Kiss off, rock hall of fame
Feuding stars carry their fights into the induction ceremony
David Lee Roth pulled a very Rothlike manoeuvre and pulled out at the last minute in a huff.
Graciousness is not always high on the list of attributes of rock ’ n’ roll stars.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions have sometimes brought out the worst in inductees.
This year Kiss is angry at the hall’s decision to induct only original members Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, Peter Criss and Ace Frehley, excluding members who joined later.
So the makeup- wearing rockers are boycotting Thursday’s ceremony when they’re inducted with Nirvana, Peter Gabriel, Linda Ronstadt, Hall and Oates, Yes, Cat Stevens, late Beatles manager Brian Epstein and former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, who’s also not going.
Here are some other acts who made the ceremony uncomfortable for everyone else:
Guns N’ Roses sometimes play nice together, but not when they were inducted in 2012. Frontman Axl Rose skipped the ceremony because it didn’t “appear to be somewhere I’m actually wanted or respected.” Guitarist Slash, bassist Duff McKagan and drummer Steve Adler did take the stage, performing together for the first time in nearly two decades.
There was nary a Van Halen at their induction. Guitarist Eddie entered rehab the week before the 2007 ceremony and drummer brother Alex also chose not to attend.
And original lead singer David Lee Roth pulled a very Rothlike manoeuvre and pulled out at the last minute in a huff over what song he’d perform.
That left bassist Michael Anthony and second singer Sammy Hagar as the only attendees. They performed with Paul Shaffer’s house band.
John Fogerty also faced the prospects of a put- together band when he refused to play with surviving Creedence Clearwater Revival members, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford. He rallied with a couple of all- stars — Bruce Springsteen and Robbie Robertson — to back him on stage, but the rift became oh so public when Cook and Clifford left the room as Fogerty played.
The Sex Pistols were among the first and most notorious punk rock bands and fittingly extended a metaphorical middle finger to the hall of fame when finally inducted in 2007 — six years after they were first eligible. The Pistols, which featured lead singer Johnny Rotten and late bassist Sid Vicious, said in a hand- written and ungrammatical note posted on its website that the hall was like “urine in wine”: “Were not coming. Were not your monkeys and so what?”
Blondie added more bad blood in 2007 as a division between founding members Debbie Harry and Chris Stein and Frank Infante and Nigel Harrison spilled onto the stage. Harry and Stein had begun performing together in 1999 without the other three members and Infante and Harrison sued unsuccessfully to rejoin.
Infante continued to lobby Harry onstage at the ceremony: “Debbie, are we allowed?” She declined and the band went on to play with stand- ins.