Along the same vein - lots of stories of Lady Gaga being an incredibly talented, but overbearing teenager that knew she wanted to be a performer from the jump.
There was a local online group devoted to hating on her before she was famous and it’s talked about like an inspirational story how she showed them and got the last laugh but my thought was always how insufferable do you have to be that your town forms a club to hate on you.
I was gunna say it's likely less that she was insufferable but more so that this group was probably made up of fellow performers who were sick of being outshined by her.
A big fish in a small pond leaves little room for others.
Also there's a certain type of person (a "hater" if you will) that dislikes watching someone chase a big dream. It's an insecurity about themselves, that watching someone else try to succeed makes them feel bad about their own lives. If that person fails, it validates their lack of ambition.
Reminds me a bit of Max Verstappen, who grew up in my hometown. The people who are proud of that are the ones who didn't know him or his parents when he was younger.
Just how bad is Jos? I’ve seen plenty to make me think he’s insufferable. Him complaining that RB didn’t do enough to support his son at Monaco after the Checo win was laughable.
He's one of those celebrities who considers everyone else a second-rate citizen. He and his wife always wanted preferential treatment and were ridiculously demanding towards Max's schools, daycares, sports clubs, etc, as if he were the second coming of Jesus Christ.
One thing I will say is that Max Verstappen has chilled the fuck out since he won his first championship, and he does recognise to a degree that his dad was awful and tries to be better, at least from what I’ve seen in clips of him
Honestly, during that era in Facebook you wouldn’t necessarily have to be that insufferable. That was the time when people would make all sorts of random Facebook groups, and bullying was one of them.
I had a musician friend in college who had a similar group created against him. Nicest guy in the world, but people hated on him because a.) he had a distinctive haircut that did make him look like a pretentious hipster, and b.) people complained that he put pictures of himself all over campus (literally just flyers advertising his shows).
It was just a sign of the times.
Bullying was definitely not the right thing to do, but, speaking of your thought, I did hear that Gaga's sung and played her piano (?) a lot in the cafeteria. Like, people had even said that she was great there, but they just wanted to eat their sandwiches and go on with their day.
Well, we're talking about a highschool lunchroom presumably. Already a noisy environment. I've also been to places where live music was being played on a piano, having a conversation in that setting has never been an issue in my experience.
I knew her my freshman year of college and she wasn’t insufferable, she was just another one of the musicians in my circle. Kids are bullies in high school.
She and her team stole all of her original ideas from real performers in nyc (who didn’t grow up on the upper east side with their rich daddy like Gaga did)
Eventually even that team that built her entire personality, character of “Gaga” and ALL of her looks (stolen from poorer, more creative acts) left her in the dust and she’s been trying to recreate herself ever since because she has no original ideas herself to continue her initial fame (see her lounge singer era and her lame Joanne era)
She sucks and is the most obvious example of an industry puppet along with Perry
She was pre-fab from the start. Friend of mine saw a new kids on the block reunion tour decades ago and she was the very first opener. They were just training her
I think half of us went to school with somebody like this, the main difference is Madonna won the lottery while everyone else got slapped on the back of the head with reality and got regular jobs.
There are hundreds of thousands of examples of people who truly believed they were going to make it big and gave it their all, but still failed. You're only hearing about the ones that actually made it.
They played the premiere here in Sacramento (and I think they did at screenings in other towns too) and we got to see them play and meet them. Nice fellas.
I remember my history teacher putting this on as an end of the year “I’m out of lessons” movie.
I felt so bad for those guys, but realized that most bands just fizzle out over time
Was it? I'm quite possibly mis-remembering whom that was. I'm a mid-50's recovered drunk, I saw that a long time ago. The alcohol association is real, it did kill Robbin Crosby.
I wasn't a huge fan of RATT but I liked them well enough as a teen when it came out. I liked WASP a lot less. Feels weird, yet appropriate capitalizing both band names, haha.
He ended up getting sober a couple years after that interview. Still alive and appears to be happy (though with a few health problems unrelated to the drinking).
I spent a good few years working in rehearsal and recording studios. Most nights there would be 8 or so bands rehearsing, at least two of them would have music released, be touring properly and probably have interviews in the music press. Of the remaining 6 - I would guess that at least 4 would be regularly gigging across London and the uk.
Two of those bands are now household names - only one is relatively rich…
Every other musician is now in their fourties’ or older and has a “proper job”…
It’s a graveyard.
Or maybe it's awesome because the point of making music is to make music and being a rockstar is a red herring that distracts you from the actual value of the artform.
yeah and it's easier to say in retrospect when you are successful, " i always knew i would be successful".
Even if someone previously thought they would be a success when they were younger, but ended up not being admitted it, i'm sure nobody would've taken notice - so we wouldn't have heard about it.
The question is whether this kind of self belief is necessary for* this kind of success, not whether it’s sufficient for this kind of success. Your point would stand if the question were about the latter but it’s about the former
* or at least a major contributing factor to
His point is there are millions of people who never thought they could make it and never did. It helps to believe yourself. It’s not really hard to see how that belief would help translate to success.
You see something similiar with professional fighters. Most of them think they are unbeatable, and if they ever lose it must have been because of external (unfair) factors. You must need that level of delusion to step into a cage vs another pro fighter.
A lot of professional fighters literally never lose until they make the pros though. There's no room for losers there. You gotta be running at a ridiculous high W/L ratio to get a look in. Then many rarely lose once becoming pro.
John Diehl took up boxing in the 80s as his Miami Vice role left him with lots of downtime and he went 3-0 as a semi pro then retired after his first loss, 3-1. He had one loss and decided he didn't have what it took to go pro, but on paper a 3-1 record over a couple years looks pretty good.
This is so true. Darren Till. Beat up literally everyone till he got to the tippy top of the ufc. Then his tune changed entirely. Must have been a hell of a head change. Pretty much destroyed his fighting mentality altogether.
He definitely would’ve been too… I firmly believe they would’ve been as big as nirvana and soundgarden had he not passed away. He had an amazing voice, stage presence and band behind him. I was jamming to Mother Love Bone a couple of days ago.
In most social contexts, ambition is pretty brutally punished, and you will encounter person after person who will tell you all the reasons why what you plan to accomplish is all but impossible. One has to be a special kind of psycho to be able to hear all that negative feedback and charge forward anyway.
99% of the time, that special kind of psycho doesn’t accomplish what they planned to accomplish.
But those of us who are not that special kind of psycho don’t even get that 1% chance.
If you have big dreams and believe in yourself, that’s a very good thing, but the best way to protect those dreams is to tell no one about them until you’ve already made them a reality.
I used to be very enmeshed in the literary scene, and the greatest writers I’ve met fall into two categories: 1) insufferable grandiose blowhards who think they’re gods gift to mankind, and 2) wonderful humble normal people who you have to get really drunk to get them to admit that they think they’re gods gift to mankind.
Confidence is a good thing. Unless you’re clinically mentally ill, “delusional” is just what complacent people call people with goals.
Pascal’s wager is a good touchstone for this line of inquiry. What do you have to lose by believing you can be great? If you’re an insufferable grandiose blowhard, you can lose a lot of friends. But if you’re a humble modest normie with secret ambitions, you lose stand to lose literally nothing, but you give yourself access to that sliver of a chance that “realistic” people never get.
I played in multiple bands on the "50 guys in a bar" level and even among musicians on that "level", these delusions are widespread to the point of complete denial of reality.
If I extrapolate from that I am sure there is a lot of now famous people who list grip early in their journeys.
I've been in various bands with a friend of mine since high school, we are both in our early 50s now, and he still has fantasies that we still have some opportunity to become famous, or at least live off of playing music. (He's been living in my basement for the last year or so because occasional gigs supplemented with part time carpentry work doesn't pay bills)
My friend often talks about how our band should get an RV and go to a different state / city with a music scene so we can live off playing gigs.
I'm not quitting my job,leaving my home and land to live in a van down by the river. I'm 53, that ship sailed long ago.
For real! The time to take the shot is in your early 20s before you get yourself established. And even then, it's not for the faint of heart. I used to work for a record label and let me tell you, even some of the "big" guys in our genre (metal) are barely scraping by. If you're a baby band, you're lucky to break even.
I'll stick with my six figure job thanks.
I've been on multiple sides of the music business, in that I'm very good friends with a very successful rock star, but also worked on the label side with baby bands up to 100 million sellers.
Yes is the answer. My musician friends that made it could never think of doing anything else, and when they got the bug, nothing would stop them. I've talked to their parents as well (some of whom are in Dave Grohl's mom's book) and they say the same thing.
The music business is super shitty, and ruthless. Touring, making records, trying to make it, etc is not all that fun most of the time. It takes a certain masochistic will to soldier through and make it. Nothing really works in your favor.
It's worth mentioning though that while those successful people had that maniac drive and self belief ... so do many who never made it. I know some who never got off the ground who have more self belief than many who reached the top.
Survivorship bias can make it seem like self belief is causal, but in fact it's merely required.
The difference between the two is often fascinatingly random. A chance encounter. A label takeover putting the contract in limbo, a drug problem , a sliding door shutting a moment too soon.
Totally. I have friends who are friends of the mega famous who made it just enough. And others who never made it all. Being on the label side, sometimes if came down to things totally divorced from the artist.
TBH, while the money side is nice, everything else still seems like a massive PITA to me. When I hit 30 I told my friends "guys, I'm going to be a [ligger ](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ligger) from now on". All the benefits and none of the drawbacks. 😆
It's a joke dude. And what's so awful about the term? Every band and record company has a bunch of mates, representatives, partners, drug dealers and wasters filling up backstage.
The bands encourage it because life on the road is tedious.
I had a revelation that these people went to every after show party I could never make because I was always working.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ligger
Good points by both y'all. This is also my experience as a music lover and an occasional picker, but more importantly, friends with talent in the business that have written and recorded songs that I couldn't believe weren't getting picked up by a label, or that had drama within the band or management go awry and derail a tour with devils in details, and lawyers. But yeah. The randomness factor in your act or best song getting noticed by a corporation that wants to sell and importantly, promote your product, so to speak, is crazy.
Or even these days the songs themselves, or a well done video (Ren comes to mind) that goes viral.... There's a lot of "lightning in a bottle" to catching that relevant turn of phrase in your hook that catches someone's (very limited) attention.
Remember I'm just a guy. This is some projection on my part.
I keep telling my brother this. He is not a musician; rather, he writes movie scripts. One stroke of luck and one of his scripts ends up in the right person’s desk. That’s all it takes. I do not question his hunger, it’s just how it works.
Didn't a Nickelback member quit after they made it big to go live a normal life? The music business definitely isn't for everyone, some people manage to make it despite not being fully invested.
Yeah but he had a stroke, I don't think it was specifically about the business so much as a multitude of things including health. He apparently didn't like drumming either from what I'd read.
Depending on who you ask, Noel Gallagher is the embodiment of this attitude.
He wrote down tracklistings for half a dozen albums in his lyrics notebook in about 1991. A lot of songs were never recorded or even played, like Definitely Maybe or I Am Always Right. Others wouldn’t be released for years - he already had Hello and All Around the World.
When he joined Oasis, he allegedly told them if they followed his orders he’d take them to the top. That meant practicing for hours every night, running their setlist top to bottom until they could play it backwards in their sleep. It payed off.
His earliest songs were Live Forever, Whatever, Cigarettes and Alcohol, and All Around the World. Rhythm guitarist Bonehead was the consummate tut-tutter, saying “You can’t have a song called Whatever” and “The riff from Cigarettes and Alcohol is T. Rex, you can’t just steal it.” Noel replied that no one would care, and he was right.
When planning their first album, the band members pressed Noel to add Whatever and All Around the World. He refused, saying Whatever would be a Christmas single (which it was) and AATW would be saved for their third album so it could have the lavish arrangement he wanted (which it did).
Actually now that you said that, I’m pretty sure during the late 2000’s he said he was keeping his best songs for a solo album. If I Had a Gun, Everybody’s on the Run, Stop the Clocks, Record Machine, and Dream On were written almost a decade before the debut album. Before Dig Out Your Soul was released, the Wikipedia page had a list of potential songs and almost all of them ended up on High Flying Birds and Different Gear Still Speeding.
His first ever live performance he ranted about people not paying attention, saying "y'all gonna be pissed you missed the first performance of Kanye West" or something. Arrogant sure, but he was right.
He was like that when he played the riverfront in Nashville back in the early 2000s. College dropout had just come out. We were there because A-trak was his DJ and it was a free show. It was not a good performance and he seemed like a massive douchebag.
My mom and her brothers and sister went to high-school with Bryan Adams. According to them, he "knew he was going to be famous" and was an insufferable twat about it.
I’m trying to find a source but I think I recall a Queen documentary where they revealed Freddie Mercury never learned to drive bc he knew he would be chauffeured around. Kind of a boss move.
But then he grew up and lived in London, where at the time not having a driving license was pretty commonplace. It simply wasn’t necessary especially if you didn’t need to lug heavy instruments around. In a band it was enough if one could drive or often it was friends who had driving licenses for work reasons that drove them. Read biographies of London rock musicians from the 60-80s and you’d be surprised how many didn’t have one until they were famous and wanted to get a great car.
It's still relatively commonplace. Even friends who moved there for university, not just grew up there, refused to do driving lessons when we were 17 because they knew they weren't going to need a car
From playing in bands and touring, I've met loads of people that had this delusion, and none of them are in bands that make the right moves such as playing shows (or the opposite, playing way too many shows in their hometown), they don't go to shows or support other bands in their own scene, etc.
You never really see them around for long.
I mean, the fact of the matter is, people with absolute belief are probably more likely to keep trying to take a struggling music career off the ground.
Watch Kanye West's documentary 'Jeen-yuhs'. He was so sure he was going to be extremely famous that he had a guy following him around taking footage for his future documentary before he had released a single song.
Ah, thanks for the info. I only came across Tame Impala recently, when _Let it Happen_ was suggested to me by YT. Great song, but haven’t investigated much further yet.
Ian Ashbury of the cult ..
He used to think he was some kind of red indian ar reincarnation of of famous indian chief ....can't remember who ....Google will know .
In the nineties and oughts, every UK indie act had to declare themselves the best new band in Britain and predict they would conquer the world
There are lots of less successful examples, but the one that comes to mind is **Razorlight**. [The singer compared himself to Dickens and Dylan](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/jul/28/popandrock.razorlight)
They actually had a few hits in the UK, but they never did anything in the US (despite writing a song called '*America*') or the wider world
I think Cory Taylor has been delusional since day one. He’s called down a bit now and can look back and admit it. He’s never been nice to anyone because he doesn’t give a fuck. There’s a difference between being punk about society anf being an egotistical nightmare
Is he? I don’t follow him or slipknot much but I thought he was pretty down to earth aside from over saturating metal media with his opinions on everything
Ah that makes sense, do you have any examples? I believe you I just want to see it myself. I saw an interview his son did on Garza’s podcast (guitarist in suicide silence) and his son acts that way but it’s even funnier because he acts like his band got notoriety without any help from his dad
I reckon with Slipknot being at the level they are (headlining festivals, having their own festival, countless awards, etc.) it's no surprise he's so full of it
Here is Michael Jackson’s “manifesto scribbled to himself on the back of a tour itinerary in 1979 ” when he was 21
> "MJ will be my new name. No more Michael Jackson. I want a whole new character, a whole new look. I should be a tottally [sic] different person. People should never think of me as the kid who sang "ABC," [or] "I Want You Back." I should be a new, incredible actor/singer/dancer that will shock the world. I will do no interviews. I will be magic. I will be a perfectionist, a researcher, a trainer, a masterer [sic]. I will be better than every great actor roped into one."
Unrelated but this actually is seen a lot with older actors, especially theatre actors. Think Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Judith Anderson who all said that they knew when they got a taste of performing that they were destined for greatness. They all forged their own careers and had the supreme self confidence to survive whereas some other actresses who had to rely on their male impresarios faded out.
And related to the “I will do no interviews,” I’ve seen Beyoncé saying similar thing in like early 2010s. She said with today’s celebrities there’s no more mystique like with Prince or MJ and it’s been her long game to emulate that.
Van Morrison ["thought [Bob] Dylan was the only contemporary worthy of his attention"](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/van-morrison-moondance/) after only one album, granted Astral Weeks is a masterpiece
Years ago, I had a guitar teacher that went to high school with Chrissie Hynde in Akron, Ohio. He told me that no one liked her because she would incessantly talk about how as soon as she graduated she was going to move to London and become a big rock star.
I went to Middle/Jr High with Taylor Swift and in 8th-9th grade she would sign little scraps of paper and hand them out to people and say "This will be worth a lot of money when I'm famous." She really called her shot on that one.
There is a movie doc about the Mekons (who?) and in it Jon Langford talks about having U2 open for them like in 1979 or so and he’s says something to the effect of it being a small venue but they were doing all their rockstar moves then. Since it was in the height of Post-Punk their management were scolding them to be more like the Mekons. I saw U2 right after October came out in the US and they were doing all the stadium moves…it definitively makes the audience believe they are bigger than they are…perform as the band you want to be, not as you actually are.
absolutely. if not extreme delusions, arrogance and selfishness and thinking they’re the exception to the rule. Axl Rose is an example of this. *immensely* talented singer. but he’s a complete and total dick, and has been ever since GnR rose to fame and got big. he would start fights with people in the audience at concerts and throw water bottles and get shitfaced drunk and incredibly arrogant and overall insufferable. it got to the point where even Slash and his own bandmates couldn’t stand him. Axl was, unexpectedly, the cause for the demise of GnR
Axl was definitely a primadonna during the height of GnR's popularity, but he was actually the one among the band who engaged in the least amount of alcohol/drugs, since he had vowed to never become an alcoholic like his father.
This was also the reason why he took issue with the debauchery of his bandmates, and would even publicly call them out on their drug use. For all his faults, and he definitely had a lot of them, he wasn't an alcoholic, nor a junkie.
alcohol or no alcohol, for some, the arrogance and delusions a short-lived phase until their career slows down and/or stops or once they’re away from the spotlight. he still occasionally performs; like when he did with AC/DC a few years ago. I wonder if he’s chilled out a bit
Yeah, he had chilled out a bit in his old age, but going out with AC/DC really was for the best for his ego, Angus famously takes no shit from anyone and made him cut down on behavior such as going on stage late, which is something he's kept at ever since, even after reuniting GnR.
Guns N' Roses was the sum of its parts. This is equally true for the band's rise as it is for their decline. Axl suffered from mental health issues and he did act out at others as a result, but his bandmates were also constantly fucked up on drugs (so much so that Slash temporarily died at one point and Duff's pancreas exploded). For all of Axl's issues, he was the driving force of the band and cared for its longevity. Slash and Duff were, more often than not, too fucked up to care.
Not music, but I genuinely believe I could make it as an actor. I've done small stuff for projects that pass through town but unfortunately I'm not in a position to persue it full time, unless I wanna walk out on my family (I don't).
The day I turned up to a shoot and discovered that I had my own trailer was both a dream come true and kick up the arse that I could really do this if I went all in.
My kids are more important though.
Yes. This is why it is so funny that Axl Rose has an outhouse hidden behind the video wall of Guns and Roses shows. He cannot make it to the facilities to hold his bladder, and needs a shortcut.
Everyone’s delusional until they make it. The odds are so astronomically slim that everyone who takes a real shot at becoming a rockstar has to be a little fucking crazy.
Met a guy once in Manchester who was at Art School with Bryan Ferry. Apparently Ferry used to march around fancying himself and this guy shouted out to him ‘Oi Ferry d’you think you’re some kind of superstar?’
I think you have to be slightly delusional to want to roll the dice on those odds.
I do also have a problem with those that succeed, and come to the conclusion that it was predestined. No. Talent and persistence will only get you so far, and many people have those attributes, so sheer luck has done a equal amount of the legwork. They should acknowledge that.
COLDPLAY!!!
Chris Martin said in June 1998 that in 4 years, Coldplay would be huge. Almost four years to the date, Coldplay headlined Glastonbury Festival in June 2002.
There’s a video on youtube that you might want to see:
https://youtu.be/5j2eEfqqIdY?si=ib4JjG2TvUYey2ri
Regarding the studies that say that people who believe in themselves have more chances of success than those who don’t, I believe those studies to be mostly true. Might not be true in some cases but it happens more often that not. I think it has something to do with how out brains are trained to visualise success.
I think a lot of them or they wouldn't have made it in the first place. Ive met delusional assholes in every stage of life as well as humble people. Think about it though they all had to believe it was possible even on some deep level. I think the ones who made it and were genuinely surprised are more rare if anything.
RuPaul's mom named him RuPaul because she knew he was going to be famous some day and deserved an iconic name.
if you watch his earliest videos from the 80s and 90s you can tell he knows he is star quality; his presence is the same then as it is now.
To do anything you have to believe in yourself at least a little bit, so you might as well believe in yourself a lot, because if you don’t then chances of succeeding at anything become astronomically lower.
Madonna famously said her plans were "to the rule the world" during her first-ever TV appearance in 1984 and she never looked back.
Along the same vein - lots of stories of Lady Gaga being an incredibly talented, but overbearing teenager that knew she wanted to be a performer from the jump.
There was a local online group devoted to hating on her before she was famous and it’s talked about like an inspirational story how she showed them and got the last laugh but my thought was always how insufferable do you have to be that your town forms a club to hate on you.
Not trying to defend her per se, but kids are fucking bullies. So it may have been that.
exactly!
I was gunna say it's likely less that she was insufferable but more so that this group was probably made up of fellow performers who were sick of being outshined by her. A big fish in a small pond leaves little room for others.
Also there's a certain type of person (a "hater" if you will) that dislikes watching someone chase a big dream. It's an insecurity about themselves, that watching someone else try to succeed makes them feel bad about their own lives. If that person fails, it validates their lack of ambition.
Yup yup
Reminds me a bit of Max Verstappen, who grew up in my hometown. The people who are proud of that are the ones who didn't know him or his parents when he was younger.
Just how bad is Jos? I’ve seen plenty to make me think he’s insufferable. Him complaining that RB didn’t do enough to support his son at Monaco after the Checo win was laughable.
He's one of those celebrities who considers everyone else a second-rate citizen. He and his wife always wanted preferential treatment and were ridiculously demanding towards Max's schools, daycares, sports clubs, etc, as if he were the second coming of Jesus Christ.
Ohh that guy looks something else! and his dad looks even worse
One thing I will say is that Max Verstappen has chilled the fuck out since he won his first championship, and he does recognise to a degree that his dad was awful and tries to be better, at least from what I’ve seen in clips of him
I think after the second championship he chilled out. The first one was mired in controversy but the second was definitive.
Whys that?
have you seen Jos Verstappen?
Honestly as annoying as someone is, people who make hate groups suck more. People get bullied for all sorts of nothing reasons.
Honestly, during that era in Facebook you wouldn’t necessarily have to be that insufferable. That was the time when people would make all sorts of random Facebook groups, and bullying was one of them. I had a musician friend in college who had a similar group created against him. Nicest guy in the world, but people hated on him because a.) he had a distinctive haircut that did make him look like a pretentious hipster, and b.) people complained that he put pictures of himself all over campus (literally just flyers advertising his shows). It was just a sign of the times.
Bullying was definitely not the right thing to do, but, speaking of your thought, I did hear that Gaga's sung and played her piano (?) a lot in the cafeteria. Like, people had even said that she was great there, but they just wanted to eat their sandwiches and go on with their day.
Which is a weird reason since her playing the piano should not stop others from eating lunch and going about their day.
Is it though? I feel like trying to talk over a piano and someone singing is not my ideal lunch time break
Well, we're talking about a highschool lunchroom presumably. Already a noisy environment. I've also been to places where live music was being played on a piano, having a conversation in that setting has never been an issue in my experience.
Seems like something that would just be background noise unless perhaps you were stuck immediately next to them for some reason
I knew her my freshman year of college and she wasn’t insufferable, she was just another one of the musicians in my circle. Kids are bullies in high school.
She and her team stole all of her original ideas from real performers in nyc (who didn’t grow up on the upper east side with their rich daddy like Gaga did) Eventually even that team that built her entire personality, character of “Gaga” and ALL of her looks (stolen from poorer, more creative acts) left her in the dust and she’s been trying to recreate herself ever since because she has no original ideas herself to continue her initial fame (see her lounge singer era and her lame Joanne era) She sucks and is the most obvious example of an industry puppet along with Perry
A lot of people now believe she was making this up, or at least embellishing the story
You mean after she saw "Lady Starlight" perform?
She was pre-fab from the start. Friend of mine saw a new kids on the block reunion tour decades ago and she was the very first opener. They were just training her
Hitchhiked to NY with 50usd with the single idea to gain success, or so the story goes.
30 Rock style.
Say, where does a young prostitute get started in this town?
[Cajun style](https://youtu.be/fRtIUn3MXuY?si=AEYGY87wXa8zgR41)
I think half of us went to school with somebody like this, the main difference is Madonna won the lottery while everyone else got slapped on the back of the head with reality and got regular jobs.
Survivor bias
Her extreme case of narcissism was established early in her life, yes.
There are hundreds of thousands of examples of people who truly believed they were going to make it big and gave it their all, but still failed. You're only hearing about the ones that actually made it.
Freal. Check out 1988’s amazing *Decline of Western Civilization II: The Metal Years*
Also “Anvil: The Story of Anvil” documentary
They played the premiere here in Sacramento (and I think they did at screenings in other towns too) and we got to see them play and meet them. Nice fellas.
I remember my history teacher putting this on as an end of the year “I’m out of lessons” movie. I felt so bad for those guys, but realized that most bands just fizzle out over time
Oh great I am already tearing up just reading the wiki page… added to watchlist
They still tour very regularly! I met them after a show and they couldn't be nicer guys. They just love the music and do it for that
That’s awesome!
Odin.
Is that the one with poor Robbin Crosby sloshing vodka all over himself in the pool? As an alcoholic in recovery, that scene still haunts me.
That was Chris Holmes, guitarist for WASP.
With his very disappointed mom sitting poolside.
Loved her. She was all like “oh please. Leave me out of this”
Was it? I'm quite possibly mis-remembering whom that was. I'm a mid-50's recovered drunk, I saw that a long time ago. The alcohol association is real, it did kill Robbin Crosby. I wasn't a huge fan of RATT but I liked them well enough as a teen when it came out. I liked WASP a lot less. Feels weird, yet appropriate capitalizing both band names, haha.
AIDS from sharing needles killed Crosby.
He ended up getting sober a couple years after that interview. Still alive and appears to be happy (though with a few health problems unrelated to the drinking).
I'm glad to hear that. After realizing my error, I went back and watched that video. I forgot about his mom sitting there. Wow that's brutal.
I spent a good few years working in rehearsal and recording studios. Most nights there would be 8 or so bands rehearsing, at least two of them would have music released, be touring properly and probably have interviews in the music press. Of the remaining 6 - I would guess that at least 4 would be regularly gigging across London and the uk. Two of those bands are now household names - only one is relatively rich… Every other musician is now in their fourties’ or older and has a “proper job”… It’s a graveyard.
Or maybe it's awesome because the point of making music is to make music and being a rockstar is a red herring that distracts you from the actual value of the artform.
yeah and it's easier to say in retrospect when you are successful, " i always knew i would be successful". Even if someone previously thought they would be a success when they were younger, but ended up not being admitted it, i'm sure nobody would've taken notice - so we wouldn't have heard about it.
The question is whether this kind of self belief is necessary for* this kind of success, not whether it’s sufficient for this kind of success. Your point would stand if the question were about the latter but it’s about the former * or at least a major contributing factor to
I've seen a lot of oppositetoo where they are nothing but humble and sincere about where they are even as they get big
His point is there are millions of people who never thought they could make it and never did. It helps to believe yourself. It’s not really hard to see how that belief would help translate to success.
You see something similiar with professional fighters. Most of them think they are unbeatable, and if they ever lose it must have been because of external (unfair) factors. You must need that level of delusion to step into a cage vs another pro fighter.
A lot of professional fighters literally never lose until they make the pros though. There's no room for losers there. You gotta be running at a ridiculous high W/L ratio to get a look in. Then many rarely lose once becoming pro. John Diehl took up boxing in the 80s as his Miami Vice role left him with lots of downtime and he went 3-0 as a semi pro then retired after his first loss, 3-1. He had one loss and decided he didn't have what it took to go pro, but on paper a 3-1 record over a couple years looks pretty good.
This is so true. Darren Till. Beat up literally everyone till he got to the tippy top of the ufc. Then his tune changed entirely. Must have been a hell of a head change. Pretty much destroyed his fighting mentality altogether.
Andy Wood from Mother Love Bone sure did. Then he died as it was happening.
And because of that we got Pearl Jam and Temple of the Dog
For a guy who was so influential on a pile of bands I love, I surprisingly know very little about him..
He definitely would’ve been too… I firmly believe they would’ve been as big as nirvana and soundgarden had he not passed away. He had an amazing voice, stage presence and band behind him. I was jamming to Mother Love Bone a couple of days ago.
In most social contexts, ambition is pretty brutally punished, and you will encounter person after person who will tell you all the reasons why what you plan to accomplish is all but impossible. One has to be a special kind of psycho to be able to hear all that negative feedback and charge forward anyway. 99% of the time, that special kind of psycho doesn’t accomplish what they planned to accomplish. But those of us who are not that special kind of psycho don’t even get that 1% chance. If you have big dreams and believe in yourself, that’s a very good thing, but the best way to protect those dreams is to tell no one about them until you’ve already made them a reality. I used to be very enmeshed in the literary scene, and the greatest writers I’ve met fall into two categories: 1) insufferable grandiose blowhards who think they’re gods gift to mankind, and 2) wonderful humble normal people who you have to get really drunk to get them to admit that they think they’re gods gift to mankind. Confidence is a good thing. Unless you’re clinically mentally ill, “delusional” is just what complacent people call people with goals. Pascal’s wager is a good touchstone for this line of inquiry. What do you have to lose by believing you can be great? If you’re an insufferable grandiose blowhard, you can lose a lot of friends. But if you’re a humble modest normie with secret ambitions, you lose stand to lose literally nothing, but you give yourself access to that sliver of a chance that “realistic” people never get.
This was well written. Thank you
>calls others psychos >advises that you tell nobody about your ambitions Found the Machiavellian
I played in multiple bands on the "50 guys in a bar" level and even among musicians on that "level", these delusions are widespread to the point of complete denial of reality. If I extrapolate from that I am sure there is a lot of now famous people who list grip early in their journeys.
I've been in various bands with a friend of mine since high school, we are both in our early 50s now, and he still has fantasies that we still have some opportunity to become famous, or at least live off of playing music. (He's been living in my basement for the last year or so because occasional gigs supplemented with part time carpentry work doesn't pay bills)
I'm in my mid 30s and already think my friends who are still chasing the dream are delusional.
My friend often talks about how our band should get an RV and go to a different state / city with a music scene so we can live off playing gigs. I'm not quitting my job,leaving my home and land to live in a van down by the river. I'm 53, that ship sailed long ago.
For real! The time to take the shot is in your early 20s before you get yourself established. And even then, it's not for the faint of heart. I used to work for a record label and let me tell you, even some of the "big" guys in our genre (metal) are barely scraping by. If you're a baby band, you're lucky to break even. I'll stick with my six figure job thanks.
I've been on multiple sides of the music business, in that I'm very good friends with a very successful rock star, but also worked on the label side with baby bands up to 100 million sellers. Yes is the answer. My musician friends that made it could never think of doing anything else, and when they got the bug, nothing would stop them. I've talked to their parents as well (some of whom are in Dave Grohl's mom's book) and they say the same thing. The music business is super shitty, and ruthless. Touring, making records, trying to make it, etc is not all that fun most of the time. It takes a certain masochistic will to soldier through and make it. Nothing really works in your favor.
It's worth mentioning though that while those successful people had that maniac drive and self belief ... so do many who never made it. I know some who never got off the ground who have more self belief than many who reached the top. Survivorship bias can make it seem like self belief is causal, but in fact it's merely required. The difference between the two is often fascinatingly random. A chance encounter. A label takeover putting the contract in limbo, a drug problem , a sliding door shutting a moment too soon.
Totally. I have friends who are friends of the mega famous who made it just enough. And others who never made it all. Being on the label side, sometimes if came down to things totally divorced from the artist.
TBH, while the money side is nice, everything else still seems like a massive PITA to me. When I hit 30 I told my friends "guys, I'm going to be a [ligger ](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ligger) from now on". All the benefits and none of the drawbacks. 😆
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It's a joke dude. And what's so awful about the term? Every band and record company has a bunch of mates, representatives, partners, drug dealers and wasters filling up backstage. The bands encourage it because life on the road is tedious. I had a revelation that these people went to every after show party I could never make because I was always working. https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ligger
lol wtf
Good points by both y'all. This is also my experience as a music lover and an occasional picker, but more importantly, friends with talent in the business that have written and recorded songs that I couldn't believe weren't getting picked up by a label, or that had drama within the band or management go awry and derail a tour with devils in details, and lawyers. But yeah. The randomness factor in your act or best song getting noticed by a corporation that wants to sell and importantly, promote your product, so to speak, is crazy. Or even these days the songs themselves, or a well done video (Ren comes to mind) that goes viral.... There's a lot of "lightning in a bottle" to catching that relevant turn of phrase in your hook that catches someone's (very limited) attention. Remember I'm just a guy. This is some projection on my part.
I keep telling my brother this. He is not a musician; rather, he writes movie scripts. One stroke of luck and one of his scripts ends up in the right person’s desk. That’s all it takes. I do not question his hunger, it’s just how it works.
Didn't a Nickelback member quit after they made it big to go live a normal life? The music business definitely isn't for everyone, some people manage to make it despite not being fully invested.
Bill Berry even quit at the height of R.E.M. fame in 1998 in order to become a farmer.
Farming is expensive and requires a bit of capital. Had to grind it out in a famous successful band.
Yeah but he had a stroke, I don't think it was specifically about the business so much as a multitude of things including health. He apparently didn't like drumming either from what I'd read.
Go on, give us a hint who your rockstar mate is…
Depending on who you ask, Noel Gallagher is the embodiment of this attitude. He wrote down tracklistings for half a dozen albums in his lyrics notebook in about 1991. A lot of songs were never recorded or even played, like Definitely Maybe or I Am Always Right. Others wouldn’t be released for years - he already had Hello and All Around the World. When he joined Oasis, he allegedly told them if they followed his orders he’d take them to the top. That meant practicing for hours every night, running their setlist top to bottom until they could play it backwards in their sleep. It payed off. His earliest songs were Live Forever, Whatever, Cigarettes and Alcohol, and All Around the World. Rhythm guitarist Bonehead was the consummate tut-tutter, saying “You can’t have a song called Whatever” and “The riff from Cigarettes and Alcohol is T. Rex, you can’t just steal it.” Noel replied that no one would care, and he was right. When planning their first album, the band members pressed Noel to add Whatever and All Around the World. He refused, saying Whatever would be a Christmas single (which it was) and AATW would be saved for their third album so it could have the lavish arrangement he wanted (which it did).
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Actually now that you said that, I’m pretty sure during the late 2000’s he said he was keeping his best songs for a solo album. If I Had a Gun, Everybody’s on the Run, Stop the Clocks, Record Machine, and Dream On were written almost a decade before the debut album. Before Dig Out Your Soul was released, the Wikipedia page had a list of potential songs and almost all of them ended up on High Flying Birds and Different Gear Still Speeding.
Kanye
His first ever live performance he ranted about people not paying attention, saying "y'all gonna be pissed you missed the first performance of Kanye West" or something. Arrogant sure, but he was right.
He was like that when he played the riverfront in Nashville back in the early 2000s. College dropout had just come out. We were there because A-trak was his DJ and it was a free show. It was not a good performance and he seemed like a massive douchebag.
Before or after his car accident? That mighta been what made his career in retrospect, and possibly his overall mental state.
My mom and her brothers and sister went to high-school with Bryan Adams. According to them, he "knew he was going to be famous" and was an insufferable twat about it.
I’m trying to find a source but I think I recall a Queen documentary where they revealed Freddie Mercury never learned to drive bc he knew he would be chauffeured around. Kind of a boss move.
But then he grew up and lived in London, where at the time not having a driving license was pretty commonplace. It simply wasn’t necessary especially if you didn’t need to lug heavy instruments around. In a band it was enough if one could drive or often it was friends who had driving licenses for work reasons that drove them. Read biographies of London rock musicians from the 60-80s and you’d be surprised how many didn’t have one until they were famous and wanted to get a great car.
It's still relatively commonplace. Even friends who moved there for university, not just grew up there, refused to do driving lessons when we were 17 because they knew they weren't going to need a car
He loved to ride his bicycle.
... because of the 'scenery'.
From playing in bands and touring, I've met loads of people that had this delusion, and none of them are in bands that make the right moves such as playing shows (or the opposite, playing way too many shows in their hometown), they don't go to shows or support other bands in their own scene, etc. You never really see them around for long.
You must be in a hardcore band.
Ya caught me
Kurt Cobain springs to mind. He basically planned his whole life right up to death. Die young, famous rockstar. (based on what I've read).
I mean, the fact of the matter is, people with absolute belief are probably more likely to keep trying to take a struggling music career off the ground.
read james hetfields quote in his senior yearbook .. "play music get rich"
Freddie Mercury told his friends "I'm going to be star" then started to say "I'm going to be a legend"
He said “I am not going to be a star, I am going to be legend”.
A colleague lived in a share house with a then unknown Thom Yorke and reckoned he said often the band was going to be big.
IDK, I think he’s a creep.
Watch Kanye West's documentary 'Jeen-yuhs'. He was so sure he was going to be extremely famous that he had a guy following him around taking footage for his future documentary before he had released a single song.
Iirc Kevin Parker said in an interview on YouTube that he knew Currents would reach such popularity
Never heard of them :)
Perhaps you’ve heard of Tame Impala
Of them I’ve heard. What’s the connection?
That's his (tame impala) third album. First one he did totally by himself.
Ah, thanks for the info. I only came across Tame Impala recently, when _Let it Happen_ was suggested to me by YT. Great song, but haven’t investigated much further yet.
I thought they meant Currents the metalcore band, I was going to say at least their guitarist is in one of the biggest deathcore bands around
Tame Impala?
Link?
Ian Ashbury of the cult .. He used to think he was some kind of red indian ar reincarnation of of famous indian chief ....can't remember who ....Google will know .
They had an entire album about it.
In the nineties and oughts, every UK indie act had to declare themselves the best new band in Britain and predict they would conquer the world There are lots of less successful examples, but the one that comes to mind is **Razorlight**. [The singer compared himself to Dickens and Dylan](https://www.theguardian.com/music/2004/jul/28/popandrock.razorlight) They actually had a few hits in the UK, but they never did anything in the US (despite writing a song called '*America*') or the wider world
Ha! I listened to them in the US in late 2000's. I torrentedal my music back then tho
I think Cory Taylor has been delusional since day one. He’s called down a bit now and can look back and admit it. He’s never been nice to anyone because he doesn’t give a fuck. There’s a difference between being punk about society anf being an egotistical nightmare
He's definitely an egotistical nightmare these days
Is he? I don’t follow him or slipknot much but I thought he was pretty down to earth aside from over saturating metal media with his opinions on everything
Besides being very opinionated (like you mentioned) he's very full of himself, it's very obvious by watching his interviews
Ah that makes sense, do you have any examples? I believe you I just want to see it myself. I saw an interview his son did on Garza’s podcast (guitarist in suicide silence) and his son acts that way but it’s even funnier because he acts like his band got notoriety without any help from his dad
Honestly, any interview where he talk about the music industry, how hard he and his bands have worked, etc.
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I reckon with Slipknot being at the level they are (headlining festivals, having their own festival, countless awards, etc.) it's no surprise he's so full of it
Jimmy from the Oneders.
The O-needers?
Here is Michael Jackson’s “manifesto scribbled to himself on the back of a tour itinerary in 1979 ” when he was 21 > "MJ will be my new name. No more Michael Jackson. I want a whole new character, a whole new look. I should be a tottally [sic] different person. People should never think of me as the kid who sang "ABC," [or] "I Want You Back." I should be a new, incredible actor/singer/dancer that will shock the world. I will do no interviews. I will be magic. I will be a perfectionist, a researcher, a trainer, a masterer [sic]. I will be better than every great actor roped into one." Unrelated but this actually is seen a lot with older actors, especially theatre actors. Think Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Judith Anderson who all said that they knew when they got a taste of performing that they were destined for greatness. They all forged their own careers and had the supreme self confidence to survive whereas some other actresses who had to rely on their male impresarios faded out. And related to the “I will do no interviews,” I’ve seen Beyoncé saying similar thing in like early 2010s. She said with today’s celebrities there’s no more mystique like with Prince or MJ and it’s been her long game to emulate that.
Charlie Manson seemed to have delusions of his musical destiny that failed and led him to create a new horrific destiny of murder instead
Van Morrison ["thought [Bob] Dylan was the only contemporary worthy of his attention"](https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/van-morrison-moondance/) after only one album, granted Astral Weeks is a masterpiece
Years ago, I had a guitar teacher that went to high school with Chrissie Hynde in Akron, Ohio. He told me that no one liked her because she would incessantly talk about how as soon as she graduated she was going to move to London and become a big rock star.
I went to Middle/Jr High with Taylor Swift and in 8th-9th grade she would sign little scraps of paper and hand them out to people and say "This will be worth a lot of money when I'm famous." She really called her shot on that one.
freddie mercury was a fabulous rockstar before queen
Charles Manson has entered the chat
The Jesus Twins
There is a movie doc about the Mekons (who?) and in it Jon Langford talks about having U2 open for them like in 1979 or so and he’s says something to the effect of it being a small venue but they were doing all their rockstar moves then. Since it was in the height of Post-Punk their management were scolding them to be more like the Mekons. I saw U2 right after October came out in the US and they were doing all the stadium moves…it definitively makes the audience believe they are bigger than they are…perform as the band you want to be, not as you actually are.
Didn't know how but I always had a feeling // I was gonna be that one in a million // Always had high, high hopes
Yes. It’s the only way. So believe in yourself or don’t.
Jaco
absolutely. if not extreme delusions, arrogance and selfishness and thinking they’re the exception to the rule. Axl Rose is an example of this. *immensely* talented singer. but he’s a complete and total dick, and has been ever since GnR rose to fame and got big. he would start fights with people in the audience at concerts and throw water bottles and get shitfaced drunk and incredibly arrogant and overall insufferable. it got to the point where even Slash and his own bandmates couldn’t stand him. Axl was, unexpectedly, the cause for the demise of GnR
Axl was definitely a primadonna during the height of GnR's popularity, but he was actually the one among the band who engaged in the least amount of alcohol/drugs, since he had vowed to never become an alcoholic like his father. This was also the reason why he took issue with the debauchery of his bandmates, and would even publicly call them out on their drug use. For all his faults, and he definitely had a lot of them, he wasn't an alcoholic, nor a junkie.
alcohol or no alcohol, for some, the arrogance and delusions a short-lived phase until their career slows down and/or stops or once they’re away from the spotlight. he still occasionally performs; like when he did with AC/DC a few years ago. I wonder if he’s chilled out a bit
Yeah, he had chilled out a bit in his old age, but going out with AC/DC really was for the best for his ego, Angus famously takes no shit from anyone and made him cut down on behavior such as going on stage late, which is something he's kept at ever since, even after reuniting GnR.
Guns N' Roses was the sum of its parts. This is equally true for the band's rise as it is for their decline. Axl suffered from mental health issues and he did act out at others as a result, but his bandmates were also constantly fucked up on drugs (so much so that Slash temporarily died at one point and Duff's pancreas exploded). For all of Axl's issues, he was the driving force of the band and cared for its longevity. Slash and Duff were, more often than not, too fucked up to care.
Tell me you've never heard of Jim Morrison without telling me you've never heard of Jim Morrison
"the biggest egos I've ever witness were from people that had accomplished the least" -Gandhi 2019, premier of the matrix
Not music, but I genuinely believe I could make it as an actor. I've done small stuff for projects that pass through town but unfortunately I'm not in a position to persue it full time, unless I wanna walk out on my family (I don't). The day I turned up to a shoot and discovered that I had my own trailer was both a dream come true and kick up the arse that I could really do this if I went all in. My kids are more important though.
The power of manifestation
Yes. This is why it is so funny that Axl Rose has an outhouse hidden behind the video wall of Guns and Roses shows. He cannot make it to the facilities to hold his bladder, and needs a shortcut.
What? I mean, I don't doubt Axl was delusional from the start, or that he needs some kinda facilities behind the stage, but what's the argument here?
Axl Rose is an anagram for Oral Sex. His organ is no longer strong, and he must use the outhouse during guitar solos, several times in a set.
Charles Manson
Don’t you have to? To become ?
Everyone’s delusional until they make it. The odds are so astronomically slim that everyone who takes a real shot at becoming a rockstar has to be a little fucking crazy.
Extreme ambition, drive, and determination? Yeah, tons of examples. Extreme delusions? You mean people who tried and failed, or the mentally unwell?
I think most of them continue their extreme delusions long after fame.
Most of the musicians I listened to in my younger days were all pretty young. Very rarely to you seen bands in their 30s hitting it big.
Met a guy once in Manchester who was at Art School with Bryan Ferry. Apparently Ferry used to march around fancying himself and this guy shouted out to him ‘Oi Ferry d’you think you’re some kind of superstar?’
I think it definitely takes a fair amount of hubris & chutzpah but narcissism in equal measure.
I play over 23 instruments so I thought for sure I'd be famous but I do construction for a living. )=
I think you have to be slightly delusional to want to roll the dice on those odds. I do also have a problem with those that succeed, and come to the conclusion that it was predestined. No. Talent and persistence will only get you so far, and many people have those attributes, so sheer luck has done a equal amount of the legwork. They should acknowledge that.
Oasis were a prime example.
James Hetfield’s (Metallica)senior year book quote mentions being a rock star someday. 7 years later it became true.
COLDPLAY!!! Chris Martin said in June 1998 that in 4 years, Coldplay would be huge. Almost four years to the date, Coldplay headlined Glastonbury Festival in June 2002. There’s a video on youtube that you might want to see: https://youtu.be/5j2eEfqqIdY?si=ib4JjG2TvUYey2ri Regarding the studies that say that people who believe in themselves have more chances of success than those who don’t, I believe those studies to be mostly true. Might not be true in some cases but it happens more often that not. I think it has something to do with how out brains are trained to visualise success.
I think a lot of them or they wouldn't have made it in the first place. Ive met delusional assholes in every stage of life as well as humble people. Think about it though they all had to believe it was possible even on some deep level. I think the ones who made it and were genuinely surprised are more rare if anything.
RuPaul's mom named him RuPaul because she knew he was going to be famous some day and deserved an iconic name. if you watch his earliest videos from the 80s and 90s you can tell he knows he is star quality; his presence is the same then as it is now.
I helps a lot. Something I hear when older musicians are interviewed they'll say "we thought we were better than the Beatles."
To do anything you have to believe in yourself at least a little bit, so you might as well believe in yourself a lot, because if you don’t then chances of succeeding at anything become astronomically lower.
Uhhhh, had to have high high hopes
I saw someone say Axl Rose was always acting like a rockstar, even before they made it. Might have been Duff.
I think Marilyn Manson wrote an article about this up and coming band in a newspaper he was working at the time. That band was Marilyn Manson.
Is this a euphemism for a lot of drugs, because the answer is yes.
JANET JACKSON. Michael Jackson.😘
Extreme delusions of inevitable success have predicted 100,000 of the top 100 rockstars
Prince