From a pointless conversation I had a few months ago. In a physical fight, out of all present day musicians, singers etc in mainstream music. Who’s the daddy? My friend and I decided that the toughest looking performer we could think of off the top of our heads was 50 cent. He’s been shot as well so extra points. Somehow didn’t seem like a fully satisfactory answer though. What about in rock? There must be some pretty tough drummers about surely.
Not pop (country) and not too mainstream (wrote Take This Job and Shove It), but David Allan Coe is one mean looking dude. He also used to run with the Outlaws MC.
Also not mainstream but had a few minor hits, Eric Moore, singer for The Godz a 1970’s biker band.
And Lemmy, from Motorhead.
Ray Davies took a bullet in his leg for his then-girlfriend when she was mugged in New Orleans.
He was 59 at the time.
I agree with Lemmy as a choice; Ian Dury was pretty tough, too.
I can state, from direct personal experience, that he is the biggest asshole in music, so it’s not just looks. And half his stage patter is about how he got screwed over. Hey dude, maybe if you weren’t such an asshole…
Care to share?
Saw him at the Indiana State Fair in '85. The Outlaws were his security. Some guy went to take his picture and was suddenly in the middle of a bunch of big hairy fuckers on stage and off. I have no doubt he’s an asshole but I ain’t gonna tell him.
Justin Bieber wins, because 50 cent or David Allen Coe can’t hit girls.
Moved IMHO --> Cafe Society.
Manny Pacquiao. Pacquiao is a recording star in the Philippines, and last year his cover of “Sometimes When We Touch” reached number 11 on the Billboard Secondary Adult Contemporary chart at the same time that Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep” was number 1 and Lady Gaga’s “Edge of Glory” was number 2.
However, Floyd Mayweather recorded some rap music. So the question is undecided. Pacquiao’s boxing future is uncertain, while Floyd appears to still be going strong. So a couple of years ago when Mayweather was clearly ducking Pacquiao, Manny may have been the toughest. Today, it’s not so clear.
Well, James Blunt prevented World War 3…
If we include songwriters, Audie Murphy. He killed more damn Krauts than anybody else mentioned in this thread so far.
I don’t watch a lot of music videos, so maybe this has been done to death, but I thought this was fantastic (despite not liking the music).
Truth be told: 50cent is a pussy. (YouTube link)
Yeah, bitch, what? I’m fuckin’ callin’ you out
You’re about as gangsta as the chick from No Doubt.
I was thinking about Glenn Danzig or possibly Henry Rollins. Lemmy Kilmister was also a good choice.
And then I thought, well, who has been through just about everything and is still with us? Who’s the baddest badass of 'em all?
I could only conclude that Keith Richards might very well be the toughest man in rock. If you can live through all those drugs and abuse of your own body and og only knows what he’s been through that we don’t know about… Well. I just don’t see how anyone could be harder core than Keith Richards.
Not really popular, but Genki Sudo of World Order seems like he could take some people out.
I know most of it is posing, but Kid Rock seems to enjoy a fight or two.
Dave Schultz former “enforcer” of the Philadelphia Flyers
Well, Iggy Pop of course. He’s wiry, but unstoppable. There’s an infamous live bootleg called Metallic KO that records the last Stooges show, during which he taunts an audience of drunken Hell’s Angels and gets things thrown at him. I’ll quote Wikipedia’s quote of Lester Bangs in toto:
*"The audience, which consisted largely of bikers, was unusually hostile, and Iggy, as usual, fed on that hostility, soaked it up and gave it back and absorbed it all over again in an eerie, frightening symbiosis. “All right,” he finally said, stopping a song in the middle, “you assholes wanta hear ‘Louie, Louie,’ we’ll give you ‘Louie, Louie.’” So the Stooges played a forty-five-minute version of “Louie Louie,” including new lyrics improvised by the Pop on the spot consisting of “You can suck my ass / You biker faggot sissies,” etc.
By now the hatred in the room is one huge livid wave, and Iggy singles out one heckler who has been particularly abusive: “Listen, asshole, you heckle me one more time and I’m gonna come down there and kick your ass.” “Fuck you, you little punk,” responds the biker. So Iggy jumps off the stage, runs through the middle of the crowd, and the guy beats the shit out of him, ending the evening’s musical festivities by sending the lead singer back to his motel room and a doctor. I walk into the dressing room, where I encounter the manager of the club offering to punch out anybody in the band who will take him on. The next day the bike gang, who call themselves the Scorpions, will phone WABX-FM and promise to kill Iggy and the Stooges if they play the Michigan Palace on Thursday night. They do (play, that is), and nobody gets killed, but Metallic K.O. is the only rock album I know where you can actually hear hurled beer bottles breaking against guitar strings."*
You can indeed hear glasses breaking. What he might lack in fighting technique he makes up for with guts. “I’ll bite your legs off”, that kind of thing.