said she was married to one of the musicians (mostly from hair bands) “profiled”, and said, “I don’t know who that woman had sex with, but it DEFINITELY wasn’t him!” :dubious: 
:smack:
And the one rock star who would have groupies that they had said they had NEVER gotten any kind of “report” on - good, bad, ugly, indifferent, etc. - was, of all people, Eddie Van Halen. That really didn’t surprise me, though, because back when Yahoo had their old message boards, anything to do with Van Halen was troll-free. We could even INVITE them and they didn’t show up! We never figured out why.
It seems like Brian Jones should at least get a mention in this thread. Like Moon, his behavior was a reflection of serious personality problems.
Does he even qualify as the out-of-control lifestyle of rock and roll?
I mean, there’s unrestrained hedonism, and then there’s just sick. I *get *wanting limitless sex and drugs.
I don’t get stomach churning activities.
I wrote a post about my skepticism on that murder, but then decided to post it in its own thread so as not to hijack this one.
Exactly what I was thinking…as has been pointed out, I think, you don’t need success and excess to just participate in some messed up shit. For that matter you could nominate the guys in Mayhem, or any other psychotics who just happen(ed) to be musicians as well. That’s all a far cry from the “typical” story of succumbing to excess. But maybe that’s wrong, because I don’t know where the line is drawn – I’ve certainly always considered Sid Vicious and some of the others who have gotten high and killed others or themselves to be part of the category we’re talking about, so maybe there’s no line.
So I nominate Mayhem. I think a lot of the black metal bands and the imagery and “characters” they portray are kind of an act to appeal to broody teens and the deep-down violent impulses in many of us. When nobody’s looking many of these guys probably take their grandmas to brunch every Sunday and frolic in the park with their kids. Not these guys, what with the murders and fights and burning churches and whatnot. They’re the classic example, I think, of that particular style of rock and roll imagery, and the exact sort of thing that Metalocalpse/Dethklok skewers brilliantly.
Yeah, Mayhem. Extreme with about 20 capital Xs. Rock should be dangerous, but not resort to outright murder. I don’t know of anything that approaches that level of foolishness in a band.
Ugh, let’s hope I never do.
As far as anti-Keith Moons go, Brian May of Queen was studying for his PhD in astrophysics in the early 1970s, which he later went on to earn…