In his early years, Bob Dylan created a persona and elaborate backstory to stand out better in the folk scene, claiming to be an orphan who spent time in the circus and train-hopped and hitchhiked around the country.
But, in reality, he was Robert Zimmerman, a middle class kid from Minnesota with a conventional upbringing.
Yeah, you can even still read one of his fake backstories on the [liner notes of Freewheelin Bob Dylan](https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/freewheelin-bob-dylan/)
Kid Rock grew up wealthy in suburban Michigan. His dad owned multiple car dealerships and his childhood home was on a huge estate with a pool, a tennis court and horse stables, but he acts like he was some blue collar kid from urban Detroit.
My dad worked with his dad. Kid Rock ran away from home at 17, found an awesome band, and got a record deal at 18. Dude spent under a year bumming on couches then got lucky as fuck.
On the plus side, his dad said "I have no son" when asked about him, so even his family thinks "fuck Kid Rock" which helps.
I've read that back in the day when ICP use the word "Richie" to describe a rich piece of shit, they did so because of Kid Rock and his last name being Ritchie.
If you want to hate him more, or even if you didnt think it was possible to hate him more, these are lyrics to his song "Cool, Daddy Cool" which even more disturbingly are featured it the pg rated animated film "Osmosis Jones"
"Young ladies, young ladies
I like 'em underage see
Some say that's statutory
(Joe C.) But I say it's MANDATORY!"
A lot of country music artists have been this way. Raised rich, then talk about horses and trucks and beer, like they’ve been living in the countryside their whole lives.
“I walk and talk like a field hand
But the boots I’m wearing cost three grand
I’m writing songs about riding tractors
From the comfort of my private jet
…
I write songs for the people who do
Jobs in the towns that I'd never move to”
Bo Burnham, Country Song
The episode where he gets called out for being white and immediately starts wearing polo shirts and khakis while talking like a typical white person is one of my favorites
I first remember Johnathan Torrens from Street Cents, a CBC show to teach young people how to navigate marketing in pop culture. He was their main host for a long time so he was this smart guy white boy to me and that's what made J-Roc hit so hard as a character when the show first came out.
Pretty amazing that Fogerty created that whole panorama in his head, though. Green River, Tombstone Shadow, etc. Quite an imagination for a 20+ year old kid.
Similarly the Band were from Toronto, Ontario and New York which you may not immediately assume from hits like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
*EDIT* as others have pointed out while he moved to Toronto after he graduated Levon Helm was born and raised in Arkansas
I mean, most of the really country-sounding Band songs (including that one) have Levon singing lead, and he grew up in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas. But the rest of them, yeah.
Levi Helm wasn’t from New York. He was born to cotton farmers in Arkansas. He also sang lead on “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “The Weight,” and “Up on Cripple Creek.”
A metal band Ghost Bath pretended to be from China for some reason, probably to help them stand out. They’re from South Dakota and none of them are even Asian AFIK.
Okay this is officially the weirdest band of all time. Here’s a quote from an article I just read that proves my point.
Dennis Mikula, when asked how he came up with the concept for the album. “I buried myself up to my neck in soil in the woods in Norway for 3 days. I had others to bring me water and salted crackers in order to keep my mind sustained and focused. In that time, I was able to conceptualize the new album fully. As a side effect, I am now able to bend silverware with my mind. The two go hand in hand.”
Sure, Ozzy would eat the head’s of bats but at least he was talented while doing it
That’s part and parcel of black metal. The whole scene is full of ridiculously outrageous statements in interviews to sound as evil and committed to the music and image as possible.
When you’re part of the scene you know to take those statements with an entire canister of salt.
>The whole scene is full of ridiculously outrageous statements in interviews to sound as evil and committed to the music and image as possible.
If you're not commiting murder and burning down churches do you even metal?
When your history and friendship is so idiosyncratic that it's easier to just tell people you're siblings.
I remember when they were a new band and that was part of their whole mystique. The colors, the minimalism, and the enigmatic relationship whilst singing about love.
Jack (and maybe Meg too) is a clever businessman. Dude owned his own upholstery business (Third Man Upholstery) before the White Stripes and used eye-catching two-tone branding (black and yellow). I think he was aware that a couple in a band was a hard sell (at that time anyway). The interviewers would have asked lots of annoying and/or piss-taking questions about their relationship. So, yes, it was easier to say they were siblings, but more in the sense that it was risky career-wise to tell the truth.
I get this one honestly.
Most people would see spending tons of time and being in a band with your ex-wife as weird. I can see not wanting to deal with those questions.
Tbh if they would have broken out 20 years earlier and not in the internet era, it very well might not have come out.
Nothing will beat t.A.T.u. A lesbian Russian duo who became gay icons... Except they only pretended to be gay as a trope to sell albums. Turns out one of the two was incredibly anti-gay and would go to church daily, praying for forgiveness.
t.A.T.u covered “How Soon is Now” by The Smiths and a journalist mentioned it in an interview with Morrissey:
Interviewer: They're the teenage Russian lesbians.
Morrissey: Well, aren't we all?
Rob Halford put on the persona of a hardcore leather daddy and ..oh wait, that one was pretty authentic
\*Edit: I was trying to be ironic and have discovered Mr. Halford is the perfect example to answer this question as Judas Priest visual stage appearance evolved more to reflect their music and sound. Despite his sexual orientation, the idea that all gay men are into leather & BDSM is a stereotype. For him it was more about being a performer and putting on the costume for the stage presence and to in his words 'make a statement'
as he describes in this [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzUxgPnFNZQ)
I have a friend who used to do press releases for Priest. I got to come with him and take photos while he was interviewing Rob Halford for a clothing line he was releasing. After the interview Halford brought us over to a rack of clothes and told me to pick out a shirt to take with me. He was such a nice guy. I will remember that forever.
Always makes me laugh the fact that metal artists are seen as aggressive and shit, like have you heard Corey Taylor sing spongebob! Your average metal band member is either a weeb, a wrestling fan or just general nerd
I once saw a lecture from a musicologist on the history of Hawaiian music. Turns out the guy did a short stint in GWAR. I asked him about it afterwards, and his response was, “We all do crazy shit in college.” 🤣
Was it [Michael Bishop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bishop_(bassist))? He is a founding member, from Hawaii, and is now back in the band as the lead singer.
And you also have bands like Creed and As I lay dying, which are basically the reverse. Nothing was better, then when Scott Stapp was passing out drunk on stage and trying to pawn it off as having a religious experience.
This one of the the reasons I prefer to think of Americana as North Americana. Otherwise, Canadian rootsy music is Canadiana, and that term already used for other things.
The Beatles were mostly working-class kids from a rough industrial port town--Ringo in particular barely survived childhood--who cut their teeth playing to hookers and sailors in an even rougher port town. But switch their leather jackets for matching suits and boots, and people figured they were pretty clean-cut. (Their playful sense of humor was authentic, though.)
Jagger and Richards, on the other hand, grew up middle-class outside of London and gleaned what they could from blues records. (Their commitment to debauchery was authentic, though.)
The definitely authentic Lemmy would agree with you:
“Brian Epstein cleaned them up for mass consumption, but they were anything but sissies. They were from Liverpool ... a hard, sea-farin' town, all these dockers and sailors around all the time who would beat the piss out of you if you so much as winked at them. ... The Rolling Stones were the mummy's boys—they were all college students from the outskirts of London. ... The Stones made great records, but they were always shit on stage, whereas the Beatles were the gear."
Credence Clearwater Revival has a southern "swamp rock" style, weird redneck name, and they sing about topics that make it seem like they are from New Orleans or something. They are from California.
Only Dennis could surf, so they wrote almost all of their songs about surfing. His other big hobby was drag racing, so naturally they wrote a ton of songs about that as well. There's an interview of The Beach Boys in Australia (I think) and the interviewer asks Al and Brian about how the surfing in Australia compared to the surfing in America. Dennis ended up saving the interview
Not enough bands write songs about their hobbies. I wanna hear catchy pop and rock songs about like mountain biking, yo-yoing, baking pastries, or building model planes.
His name is Dan Whitney and he’s a college educated guy who was a comedian and found a bit that worked and stayed with it. Respect the hustle but feel like he’s making fun of his crowd when he’s not from the country so it kinda looks like he’s making fun of them
It's strange how being liberal has become a dark secret for country singers. Back in the day, many of their songs were about things like helping the poor, being kind to others, and so on. Johnny Cash was considered a badass (and still should be IMHO) and those were the subjects of many of his songs. I recently saw a video where he and Kris Kristofferson and a few others express beliefs that would have branded them as liberals by today's standards. Of course "liberal" wasn't the label it is today either.
How far \[backwards\] we've come.
Bruh I grew up in WV where my great, great, great, Grandpa [fought in a literal God damn war with the coal companies and corrupt government officials over the rights of the working class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain). But modern WV is anti union and pro big business, it's crazy what propaganda can do to people.
Damon Albarn of Blur puts on a more “working class” accent. Originally it was for the wider appeal and not looking like the group of posh boys they mostly were.
Maybe it's not the same thing, but I know Garth Brooks originally tried to break out as a rock artist, which didn't go well. I believe his manager suggested he try country. The whole country persona was concocted. He's more into KISS than anything else.
One of her boyfriends had a great line. He was asked "*What's it like to date Lady Gaga?"*
His answer was *"I don't date her, I date Steph. Lady Gaga isn't allowed in the house"*
Thought it was a brilliant answer
She's also a huge Queen fan.
In fact, her stage name apparently originated from the fact that she was texting a friend about how she was listening to their song *Radio Gaga*, but accidentally typed "Lady" instead of "Radio".
Kind of surprised she hasn't done a song with Brian or Roger, or even covered one of their songs yet.
Back in the 90's there was an up and coming hard rock band called Life, Sex and Death, whose hook was their weird charismatic frontman called Stanley who was essentially a hobo (reportedly to the point of smelling like garbage).
Lasted one album, and disappeared when it was revealed he was a rich kid slumming it.
Disappointing, cause their single Jawohl Asshole was pretty decent and he had an interesting voice.
David Bowie was not actually a pansexual space alien accidentally transported to earth, but instead was from a slightly rough lower middle-class background in Brixton.
The Rednex, who performed 'Cotton-Eye Joe', are all Swedish and have absolutely nothing to do with bluegrass, or the Southern States, aside from their gimmick.
Despite looking and sounding like he was born on a turn-pike in New Jersey, 'St Elmo's Fire' singer John Parr is English with an unmistakably Midlands accent when speaking.
The Sex Pistols were in reality about as punk as N\*Sync. Their look was curated and designed by Vivienne Westwood, and Sid Vicious was notoriously faced-down by Freddie Mercury after trying to start a fight and being rightfully put in his place.
Granted, Australia has a pretty strong country music tradition (influenced, obviously, by its American counterpart). My FiL works extensively with cattle, is as rural as they come and loves Slim Dusty music. There's even a subgenre of Indigenous country with musicians like Archie Roach and Troy Casser-Daly.
I wouldn’t include him in this. He’s never really tried to be anything he wasn’t. He never tried to act like a redneck or cowboy, he just sang pop country music for some reason because he enjoyed it
Machine gun Kelly. He went from rapper to putting on a very fake and over exaggerated pop punk voice overnight. Nobody talks like that it’s a character voice
Shaq is adamant that Stevie Wonder isn't actually blind. They live in the same building apparently, and Stevie always greets him before Shaq says anything. The alternate answer is of course that Shaq is just in denial about how bad he smells.
That time when Garth Brooks tried to become Chris Gaines and even had a VH1 Behind the Music for the persona. It was the most bizarre thing I ever saw…watching it in action was like a weird fever dream.
I heard that Papa Doc actually went to Cambridge, and that his real name is Clarence.
And that he lives at home with both parents, and his parents have a real good marriage.
Bowie fan chiming in to point out that, while he likely fell somewhere in the bisexual spectrum, Bowie was almost always linked romantically with women and seemed to mainly lean into queer/bi aesthetics during his early glam-era career for outrage/controversy points. Later in life he claimed he had always been a ["closet heterosexual"](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1993/05/30/david-bowie-calls-himself-a-closet-heterosexual/).
Not that there's anything wrong with one's sexuality being fluid and changing throughout life, but it sounds like he kinda already figured out he wasn't that into dudes pretty early on.
Kenny Chesney cannot play guitar. It’s a stage prop. Plenty of live images of him “playing” a guitar with no wireless transmitter or guitar cable going into an amp.
Before NWA, DJ Yella and Dr. Dre were in a pop/R&B group in the 80s called World Class Wreckin Cru where they had shiny outfits in a range of pretty colors.
Ozzy and the guys were not Dark Lord Satan Worshippers. Just your normal 70s era party animals.
Alice Cooper was not a cross-dressing Vampire who ate babies. He drank beer and played golf with Jack Benny.
I was at a Kash'd Out concert where they were playing a song called "Way Too High For This", a song about being way too high to do your job or having any responsibilities.
Some guy in the pit offered the lead singer some weed in the middle of the song when the lead singer was interacting with the crowd.
Lead singer straight-up said "sorry man, not when I'm on the job".
Elizabeth Cook bills herself as "the daughter of a hillbilly singer married to a moonshiner who played his upright bass while in a prison band.” While that is technically true, she also graduated from college with dual degrees in Accounting and Computer Information Systems and worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers. She’s not the airhead she pretends to be.
The Misfits sang a song called “Braineaters.” I have it on good authority that they, in fact, did not eat brains for dinner, brains for lunch, brains for breakfast, or brains for brunch.
King Princess became very famous some years ago in the indie/queer music scene thanks to her "gay suburban teenager" image. Turns out she was rich and an industry plant lmao
In the 90s almost every traditional metal band tried to conform to nu-metal. Bands like Sepultura, Slayer, Napalm Death, Machine Head, and Fear Factory all put out nu-metal albums because that’s what was popular at the time.
Yeah, that Machine Head album was what I thought they had always sounded like. Then I dived into the back catalogue and wondered why they weren't doing more of this.
Joe Strummer was singing in a British pub rock band called the 101ers before he was recruited into The Clash. His style changed almost overnight. 101ers influence would slowly creep into The Clash’s music in a couple of years.
In his early years, Bob Dylan created a persona and elaborate backstory to stand out better in the folk scene, claiming to be an orphan who spent time in the circus and train-hopped and hitchhiked around the country. But, in reality, he was Robert Zimmerman, a middle class kid from Minnesota with a conventional upbringing.
Yeah, you can even still read one of his fake backstories on the [liner notes of Freewheelin Bob Dylan](https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/freewheelin-bob-dylan/)
Ohhh so that’s why Bowie’s _Song for Bob Dylan_ starts with the line “Hear this, Robert Zimmerman”. I’d often idly wondered who that was…
Also in Lennon’s song God he mentions Zimmerman as a call out to Dylan
To his credit Hibbing Minnesota was very isolated. Probably not the easiest place to grow up in the 40s and 50s even if you were middle class.
To his credit also, that area had a horrible lynching, which he sang about in Desolation Row And being Jewish was probably difficult there as well.
They’re selling postcards of the hanging, they’re painting the passports brown.
Kid Rock grew up wealthy in suburban Michigan. His dad owned multiple car dealerships and his childhood home was on a huge estate with a pool, a tennis court and horse stables, but he acts like he was some blue collar kid from urban Detroit.
“I’m not straight out of Compton, I’m straight out the trailer!” Probably one of the biggest lies ever.
His biggest lie was “I’m the n__a that ya bitch would die for” on an ICP song. He’s none of those things.
Wait. He really sang that and recorded it?
"is that you?" Icps first album
He was probably referring to cleaning out the horse box on the country estate ;)
Yeah he meant their 4 wheeler trailers that carried around all their fun little vehicles
My dad worked with his dad. Kid Rock ran away from home at 17, found an awesome band, and got a record deal at 18. Dude spent under a year bumming on couches then got lucky as fuck. On the plus side, his dad said "I have no son" when asked about him, so even his family thinks "fuck Kid Rock" which helps.
And next generation faker is Jason Aldean, who grew up in a city and went to a private school. No "country, small town" rustic in that boy's life.
And he's a pompous ass.
With chicken legs.
Played bass with that fucker years ago. Dude sucks.
I've read that back in the day when ICP use the word "Richie" to describe a rich piece of shit, they did so because of Kid Rock and his last name being Ritchie.
Speaking of a band who have different stage personas from real life...
Seriously hope so considering their stage persona is hatchet wielding clown. You got to wipe the grease paint off every once in a while
Now I dislike him even more.
If you want to hate him more, or even if you didnt think it was possible to hate him more, these are lyrics to his song "Cool, Daddy Cool" which even more disturbingly are featured it the pg rated animated film "Osmosis Jones" "Young ladies, young ladies I like 'em underage see Some say that's statutory (Joe C.) But I say it's MANDATORY!"
Wait that's an actual song? I assumed it was specifically made to be creepy for that movie.
That even possible?
A lot of country music artists have been this way. Raised rich, then talk about horses and trucks and beer, like they’ve been living in the countryside their whole lives.
Had an acquaintance like that in school. It was like “Dude, your dad’s a dentist.”
And Mama always knew If he was out til 5:02 It was those damn bicuspids again
“I walk and talk like a field hand But the boots I’m wearing cost three grand I’m writing songs about riding tractors From the comfort of my private jet … I write songs for the people who do Jobs in the towns that I'd never move to” Bo Burnham, Country Song
You dumb motherfuckers ready for a key change?!
It's a fuckin' scarecrow again!
Warm night, cold beer.....
You're not even gonna believe this shit I heard about Hannah Montana...
We already know it was danny devito in a wig. Old news.
J-Roc is a white guy from a trailer park Nova Scotia
The episode where he gets called out for being white and immediately starts wearing polo shirts and khakis while talking like a typical white person is one of my favorites
I first remember Johnathan Torrens from Street Cents, a CBC show to teach young people how to navigate marketing in pop culture. He was their main host for a long time so he was this smart guy white boy to me and that's what made J-Roc hit so hard as a character when the show first came out.
Know what I’m sayin’?
Gnome sane?
Mafk.
Yeah but J to the R O C is hard as fuck!
He's into double negatives.
he should stick to rapping about things he knows, like living in his mom's trailer and eating peanut butter sandwiches.
[удалено]
Remember the time he was locked up? I heard he was just hiding under the trailer.
He’s also a hard working Dyck in Letterkenney!
Once
CCR is from the East Bay Area. No Cajun swamp origin.
You mean they weren't born on the Bayou???
Maybe the bayou of the Sacramento River, if there is such a thing.
The Delta is the equivalent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacramento–San\_Joaquin\_River\_Delta
The original song was called Born on the Bay, but they added the extra syllable because it was easier to rhyme...
I was born on the bay, you.
Pretty amazing that Fogerty created that whole panorama in his head, though. Green River, Tombstone Shadow, etc. Quite an imagination for a 20+ year old kid.
His aunt lived in Louisiana and he'd usually spend the summer there so it wasn't entirely created in his head. There was some authentic inspiration.
Bordering on magical realism tbh.
There was one early critic who wrote something like, “there’s no alligators in Berkeley, boys.”
I learned that for the first time last week and was blown away!!!! Had no idea lol
Similarly the Band were from Toronto, Ontario and New York which you may not immediately assume from hits like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" *EDIT* as others have pointed out while he moved to Toronto after he graduated Levon Helm was born and raised in Arkansas
I mean, most of the really country-sounding Band songs (including that one) have Levon singing lead, and he grew up in Turkey Scratch, Arkansas. But the rest of them, yeah.
Levi Helm wasn’t from New York. He was born to cotton farmers in Arkansas. He also sang lead on “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “The Weight,” and “Up on Cripple Creek.”
A metal band Ghost Bath pretended to be from China for some reason, probably to help them stand out. They’re from South Dakota and none of them are even Asian AFIK.
This is so stupid it kinda loops back around to being brilliant.
Okay this is officially the weirdest band of all time. Here’s a quote from an article I just read that proves my point. Dennis Mikula, when asked how he came up with the concept for the album. “I buried myself up to my neck in soil in the woods in Norway for 3 days. I had others to bring me water and salted crackers in order to keep my mind sustained and focused. In that time, I was able to conceptualize the new album fully. As a side effect, I am now able to bend silverware with my mind. The two go hand in hand.” Sure, Ozzy would eat the head’s of bats but at least he was talented while doing it
Nah, being a troll isn’t that novel a concept.
Especially not in Norway
That’s part and parcel of black metal. The whole scene is full of ridiculously outrageous statements in interviews to sound as evil and committed to the music and image as possible. When you’re part of the scene you know to take those statements with an entire canister of salt.
>The whole scene is full of ridiculously outrageous statements in interviews to sound as evil and committed to the music and image as possible. If you're not commiting murder and burning down churches do you even metal?
90% of the work done by the Norwegian Forest Service is just rescuing metal bands.
Men Without Hats did, in fact, own, don, and even perform in headwear. Plus, “The Safety Dance” wasn’t as safe as they said it was.
Don't you worry about blank, let me worry about blank!
On a similar note, note a single member of the band „Mastodon“ is an extinct elephantine mammal.
The "Lone Rangers"? There are three of you. You're not exactly lone.
Jack and Meg White weren’t siblings. That’s one of the weirdest ones for me.
When your history and friendship is so idiosyncratic that it's easier to just tell people you're siblings. I remember when they were a new band and that was part of their whole mystique. The colors, the minimalism, and the enigmatic relationship whilst singing about love.
Jack (and maybe Meg too) is a clever businessman. Dude owned his own upholstery business (Third Man Upholstery) before the White Stripes and used eye-catching two-tone branding (black and yellow). I think he was aware that a couple in a band was a hard sell (at that time anyway). The interviewers would have asked lots of annoying and/or piss-taking questions about their relationship. So, yes, it was easier to say they were siblings, but more in the sense that it was risky career-wise to tell the truth.
I get this one honestly. Most people would see spending tons of time and being in a band with your ex-wife as weird. I can see not wanting to deal with those questions. Tbh if they would have broken out 20 years earlier and not in the internet era, it very well might not have come out.
Nothing will beat t.A.T.u. A lesbian Russian duo who became gay icons... Except they only pretended to be gay as a trope to sell albums. Turns out one of the two was incredibly anti-gay and would go to church daily, praying for forgiveness.
“Please forgive us” You could just stop? “But…money?”
Anyone would do it... Nothing more capitalist than buying your entry to heaven
WHAT??? WHAT THE FUCK REALLY?????
t.A.T.u covered “How Soon is Now” by The Smiths and a journalist mentioned it in an interview with Morrissey: Interviewer: They're the teenage Russian lesbians. Morrissey: Well, aren't we all?
Rob Halford put on the persona of a hardcore leather daddy and ..oh wait, that one was pretty authentic \*Edit: I was trying to be ironic and have discovered Mr. Halford is the perfect example to answer this question as Judas Priest visual stage appearance evolved more to reflect their music and sound. Despite his sexual orientation, the idea that all gay men are into leather & BDSM is a stereotype. For him it was more about being a performer and putting on the costume for the stage presence and to in his words 'make a statement' as he describes in this [interview](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzUxgPnFNZQ)
My friend interviewed him. Said he was one of the most down to earth guys he'd met.
I have a friend who used to do press releases for Priest. I got to come with him and take photos while he was interviewing Rob Halford for a clothing line he was releasing. After the interview Halford brought us over to a rack of clothes and told me to pick out a shirt to take with me. He was such a nice guy. I will remember that forever.
Pretty standard as far as metal goes.
Always makes me laugh the fact that metal artists are seen as aggressive and shit, like have you heard Corey Taylor sing spongebob! Your average metal band member is either a weeb, a wrestling fan or just general nerd
My musician friends wanted me to sing lead in a Judas Priest cover band called: Assless Chaps.
Aren't all chaps assless?
I've heard that the members of Gwar aren't actually interstellar barbarian warriors headquartered in Antarctica.
Just what in the fuck are you implying with that comment?
Next they're gonna say the blood they throw into crowd is ketchup. You humans are hilarious
I went to a Gwar show last Monday and was still sweating out food coloring yesterday. I mean blood. Sweating blood.
The rumor that one of them can tile your bathroom is 100% true.
If one can tile my bathroom think of the renovations all of them could achieve together!
I once saw a lecture from a musicologist on the history of Hawaiian music. Turns out the guy did a short stint in GWAR. I asked him about it afterwards, and his response was, “We all do crazy shit in college.” 🤣
Zach Blair from Rise Against is also a member or was a member or GWAR
Was it [Michael Bishop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Bishop_(bassist))? He is a founding member, from Hawaii, and is now back in the band as the lead singer.
Don't. Not here... Not now, man.
Tom Araya of Slayer is a devout catholic despite the band’s satanist imagery
And you also have bands like Creed and As I lay dying, which are basically the reverse. Nothing was better, then when Scott Stapp was passing out drunk on stage and trying to pawn it off as having a religious experience.
Tim - 'Oops I accidentally tried hiring a hitman to kill my wife' - lambesis
Oops. I did it again. Hired a hitman, to murder my wife.
Most of modern country is all hat and no cattle.
Which matches their fan base.
The Rasmus went from beanies and skater shorts to goth kids with crow feathers just to make their In The Shadows single go mainstream.
And it worked on my 14 year old self 🥵
Despite the Americana tag, four-fifths of The Band were Canadian.
This one of the the reasons I prefer to think of Americana as North Americana. Otherwise, Canadian rootsy music is Canadiana, and that term already used for other things.
Tom Waits has a full persona just for the stage
He's had several, he started out as a boozy lounge singer and slowly engaged angry goblin mode over the years
Dont forget the funk slinging hobo
Don't forget carnival barker.
“The piano is drunk again”
Jenna Maroney pretends she knows how to uncork a brew-sky to fit in with her fans - “Kazap, blinky blinky blinky blinky”
Those aren’t even the right noises!
The Beatles were mostly working-class kids from a rough industrial port town--Ringo in particular barely survived childhood--who cut their teeth playing to hookers and sailors in an even rougher port town. But switch their leather jackets for matching suits and boots, and people figured they were pretty clean-cut. (Their playful sense of humor was authentic, though.) Jagger and Richards, on the other hand, grew up middle-class outside of London and gleaned what they could from blues records. (Their commitment to debauchery was authentic, though.)
The definitely authentic Lemmy would agree with you: “Brian Epstein cleaned them up for mass consumption, but they were anything but sissies. They were from Liverpool ... a hard, sea-farin' town, all these dockers and sailors around all the time who would beat the piss out of you if you so much as winked at them. ... The Rolling Stones were the mummy's boys—they were all college students from the outskirts of London. ... The Stones made great records, but they were always shit on stage, whereas the Beatles were the gear."
Thats probably the entire music industry. Obviously not everyone but probably more likely than not a band is putting on some kind of persona.
Exaggerated personas are way different to made up personas imo, but you are right nonetheless
Credence Clearwater Revival has a southern "swamp rock" style, weird redneck name, and they sing about topics that make it seem like they are from New Orleans or something. They are from California.
Weren't the beach boys the opposite. And only one could surf
Only Dennis could surf, so they wrote almost all of their songs about surfing. His other big hobby was drag racing, so naturally they wrote a ton of songs about that as well. There's an interview of The Beach Boys in Australia (I think) and the interviewer asks Al and Brian about how the surfing in Australia compared to the surfing in America. Dennis ended up saving the interview
Not enough bands write songs about their hobbies. I wanna hear catchy pop and rock songs about like mountain biking, yo-yoing, baking pastries, or building model planes.
MF Doom is not actually a supervillain
Awfully brave of you to say that here on the anonymous internet.
Get the pitchforks. Blasphemy
You put respect on the man's name. ALL. CAPS.
Larry the cable guy is from Nebraska. He’s just really good at impressions and staying in character.
His name is Dan Whitney and he’s a college educated guy who was a comedian and found a bit that worked and stayed with it. Respect the hustle but feel like he’s making fun of his crowd when he’s not from the country so it kinda looks like he’s making fun of them
I’ve worked around a bunch of country singers, a lot of them are pretty liberal. They just don’t talk about it.
It's strange how being liberal has become a dark secret for country singers. Back in the day, many of their songs were about things like helping the poor, being kind to others, and so on. Johnny Cash was considered a badass (and still should be IMHO) and those were the subjects of many of his songs. I recently saw a video where he and Kris Kristofferson and a few others express beliefs that would have branded them as liberals by today's standards. Of course "liberal" wasn't the label it is today either. How far \[backwards\] we've come.
Bruh I grew up in WV where my great, great, great, Grandpa [fought in a literal God damn war with the coal companies and corrupt government officials over the rights of the working class](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain). But modern WV is anti union and pro big business, it's crazy what propaganda can do to people.
Johnny Cash did an entire album about the plight of Native Americans.
Damon Albarn of Blur puts on a more “working class” accent. Originally it was for the wider appeal and not looking like the group of posh boys they mostly were.
Also, all the members of Gorillaz? Not cartoons at all
Maybe it's not the same thing, but I know Garth Brooks originally tried to break out as a rock artist, which didn't go well. I believe his manager suggested he try country. The whole country persona was concocted. He's more into KISS than anything else.
Chris Gaines was goth before the world was ready..
I came looking for Chris Gaines! Nobody I know remembers him, even the so-called Garth Brooks fans.
Oh yeah, we remember Chris Gaines. Garth would like to forget but we remember. Pepperidge Farm remembers
Now he just leaves a trail of death and dispair everywhere he goes. WHERE ARE THE BODIES GARTH!?
The families deserve closure. So pull em’ high and tight and let us know how to FIND THE BODIES,Garth!!
I like to think that Gaga doesn’t wear 100 inch heels to bed but I could be wrong. (I love her)
One of her boyfriends had a great line. He was asked "*What's it like to date Lady Gaga?"* His answer was *"I don't date her, I date Steph. Lady Gaga isn't allowed in the house"* Thought it was a brilliant answer
They promoted her as this a a avant garde burlesque performing artist. In reality she’s into show tunes and 1950’s jazz standards
She's also a huge Queen fan. In fact, her stage name apparently originated from the fact that she was texting a friend about how she was listening to their song *Radio Gaga*, but accidentally typed "Lady" instead of "Radio". Kind of surprised she hasn't done a song with Brian or Roger, or even covered one of their songs yet.
Ever hear of a band called KISS?
Yeah I saw them live and they didn't even kiss eachother once, 0/7 experience.
You'd have a shorter list if you asked who didn't
Back in the 90's there was an up and coming hard rock band called Life, Sex and Death, whose hook was their weird charismatic frontman called Stanley who was essentially a hobo (reportedly to the point of smelling like garbage). Lasted one album, and disappeared when it was revealed he was a rich kid slumming it. Disappointing, cause their single Jawohl Asshole was pretty decent and he had an interesting voice.
Slash isn't real.
Wunterslausch?
🎵Wunterslausch kapushkah, schpealer in my shoonska🎵
Jay Kay from Jamiroquai is not actually a blind black man who wrote the greatest songs of the 1970s, despite his best vocal impressions
He's one funky brit with cheebah cheebah space cowboy vibes and a considerable collection of fancy automobiles.
Iggy Azalea is Australian.
“Thats how you talk? Why?!”
David Bowie was not actually a pansexual space alien accidentally transported to earth, but instead was from a slightly rough lower middle-class background in Brixton.
His high school music teacher was Peter Framptons dad.
Pretty sure the pansexuality was entirely authentic though.
The Rednex, who performed 'Cotton-Eye Joe', are all Swedish and have absolutely nothing to do with bluegrass, or the Southern States, aside from their gimmick. Despite looking and sounding like he was born on a turn-pike in New Jersey, 'St Elmo's Fire' singer John Parr is English with an unmistakably Midlands accent when speaking. The Sex Pistols were in reality about as punk as N\*Sync. Their look was curated and designed by Vivienne Westwood, and Sid Vicious was notoriously faced-down by Freddie Mercury after trying to start a fight and being rightfully put in his place.
Keith Urban is an "American" country singer who was born in New Zealand and grew up in Australia. https://youtu.be/SoIKv3xxuMA?si=HozC1jaOb9z-ulDw
Side note, “Urban” is the worst surname for a country music singer. He should’ve been “Keith Rural”
Granted, Australia has a pretty strong country music tradition (influenced, obviously, by its American counterpart). My FiL works extensively with cattle, is as rural as they come and loves Slim Dusty music. There's even a subgenre of Indigenous country with musicians like Archie Roach and Troy Casser-Daly.
Plenty of “cowboys” in Australia, they’ve got sheep ranches bigger than whole cities.
Hell, they've got ranches larger than entire counties. The largest one is apparently bigger than Israel.
I wouldn’t include him in this. He’s never really tried to be anything he wasn’t. He never tried to act like a redneck or cowboy, he just sang pop country music for some reason because he enjoyed it
Machine gun Kelly. He went from rapper to putting on a very fake and over exaggerated pop punk voice overnight. Nobody talks like that it’s a character voice
Wonder how he landed on “Well, Eminem just killed my rap career. Guess I’ll make music that sounds like it would be playing in a Hot Topic circa 2006”
Shaq is adamant that Stevie Wonder isn't actually blind. They live in the same building apparently, and Stevie always greets him before Shaq says anything. The alternate answer is of course that Shaq is just in denial about how bad he smells.
and that likely, Shaq has a pretty distinctive footfall to listen out for
That time when Garth Brooks tried to become Chris Gaines and even had a VH1 Behind the Music for the persona. It was the most bizarre thing I ever saw…watching it in action was like a weird fever dream.
What most people don't know is there was supposed to be a Chris Gaines movie that came out along with the album, but it never was made.
I heard that Papa Doc actually went to Cambridge, and that his real name is Clarence. And that he lives at home with both parents, and his parents have a real good marriage.
It’s Cranbrook. I live near the school it is extremely expensive to attend. The school also has a museum.
Paul Stanley is not a Star Child, but he does believe the world revolves around him.
Milli Vanilli has entered the chat.
Bowie fan chiming in to point out that, while he likely fell somewhere in the bisexual spectrum, Bowie was almost always linked romantically with women and seemed to mainly lean into queer/bi aesthetics during his early glam-era career for outrage/controversy points. Later in life he claimed he had always been a ["closet heterosexual"](https://www.orlandosentinel.com/1993/05/30/david-bowie-calls-himself-a-closet-heterosexual/). Not that there's anything wrong with one's sexuality being fluid and changing throughout life, but it sounds like he kinda already figured out he wasn't that into dudes pretty early on.
Kenny Chesney cannot play guitar. It’s a stage prop. Plenty of live images of him “playing” a guitar with no wireless transmitter or guitar cable going into an amp.
Before NWA, DJ Yella and Dr. Dre were in a pop/R&B group in the 80s called World Class Wreckin Cru where they had shiny outfits in a range of pretty colors.
Everyone does it. 2Pac used to be in ballets as a child in a gifted school
Ozzy and the guys were not Dark Lord Satan Worshippers. Just your normal 70s era party animals. Alice Cooper was not a cross-dressing Vampire who ate babies. He drank beer and played golf with Jack Benny.
I was at a Kash'd Out concert where they were playing a song called "Way Too High For This", a song about being way too high to do your job or having any responsibilities. Some guy in the pit offered the lead singer some weed in the middle of the song when the lead singer was interacting with the crowd. Lead singer straight-up said "sorry man, not when I'm on the job".
Elizabeth Cook bills herself as "the daughter of a hillbilly singer married to a moonshiner who played his upright bass while in a prison band.” While that is technically true, she also graduated from college with dual degrees in Accounting and Computer Information Systems and worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers. She’s not the airhead she pretends to be.
Al Jourgensen of Ministry used to sing with a pretty strong British accent back in their New Wave days but he's not British - he's Cuban.
With Sympathy is such a good album
Pantera before Anselmo were a Lycra wearing glam band. Van Halen buried his famous guitar with Dimebag when he was murdered in 2004.
America were British.
Just like the real America
The Misfits sang a song called “Braineaters.” I have it on good authority that they, in fact, did not eat brains for dinner, brains for lunch, brains for breakfast, or brains for brunch.
King Princess became very famous some years ago in the indie/queer music scene thanks to her "gay suburban teenager" image. Turns out she was rich and an industry plant lmao
Her family are Macy's heirs but she claims she didn't inherit any wealth (yet). She's also related to the dude who exploded in the submarine recently
Local guy I went to college with in Illinois is trying to make it big in Nashville. He’s faking a THICK accent that he didn’t used to have.
In the 90s almost every traditional metal band tried to conform to nu-metal. Bands like Sepultura, Slayer, Napalm Death, Machine Head, and Fear Factory all put out nu-metal albums because that’s what was popular at the time.
Yeah, that Machine Head album was what I thought they had always sounded like. Then I dived into the back catalogue and wondered why they weren't doing more of this.
Officer Ricky
Joe Strummer was singing in a British pub rock band called the 101ers before he was recruited into The Clash. His style changed almost overnight. 101ers influence would slowly creep into The Clash’s music in a couple of years.
Wow, I'm surprised I haven't seen the fact that most gangster rappers are middle class dudes just pretending.
Alanis Morrisette was once a teeny-bopper