Musicians Who Are Completely Insane

COURTNEY LOVE

She’s often the butt of jokes and makes up the tail end of this list for being equal parts Yoko, equal parts Paris Hilton. Unfortunately for her career as a musician, most of her antics and depravity happened off stage. Kurt Cobain’s widow has no shortage of crazy stories, sometimes splashing her messy life all over the cameras at award shows like here.

Yes, this chick is crazy enough to try to upstage Madonna. Love has no shortage of mythology behind her herself, trailing all the way back to age 4 when (her mother claims) Love was given a hit of acid… by her own father. After those syringe-happy good times in Seattle with Kurt came to tragic end, Love has hit some serious lows, most notably (allegedly) shooting up at Charley Sheen’s house.

Bad plastic surgery, being shunned from the music industry, being blamed by Sharon Osbourne for introducing little Jack to drugs, Love still can’t seem to get a break. She only made this list because of Kurt, anyway.

ALICE COOPER

He’s one of the original rock and roll bad boys, admittedly aiming to become music’s Darth Vader. He saw a need for a dark Elvis in the world of rock and roll and quickly gained support from subversive lounge singer and village idiot Jim Morrison. He’s a pioneer of subversive frontmen, but his tirades haven’t aged well. His biggest claim to fame was a chicken he reportedly threw into a crowd being ripped apart. In a Rolling Stone interview band member Dennis Dunaway reveals it was never intended for things to go that way.

Frank Zappa ran the band’s label at the time and phoned in the next day, asking “Did you kill the chicken onstage?” Dennis told Zappa “no.” Zappa corrected him. “Well, don’t tell anybody. Everybody loves it. You are the most notorious character of all time now.'” That title would last for years until young blood dripped into the mix. His most unexpected move was without a doubt taking up golf. God bless him.

OZZY OSBOURNE

Biting the head off of a live bat, urinating on the Alamo, having a hand in bringing Kelly and Jack Osbourne into this world, these are just a few of the atrocities Ozzy’s committed both on and off stage. His days with Black Sabbath yielded the music and legendary Iommi-generated riffs which paved the way for bands like Metallica, Kyuss, Alice in Chains, Nirvana, and Black Flag.

Ozzy will go down in history for his offstage antics like snorting ants with Nikki Six. Another crowning achievement in performance mode was biting the head off of a live bat, which he thought was fake at the time. A Mirror article reported that Ozzy said (in his trademark unintelligible way), “Immediately, though, something felt wrong. Very wrong. For a start, my mouth was instantly full of this warm, gloopy liquid, with the worst aftertaste you could ever imagine. I could feel it staining my teeth and running down my chin. Then the head in my mouth twitched.”

MARILYN MANSON

Marilyn Manson was on track to become probably the most infamous frontman since GG Allin. In recent years Manson has given up being America’s “Antichrist Superstar” and has enjoyed his celebrity status a little more.

It seems like the myth was always bigger than the man, stories like Manson removing his rib so he could give himself some mouth love was on the tips of every high schooler’s tongue in the late 90s. Manson was no stranger to decadence and using Satan as inspiration for live shows. To this day his music videos have some of the most haunting imagery ever shown on late night MTV (back when they used to actually show music videos). However, in recent years, Manson has had his share of embarrassments, one of which being his appearance on Talking Dead where he pretty much got handled by the guy who used to host Singled Out, summarized here in this Loudwire.com article. What a sad day for rock and roll that was. In days of late Manson sounds and acts more like a frat guy, spending his time texting back and forth with Beiber. Really, they should just hang out. Beiber can be the son Manson never wanted and Manson can be the father that Bieber never had.

ODERUS URUNGUS

If there’s a such thing as Disneyland deranged, then GWAR’s late lead singer Oderus Urungus (Dave Brockie) would be it. Whether it’s jam-packed shows which involved Oderus Urungus and co. fighting off the occasional rogue T-Rex or having a monstrous adult toy named cuttlefish confiscated by Tipper Gore, GWAR was never trying to please anybody but their devout fan base.

GWAR set out to shock the world, but most of it was smoke and mirrors. Going to a GWAR concert was essentially entering an unsaid agreement that you would be seeing some good old fashioned spectacle and surrender yourself to the show, which was a fine-crafted assault on mainstream American media. GWAR was more about showmanship than anything truly sinister. Brockie died of a heroin overdose in 2014.

MIKE PATTON

Mike Patton is most famous for his days as lead singer of Faith No More, who enjoyed sizeable fame in the 80s and early nineties, so much so that he toured with Guns N’ Roses back in ’91. He’s mostly known for defecating on stage, peeing on himself and the crowd, and the little things, like swallowing his own shoelace inch-by-inch.

He was even bold enough to catch Axel Rose off guard by making a stool in Axel’s orange juice carton, then returning it to his refrigerator, as accounted in Rock Star Babylon, by Jon Holmes. Patton also enjoys long walks on the beach, fans spitting in his mouth, and front-loading excrement inside of hair dryers. Patton probably has the best vocal range out of anyone on this list.

SID VICIOUS & JOHNNY ROTTEN

The Sex Pistols have always been synonymous (much to the chagrin of some purists) with punk rock. For the purposes of this list they also come as a package deal. But it’s probably safe to say that Sid Vicious was far more raw than Johnny Rotten. Self-mutilation, dead girlfriend — what sounds like a teenage girl’s bad boy starter pack today was actually shocking back in the 80s when the Pistols were at the height of their power.

Vicious would beat fans with his guitar, even carved the words “gimme a fix” into his chest with a piece of broken glass. Nancy Spungen would be his match; Vicious was charged with her murder after she was found dead under a sink in their hotel room. Sid Vicious kept the train uh rockin’, overdosing on heroin in 1979 after being released from jail, dying in his sleep. Johnny Rotten is still around.

KING DIAMOND

Now we’re starting to get into some of the heavier guys. King Diamond straight up follows Satanism and carries around a mic handle made of one femur and one tibia bone, making a literal cross bone. He’s also used real human skulls as props. King Diamond didn’t pose as a devil worshipper, he actually was one, taking it a few steps further than his predecessor Alice Cooper. His albums speak of demonic ritual, being skinned alive, having your eyeballs taken out, among other easy listening subjects.

PER “DEAD” OHLIN

Now we’re starting to get into the Norwegian black metal scene, which is truly hard core, perhaps the hardest of cores. Ohlin is credited with being the first black metal musician to don corpse paint. Though he was around for very little of it, many enthusiasts consider Dead to be the most important figure in black metal history and mythology. He was certainly the most pure. He was extremely aloof, bandmates say of Dead, adding that he longed for the comfort of the coffin. He’d bury himself and his clothes underground so that he could achieve a more realistic fragrance of death.

Even though Dead was the most metal, he was still severely depressed, so much so that he took his own life by slicing his wrists and shooting himself in the head with a shotgun for good measure. Last message to bandmate/flatmate, Euronymous: “Excuse all the blood, cheers.”

GAAHL

Gaahl is the leader of Gorgoroth, one of black metal’s most heralded bands, right up there with Mayhem. Gaahl and other Gorgoroth members have been arrested for violent crimes, kidnapping, torture, and Gaahl actively vocalizes his support of church burning.

Satanic spectacle, animal heads skewered by stakes, and a women’s fashion line are all synonymous with Gaahl. He also came out of the closet back in 2009; he must have been heavily influenced by Lance Bass’s coming out a few years prior. We’ll all just have to stand by and see what this guy does next.

GG ALLIN

GG Allin is the Michael Jordan of deranged rock stars. He’d have to be in order to beat out all of this stiff Norwegian competition — those guys are basically the Iceland team in D2: The Mighty Ducks. GG lived an outlaw life, often having to ditch out on his shows right away in order to duck the law. He spent time in and out of prison for domestic abuse and lewd conduct. He’d defecate on stage and once shoved a banana up his butt at NYU.

GG was without a doubt a legend. Even Kurt Cobain was too chicken to go to a GG Allin show, where many avidly waited for GG to commit suicide onstage, as GG often told fans he would. In true GG Allin fashion, he gave his followers not what they wanted, but what they deserved. His last day on earth culminated in a heroin overdose surrounded by close friends.

He hated everyone equally, which is really refreshing in this day and age. Instead of buying into a system of beliefs created by someone else or some institution, he pretty much made up his own. There will never be anyone like GG. He’s earned his spot as the most deranged frontman and musician of all time. For those about to rock, make sure you give GG Allin a special salute, will ya?

Well, this has been fun, right? Bear in mind that this is not necessarily a comprehensive list. It’s merely a collection of musical oddities worth looking into. You might even have a local act that would give any one of the people mentioned in this list a run for their money — except GG, of course. And, as long as the soul of rock and roll lives on, there will be others.