Music is an art of passion, it takes real genius to express yourself musically. Sometimes, these emotions can get the best of the people… and it will cause them to lash out at other bands. These are some of the most heated disputes and beefs in rock history and let me tell you, it’s not always pretty.
1.) Smashing Pumpkins vs. Pavement
Pavement’s tune, “Range Life” has some choice lyrics about The Smashing Pumpkins. When Bill Corgan, The Smashing Pumpkin’s frontman heard the lyrics he took offense and stating, “People don’t fall in love to Pavement … they put on Smashing Pumpkins or Hole or Nirvana, because these bands actually mean something to them.” Boom, roasted!
2.) Blur vs. Oasis
This rivalry took to the charts at one point in a battle for supremacy. These two bands released singles on the same day in order to prove once and for all who would be the victor (Blur). Oasis’ singer, Noel Gallagher once also famously stated that he wished The members of Blur would, “get AIDS and die.” Harsh.
3.) Guns n’ Roses vs. Nirvana
Axl Rose has been known to have some temper issues and when Nirvana declined their invitation to tour with Guns n’ Roses, Axl felt slighted. Additionally, Cobain said that he thought Guns n’ Roses wrote, “crap music.” Rose didn’t take too kindly to these words, repeatedly threatening Cobain and challenging him to fights numerous times.
4.) Paul McCartney vs. Michael Jackson
In 1985, when The Beatles’ back catalog rights were up for auction, there was a fierce bidding duel between these two. Jackson eventually outbid McCartney, who then felt slighted by the king of pop. He also was peeved when Jackson allowed Nike to use their song, “Revolution” for an ad, which was the first time a Beatles song had been used in an ad.
5.) Arcade Fire vs. The Flaming Lips
These two indie rock giants had it out for each other when Flaming Lips frontman, Wayne Coyne, said this of Arcade Fire, “They have good tunes, but they’re pricks, so f*** em.” He claimed to have seen Arcade Fire treat their roadies poorly and be rude to their audiences. Butler shot back that the Flaming Lips “don’t know” anyone in his band, and eventually, Coyne apologized for the incident, and even admitted, “I like enough of their music.”
6.) Guns n’ Roses vs. Poison
Axl Rose had stated that Poison was a bunch of wannabes and have even crashed their concerts. Poison did once intimidate and threaten one of Guns N’ Roses’ publicists – one of their female publicists – at an L.A. night club. This is one hell of a rivalry.
7.) Kiss vs. Santana
Carlos Santana had some not so kind words for the band that just wants to rock all night and party every day. In 2005, Santana said of Gene Simmons, frontman of Kiss, “He’s not a musician, he’s an entertainer. KISS is Las Vegas entertainment, so he wouldn’t know what music is anyway. That’s why he wears all that stuff.” Ouch!
8.) Jack White vs. The Von Bondies
Oh boy. This one actually got violent. Once a major supporter of the Detroit garage rockers, White helped get the Von Bondies signed and produced their first record. However, things turned sour when Jack and Jason got into a physical altercation. White held his tongue on the Stollsteimer (The Von Bondies singer) issue for many months before claiming that the singer exploited the injuries from the bar fight in order to help the band’s album sales.
Music can be so much more than just a few people playing instruments, it has real passion and sometimes passion gets the best of us. (Now that’s how rock ‘n roll should be.) Share this post if you’re a fan of any of these bands.
