John Lennon comparing The Beatles to Jesus was far from the most outrageous thing the Fab Four
ever said. From insulting entire countries to bands breaking up right before our eyes,
these are rock star interviews that hit all the wrong notes.
In 2013, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, known professionally as Kennedy, was backstage
at Lollapalooza, where she interviewed the DJ Diplo and the other members of the electronic
dance group Major Lazer. The encounter became instantly legendary for becoming awkward and
oddly combative. Kennedy insulted her interview subjects repeatedly, informing them that she
could have them murdered and mocking Diplo for accepting $400,000 to perform in Dubai.
And when she asked who the most annoying person they've ever worked with was, Diplo snapped:
"Probably you."
An article published on Complex speculated that Kennedy engineered this viral moment
to boost the sales of her just-released book, The Kennedy Chronicles: The Golden Age of MTV Through
Rose-Colored Glasses. She did, after all, refer to EDM as "EMD," which sounds like the sort of
on-purpose mistake you make to just get a reaction out of someone. Whatever the truth behind it,
this interview has taken its place as one of the most uncomfortable ever.
In 1995, Madonna was well-established as one of the biggest pop stars in the world,
while Courtney Love was a major force in rock music after the release of her band
Hole's second album, Live Through This. When MTV's Kurt Loder sat down with Madonna after
the MTV Music Video Awards that year, it went off the rails in spectacular fashion. Her poise was
tested early on when a clearly drunk Love began throwing things at her, prompting Madonna to say:
"Courtney Love is in dire need of attention right now."
Loder invited Love to join them, and she then proceeded to ramble on drunkenly,
as Madonna's soul basically left her body. Love accused Madonna of being rude to her
on a prior occasion, apparently believing this justified her interruption. Madonna,
as you might imagine, did not agree.
Love then got on her knees to tell Madonna that she and her late husband Kurt Cobain
loved her film Truth or Dare. This freaked Madonna out completely, as she then signaled
to her team that she was done, leaving Loder to salvage this fiasco on his own.
In December 1976, Queen was scheduled to appear on Bill Grundy's Today show on British TV. But
then lead singer Freddie Mercury came down with a toothache and canceled, so in the scramble to fill
the spot, the band's record company offered up a new act: the Sex Pistols. To say this interview
did not go well is an understatement. For two and a half minutes, the band and their entourage
managed to launch themselves into controversial fame, while also basically ruining Grundy's
career. First off, he introduced the band with an off-the-cuff quip he would come to regret.
"They are as drunk as I am."
Grundy was simultaneously disinterested in the band and determined to mock them,
eventually prompting lead singer Johnny Rotten to utter an expletive live on air.
The host also flirted with some of the women in the entourage and made
the mistake of asking the band to say something "outrageous," which prompted even more cursing.
The Pistols got the publicity they wanted, but things didn't work out for Grundy,
as he was suspended for two weeks, and then his show was canceled.
Ian "Molly" Meldrum is a bit of a legend in Australia, and his pioneering music
show Countdown is a big part of his legacy. In 1979, Iggy Pop was booked to be interviewed by
Meldrum and then perform his song "I'm Bored." But then it all went terribly wrong. The singer
was an irritating mess right from the get-go, as he began by interrupting the host's introduction.
"One album-"
"Hiya, dogface!"
"Iggy, how are you mate?"
The rocker then proceeded to jump around and make strange noises. He was incoherent and
made exactly zero effort to respond to any questions. Then when he performed,
it was just as bad, as he generally exhibited contempt for the entire experience.
It's easy to assume that Iggy was under the influence of a few substances,
but he's claimed that intense jetlag combined with a feeling of being tricked by his record
label led to the disaster. He was exhausted from the trip, and he was upset to discover
upon his arrival that he wouldn't be performing live anywhere as he'd expected. As he recalled
in 2016, while Meldrum was trying to interview him, he said to himself,
"Do not let yourself take this guy seriously."
Have you ever heard of a band called The Boxmasters? Chances are slim unless you're
a big fan of their founder, actor Billy Bob Thornton. There's nothing wrong with using your
fame and fortune to pursue your other artistic dreams, but Thornton takes things a bit further
by insisting that journalists pretend that his acting career has nothing to do with his band.
Canadian radio host Jian Ghomeshi found that out the hard way in 2009 when he dared to
bring up Thornton's acting career. Instead of being classy about it, Thornton proceeded
to respond with profanity, non-sequiturs, and generally rude behavior. Worst of all,
he decided to insult everyone in Canada, calling them "mashed potatoes with no gravy."
"We got some gravy up here as well."
"Yeah, you do actually, on a lot of things."
Despite this evidence to the contrary, Thornton is generally regarded as a good interview subject,
so rumors flew that he wasn't entirely sober, though his management team denied that.
One thing is certain, though: Thornton felt no remorse, even after having to cancel
some concerts in the wake of the appearance. He appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! shortly afterward
and shrugged off the criticism. He also admitted that he'd pulled similar stunts when interviewers
ignored his instructions and dismissed the viral nature of the video by insisting,
"It gave humpback geeks all over the world something to do for a couple days."
In 1979, legendary rock band KISS were on top of the world. They were an unusually
hard-working group, grinding through a grueling tour schedule for years until their 1975 live
album Alive! broke through in a big way. From '75 to '79, they kept up that punishing pace,
with five studio albums, more touring, and a solo album for all four members.
But there were big problems simmering underneath the surface. KISS had oversaturated the market,
and they were seeing declining ticket and album sales. Plus,
the band members pretty much all hated each other. Everything came to a head
when the band appeared in full makeup on the talk show Tomorrow, hosted by Tom Snyder.
In his book Makeup to Breakup, drummer Peter Criss admits that
he and guitarist Ace Frehley got roaring drunk backstage.
This prompted Frehley to take over the whole interview, cackling and cracking joke after joke,
which clearly annoyed Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley to no end. Stanley even later said,
"It may seem funny that someone’s drunk, but the fact is, the root of it was, I believe,
a contempt and lack of respect for the audience and the fans."
As Criss put it in his book, the band had settled into two opposing camps and the
friction between them during this interview was a sign of things to come. By 1982,
both Criss and Frehley were out of the band.
Rock star interviews can be fawning, superficial affairs designed solely to
promote a new album or tour. So any time an interviewer gets a little aggressive,
it can be exciting. But in 1997, British talk show host Clive Anderson went a little
too far while chatting with the Gibb brothers of the legendary Bee Gees.
The group was promoting a new album and were reportedly told that Anderson was
a big fan. But the host's strategy for the interview was more insulting than
provocative. He opened up by suggesting that they were bad
songwriters and then proceeded to mock their famous high-pitched falsettos.
"Cause I didn't realize you were real brothers."
"Oh yeah."
"I thought you were sisters, actually, but uh-"
"Well, I thought we were coming to that in a few minutes."
Anderson also called the band "tossers," which is British slang for a stupid person,
and claimed not to remember some of their hit songs.
Barry Gibb later recalled the experience in a 2016 interview with The Sun by explaining,
"It was just a barrage of inferred insults."
The group tried to play along, but eventually, Barry had enough and
simply walked off. His brothers followed him a moment later, leaving Anderson a bit flustered.
The interview was reportedly a last-minute addition to the show,
and Anderson came to regret his jokes. In 2020, he admitted to The Spectator that he
made the mistake of not realizing the Bee Gees wouldn't find his humor entertaining.
In 1996, Weezer were following up their hugely successful debut album
with their sophomore effort, Pinkerton. So lead singer Rivers Cuomo dutifully
hit the promotional circuit. While touring Australia, he stopped by a
show called Recovery hosted by Dylan Lewis. It started off awkward and only got worse.
To begin with, Lewis got Cuomo's name wrong, calling him "River Weezer." He couldn't remember
his actual last name, so he just improvised, thinking he could get away with it. But he didn't.
Cuomo was visibly irritated and more or less refused to engage throughout the
rest of the interview. The rocker claimed that he was jetlagged,
but as Lewis insisted to Junkee in 2019,
"He wasn’t jetlagged, he was wasted. I’m sorry, but he was."
But it was Lewis who was hit with most of the blowback over the interview,
with Weezer's Australian fans blaming him for the band's lack of touring Down Under.
Lewis doesn't exactly like being constantly reminded of the interview,
as he told Junkee that he wished it could be scrubbed from the internet.
The Beatles were famous like no group ever before them. They handled it remarkably
well for a while. That is, until 1966, when they gave a series of interviews
that appeared in the London Evening Standard in which John Lennon quipped,
"We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know
which will go first — rock 'n' roll or Christianity."
The quote was basically ignored at first, but a few months later,
it sparked some controversy when a magazine called Datebook used the Jesus quote on its cover.
Afterward, there were protests in the American South, public destruction of Beatles records
and merchandise, and even death threats. The band eventually organized a press conference
where a visibly shaken Lennon tried to explain the nuance of his point, which
he said was more about the state of organized religion than the greatness of The Beatles.
"I never meant what people think I meant by it. I'm still sorry I opened my mouth."
What's remarkable about this disastrous series of
interviews is that Lennon's line about Jesus is just one of their awful quotes.
Paul McCartney called the United States a "lousy country" and used a racial slur,
Ringo Starr referred to his much younger wife more or less as property, and Lennon even said,
"I couldn’t stand ugly people even when I was five. Lots of
the ugly ones are foreign, aren’t they?"
Overall, the band was probably pretty lucky that the Jesus quote is the only one anyone remembers.
James Brown was an electrifying performer, but his life off stage was far from perfect. He reportedly
regularly beat his wife, and he was raised by a violent father himself. He also spent time in
prison, fathered multiple illegitimate children he took no interest in, and struggled with addiction.
This all came to a head for Brown in 1988, when he was arrested and
charged with attacking his wife with a lead pipe and firing a gun at her.
At this point in his life, it's believed that he was addicted to PCP. This is a
drug that's notorious for making its user's behavior unpredictable, which is exactly how
Brown's interview with CNN from April of that year could be accurately described.
Many people reportedly believed that Brown was high during the
appearance. And it's not hard to see why, as he bursted into song
multiple times and at one point went into detail about his sexual prowess.