The existence of most musicians already sounds larger than life. Even though they might be regular people, there’s a good chance that most laymen don’t breathe the same air as the members of Led Zeppelin or Fleetwood Mac. Despite looking like the most important people in the world, a few details about musicians’ personal lives are a bit too overblown.
For years, there have been persistent rumours throughout the music community that every musician has been in extraordinary circumstances. Whether it was some strange detail about their upbringing or a crazy fact about how they died, there are always more details to extract from artists that claim to be full of mystery.
Granted, not all of them are true. Even though a fair few rockstars may have had some strange things happen to them on the road or in the studio, some of their supposed escapades have been heavily embellished, either originating from a story blown out of proportion or just thought up by the fans to make their lives even more interesting.
The life of a travelling musician is already interesting in itself, but a few of the stories that have been made about them make them out to be superhuman in more ways than one. All of these artists are still human, but the theories surrounding them belong in the same realm as old wise tales.
10 biggest rock music conspiracy theories:
10. Phil Collins drowning incident
Phil Collins tends to get a bad reputation in classic rock. Aside from being a damn good prog rock drummer, his work with Genesis was far from just pop garbage, occasionally working something fairly intricate into the standard radio-friendly rock tune. If the rumours are true, underneath the smug voice behind ‘Against All Odds’ is a man with a lot of guilt in his conscience.
Aside from giving the world God’s gift to drum breaks, ‘In the Air Tonight’ is allegedly about a real experience that Collins had while recording his album Face Value. As the story goes, Collins saw a man drowning and someone looking on watching him die. Instead of helping the drowning man himself, the conspiracy theory claims Collins took all of his aggressive energy and channelled it into ‘In the Air Tonight’, with lyrics that call out the bystander who did nothing to help save someone’s life.
However, this story is far from the truth, and Collins debunked it. When Collins was working on his first solo album, he had been going through a recent separation from his wife and was using his songs to communicate it with her, with ‘Air’ serving as the sort-of calm before the storm for the rest of the album. The song might be about getting revenge in some way, but most of the energy in this song is about the drum fill than it is about someone drowning.
9. The ‘American Girl’ suicide
A good chunk of Tom Petty’s work tends to be about innocent rock and roll fun. Even though Petty was no angel behind the scenes, the songs were always about the simple pleasures in life, from getting his first guitar to the rush that comes with falling in love. Then again, ‘American Girl’ has the distinction about falling in a different sense.
While most of this song is the typical portrait of a girl from the States that Petty used to be infatuated with, fans have dwelled on the lines where this woman listens to the cars roll by on 441. Since most of the verse talks about how everything she wants is out of reach, fans have speculated that this refers to the woman committing suicide after jumping off of a building off Route 441.
As for Petty, this was more about the freedom that comes with being an American girl, where everyone is free to ride down dirt roads with the wind in their hair. The whole thing was supposed to be a hopeful look at a girl with nothing but potential, but some people see that girl as a sad cautionary tale of what America can do to a person.
8. Jim Morrison is alive
The entire aesthetic of The Doors was always shrouded in mystery. To this day, it’s hard to picture the image of Jim Morrison without a hazy atmosphere and more than a few psychedelic drugs floating through his system. While Morrison remained a relic of the 1960s after his tragic death in 1970, there have been more than a few sceptics doubting whether he actually passed away.
For one thing, only a limited number of people saw Morrison alive after he left the US. After passing away from heart failure when vacationing in Paris with his girlfriend Pam, Morrison was buried in a sealed coffin in France, where most fans have made shrines to his memory. The details got even more foggy when Pam passed away only a few years after Morrison’s death. Since none of the band saw him after he left Los Angeles, fans have claimed that Morrison had faked his death to escape the celebrity fame machine.
Although the whole thing might have been a farce, keyboardist Ray Manzarak was the only member to give the theory a shred of credibility, thinking it would have been in Morrison’s character to disappear one day and never return. Then again, if someone was faking their death, one would think they would at least tell a few close friends about what they were planning before going completely off the grid.
7. Stevie Nicks’ cocaine habit
The words ‘Fleetwood Mac’ and ‘cocaine’ tended to go hand in hand in the late-70s. After riding the wave of success with their self-titled album, the latest incarnation of The Mac would succumb to the white line more than a few times, occasionally using it during the recording of Rumours to keep their motor skills going. Every member of the band was an addict, but Stevie Nicks allegedly took drastic measures to satisfy her needs.
During a doctor’s visit, Nicks was told that she was developing a massive hole in the centre of her nasal cavity and that she would probably die of a brain haemorrhage if she continued to indulge in the rock star lifestyle. While that much is true, fans got creative ways of how Nicks allegedly kept her habit going after her health advisory.
In the vein of drug dealers everywhere, fans have speculated that Nicks ingested cocaine by mixing it with water and having roadies administer it up her anus before she went up onstage. As the years have gone on, though, Nicks has been on the road to recovery and has discounted every one of these rumours as ridiculous. Then again, if fans are haphazardly making rumours about their favourite artists’ rectal routine, that says more about the fans than it does about the musicians.
6. The KISS blood path
Half of the appeal of KISS in the early ‘70s is that they didn’t look like they were from any known planet. After initially trying to make it as a typical rock outfit, Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons had the brilliant idea of draping themselves in larger-than-life personas, bringing a circus element to rock and roll. Though most of it was an act, they did put their blood, sweat and tears into their merchandising quite literally.
While there’s a good chance that anything with a stable surface has been KISS-ified by Gene Simmons, it was only natural for them to move into the world of comic books. After partnering with Marvel to give KISS their very own comic book franchise, a rumour came out that the members had used their blood to provide the red ink for the final copies of the original issues.
Despite this one sounding like a nutty theory, it’s 100% true. During a day off from their touring schedule, every member of KISS showed up to a blood drive and gave a quick sample of their blood to the comic book plant, putting the vials in the vat of red ink. Despite being one of the many reasons ten-year-olds loved KISS, there’s no chance this kind of stunt could happen today because of the sheer gross factor.
5. Robert Johnson’s Satanic pact
Rock and roll has always been indebted to the blues. From the start of the British Invasion to the days of Chuck Berry, every rock act jamming in their garage has always relied on a 12-bar blues to get them going in their salad days. Although Muddy Waters and BB King may have practised their technique for years, Robert Johnson had some demonic assistance when getting his skills.
According to legend, the blues innovator was originally terrible at guitar and was sent packing from most of the clubs he frequented. After standing at the crossroads in The American south, Johnson met Lucifer, who tuned his guitar, sending him right back to his stomping grounds with the ability to play like a man possessed.
Although Johnson might have been able to play some of the greatest blues of all time, it came with a price, being poisoned by a jealous ex-boyfriend because of his flirting with one of the girls at the bar. Seeing how Johnson never had a proper burial and has an unknown gravesite, it’s anyone’s guess as to whether any dark magic played a part in granting him his skills.
4. Elvis is alive
The death of Elvis Presley was one of the first major sock waves to the birth of rock and roll. Even though Buddy Holly’s death may have spoken to the loss of rock and roll’s innocence, singing ‘The King of Rock and Roll’ slowly fall from grace before passing away in his bathroom was enough to cause hysteria among crazed Elvis fans. Emotions are part of the grieving process, but some fans have not yet exited the denial stage of grieving.
For years, rumours have persisted that Presley is alive and well since his funeral was never televised. Even though Presley’s estate remains his final resting place, fans have speculated that The King’s death was all a publicity stunt, having been a cover-up by the media so he could go undercover to live a quiet life.
If Presley were to have covered up his death, he would be back in the public eye in the early ‘90s, with some fans claiming that Elvis could be found in the background of the movie Home Alone when the Malone family are rushing through the airport trying to get back home to their son. Considering the amount of hysteria caused every single time he walked onstage, it seems that even in death, Elvis cannot have rest.
3. Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Hell?
The legacy of Led Zeppelin has always had a dark streak to it. Outside of some of the sex and drugs that each member got into, Jimmy Page’s preoccupation with the occult made some people question how much of his guitar skills were from some dark magic. Although Page didn’t exactly hide his fixation with the dark side of spiritualism, concerned parents believe that Zeppelin has been shoehorning these messages into their greatest songs.
In the middle of their signature hit ‘Stairway to Heaven’, there has been some question about what the song says if fans play the record backwards. Regardless of what tools go into ruining one’s vinyl collection, the naysayers claimed that the song’s second verse contains backward messages about Satan, including Robert Plant singing what sounds like “Here’s to my sweet Satan”.
The rumour became so overblown that some evangelists have used the method to disavow rock and roll, finding similar problems in songs by Eagles and Judas Priest. Soundgarden even made fun of the concept in ‘667’, being a parody of the customary cursed integer “666”. Satan most likely had nothing to do with any rock music, but even if the demon made his way into the music world, he still created some of the best Led Zeppelin ever made.
2. Keith Richards changed his blood
Keith Richards has lived enough of a rock and roll lifestyle for at least 50 other men. When the apocalypse eventually comes, the only things left standing in the rubble are cockroaches and ‘Keef’ strumming a guitar and smoking a cigarette. So how did he manage to survive a lifetime’s worth of booze and drugs? Simple: get a whole new blood supply.
As the story goes, Richards went to get a blood transfusion in the ‘80s, which was meant to drain most of the toxic elements from his system. Though Richards is far from the first rock musician to have a blood transfusion, the theory suggests that the doctors replaced everything in his body, filling his entire system with a whole new supply of blood as if he had never touched any drugs.
Then again, this theory is a drop in the bucket for a guy like Richards, who has managed to fall out of a tree when on vacation and claims to have ingested the ashes of his cremated father when craving a drug kick. Richards might have taken drastic measures to keep himself rolling with The Stones, but even without the blood work, he seems to have unlocked the key to immortality.
1. Paul McCartney is dead
There aren’t too many rock artists more foundational for the rock genre than The Beatles. Even if bands these days think they’re doing something innovative, there aren’t too many bases in the rock format that the Fab Four haven’t either done before or done better somewhere else. It all comes back to the magic that exists between John, Paul, George or Ringo, but there’s been some speculation about what happened with Paul McCartney.
For decades, conspiracy theorists have stood by the fact that Paul McCartney died in a car accident in 1966 and was replaced by a look-alike named William Campbell. In an attempt to cover up the death of their fallen bandmate, the surviving Beatles hid messages in their song lyrics, with ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ containing John Lennon saying “I buried Paul” towards the end of the track.
While McCartney was involved in a car accident in 1966, he survived and continued to pump out one classic after another with The Beatles until their breakup in 1970. That hasn’t stopped fans from digging deeper into the theory, including multiple songs that contain messages about his death and the cover of Abbey Road admitting to his passing because he wasn’t wearing shoes when the photo was taken. The rest of The Beatles tended to laugh off the theory as just a dark rumour, but if it were true, ‘The Cute Beatle’ decoy landed the role of a lifetime as one of the biggest names in rock for over five decades.
