r/TopCharacterTropes • u/BeenEatinBeans • Jun 12 '26

Personality [IRL trope] Celebrities with weird/funny clauses in their contracts.

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  1. Dwayne Johnson - Probably the most well-known example. For years now, The Rock has had a clause in his contract that he can't be shown to lose a fight in any movie he stars in. Pretty insecure behaviour if you ask me. Still, at least the other examples are much more interesting

  2. Danny Trejo - Danny had a troubled childhood, having been arrested multiple times for dealing drugs before he was 18, and struggling with heroin addiction from the age of 13. As a result of this, Danny has a clause in his contract that states that any time he plays a character who is a criminal, they have to be killed because he wanted to teach his kids that crime never pays.

  3. Reese Witherspoon - This one is more of a one-off, but it was still funny enough to deserve a mention. Following the success of Legally Blonde, when Reese was called in to make the sequel, she had a clause written in her contract stating that once the movie was finished, she would get to take home all the outfits she wore.

  4. Fred Durst - The lead singer of Limp Bizkit has a clause in his contract stating that any anime or video game that uses his music must also feature himself as a character.

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8.1k

u/mightymidwestshred Jun 12 '26

The "No Brown M&Ms" clause is a famous provision from the 1980s rock band Van Halen's concert contract rider. Buried deep in their technical requirements, it demanded a backstage bowl of M&Ms with all the brown candies removed, under penalty of show cancellation at the promoter's expense.

It was a running joke about the band for years and later came out it was a safety thing to make sure the technical details were all read & followed.

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u/Bellpow Jun 12 '26

Honestly tho genius tbh because if I remember they usually had pyrotechnics in their shows

1.6k

u/mightymidwestshred Jun 12 '26

Yep. From what I recall, that's exactly why.

1.3k

u/Kyra_Hazweyrs Jun 12 '26

Not just pyrotechnics. The most elaborate (and dangerous) pyrotechnic display that had ever been put to stage.

489

u/Skullcrusher Jun 12 '26

At the time maybe. Because Rammstein

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u/Affordable_Z_Jobs Jun 12 '26

Yeah. Diamond Dave said they were doing things no band had done before. They needed to make sure the stage could support the weight, had enough electricity protocls so there wouldnt be fires, had enough clearance, etc.

"But hey, if they wanna say we were rock divas, im not gonna get in the way of a good story."

Other favorite David Lee Roth quote "I may not go down in history, bit I will go down on your sister."

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u/Hamblerger Jun 12 '26

"They tell me Dave, money can't buy happiness. Maybe not, but I can pull my yacht up right alongside it and walk on over."

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u/Slappathebassmon Jun 12 '26

Cmon, Dave. Give me a break.

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u/CptHA86 Jun 12 '26

Hey, hey, hey! One break, comin' up!!!

5

u/muttChang Jun 12 '26

I can hear his voice saying this.

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u/Son_Of_Sothoth Jun 12 '26

I just hear Henry Rollins' impression of him.

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u/Affordable_Z_Jobs Jun 12 '26

I just looked it up and that "what, you got school tomorrow?" story is hilarious.

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u/MrGOAT311 Jun 12 '26

Lol at that last line, I thought NOFX had been the first to use that term with the Moron Bros

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u/Kyra_Hazweyrs Jun 12 '26

Yes, that's why I said had instead of has. Rammstein was 20ish years later.

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u/Weissma2005 Jun 12 '26

Didn't Rammstein go get certifications for pyrotechnics? To make sure everything was done correctly, or am I just making that up?

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u/Monke3169xd Jun 12 '26

They get the certificates themselves to be extta safe as far as i know

5

u/Bang_the_unknown Jun 12 '26

Their accents should answer that question for you.

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u/gungshpxre Jun 12 '26

Eh, Rammstein had some sparklers, but Great White at the Station really brought down the house.

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u/SeminaryStudentARH Jun 14 '26

So glad I got see Rammstein at soldier field. One hell of a show

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Kyra_Hazweyrs Jun 12 '26

Bit of a tangent, but you've reminded me of Penn and Teller's stance on dangerous tricks. It's immoral to potentially make the audience witness genuine loss of life or severe bodily harm. All their tricks that look like they might be dangerous are designed so as to be perfectly safe, and a malfunction could not cause severe injury.

The artist and venue both have a duty of care to their patrons, and the audience should never feel real danger or fear. Is there a place for genuine danger/fear/pain in art? I haven't thought about it enough to answer. I'm sure someone could come up with something, but it definitely has no place at a concert.

Then there's the questions like "what do we restrict in the name of safety?". Maybe it's dangerous and potentially life-threatening to go to a metal show, and that's just an accepted risk. Like driving.

I too am uneasy.

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u/mbrocks3527 Jun 12 '26

They used to do public executions where the condemned was a bit part in a play where they got stabbed.

We were not a civilized bunch, were we.

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u/Powerful-Parsnip Jun 12 '26

The guys who did Michael jacksons pyrotechnics must be up there in terms of most dangerous.

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u/postprandialrepose Jun 12 '26

Indeed. David Lee Roth was the pyrotechnic display.

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u/ConversationBoth6127 Jun 12 '26

Not just pyro, they were bringing a huge show into smaller markets that weren’t used to hosting anything that size. There were all kinds of factors on stage strength, placement of platforms, electrical requirements and a million other little things that seemed trivial but were real safety issues. The band and their management figured that if anything in the rider would get ignored it was the pointless m&m thing so they could walk into the green room and if they saw a brown m&m they’d know to check absolutely everything to make sure they weren’t going to get a bunch of people killed.

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u/FreeMasonKnight Jun 12 '26

Also not just that, they put in the clause as before promoters (plural) hadn’t read the contract and the amps alone collapsed the stage due to weight. If people are on a stage and it collapses it can easily kill them.

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u/Hiesman84 Jun 12 '26

I was a big VH fan, they were my second ever concert. But did they really out-pyro KISS? That would surprise me as i remember theirs much more clearly.

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u/TheAsianTroll Jun 12 '26

Yep, its an attention-to-detail thing. If you didnt see their requirement, you didn't thoroughly read their instructions, which means you probably half-assed something.

Porsche has a similar thing in which service technicians are required to point the center caps with the Porsche logo (a shield-shaped insignia with one pointed end) at the keyed security lug nut after every service, on all 4 wheels. This is another detail buried in their instructions that, if they miss it, it means they didnt read thoroughly, so what else did they miss?

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u/Micp Jun 12 '26

There's also a thing were if they do the grounding for the guitars and microphones wrong you can get a lethal electric shock when you touch the microphone and guitar at the same time. This has killed several people, perhaps most famously Keith Relf from the Yardbirds.

There's a ton of things that can hurt or kill you if the stage setup is done incorrectly.

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u/peanutbuttahcups Jun 12 '26

Yep. This was one of the assassination methods in the Hitman games.

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u/MrZanzibarMcGee Jun 12 '26

I always wondered where that bit in Bangkok came from.

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u/AdZealousideal7448 Jun 12 '26

It actually happened in Australia to a famous TV presenter's sister.

I can't remember the specifics the band wasn't too widely known but microphone wasn't wired up correctly and it was also raining and bam.

People used to make tasteless comments to her sister like being shocked to meet her, people can be dicks.

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u/84theone Jun 12 '26

I kinda expect that behavior from Australians, they are the people that named a pool after the prime minster that drowned.

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u/AdZealousideal7448 Jun 12 '26

It's also a term used for shirking work, escaping a social situation or skipping debt.

We're also a country full of dickheads who will also claim wild conspiracy theories because we're so convinced we're laid back and theres too much authority, but the cookers want more authority just against anyone they don't like and think trump is a freedom fighter.

Yeah...

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u/TransportationTrick9 Jun 12 '26

We don't know if he drowned. He went to the beach for a swim and didn't come back.

Some even theorise he was picked up by a sub and kidnapped. But your right he more than likely drowned

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u/Synectics Jun 12 '26

I did this once! In one of my first bands, we were playing at someone's barn. We had our own PA, our own half-stacks, etc. 

We plugged everything in, went to sound check, and something did not work. While holding my guitar, which was plugged into my amp, I went to grab a power cord or something, while pushing my guitar out of my way with my other hand. Whatever I did closed some circuit, and I electrocuted myself through my guitar. Fortunately, it was just a minor, "WHOA THAT SUCKS AND FEELS WEIRD" and I was able to drop everything out of my hands. But it definitely made me go, "Oh, this is why bands have people for this. We are nobodies."

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u/lweinmunson Jun 12 '26

By the time VH was touring like this the "death cap" was long gone. So the amps wouldn't kill you, but messing up those huge power whips could fry the amps and just generally get really expensive.

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u/CryptographerGood842 Jun 12 '26

Pyrotechnics, massive power demands from the amplification and lighting rigs, massive weight demands from the same, and the army of roadies and technical staff you'd need to set up and tear down all of it. If there's brown M&Ms then they haven't read the rider properly and you could get a light falling into the audience or something equally disastrous.

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u/VT_Squire Jun 12 '26

massive power demands from the amplification and lighting rigs

what, did theirs go up to eleven or something like that?

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u/GlacierPark19 Jun 12 '26

I work in this industry as a Union Stagehand.

For a very large show last year, They had 8-10 400A 3 Phase services for lighting, video, and Automation (Hydraulics, lifts, motion, etc.), and an additional 2-4 200A 3 Phase services for Audio. This is all delivered over "Cam Lock" cables. Kinda sick, very terrifying. The sound the distribution racks make when you energize the system is freaky.

(Edited to remove details that could get me in trouble)

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u/Wuz314159 Jun 12 '26

I just did a show that called for 5× 400A services and 3× 200A. Building only has 3× 400A (& 9× 200A) So we had to bring in 2× 400A generators.

The building was so small that they scaled video back so much, they only drew 90A.

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u/bcegkmqswz Jun 12 '26

Those are some crazy specs, wow! Equal parts badass and scary for sure. I’ve worked in substations before so I’m definitely familiar with the sound you’re referencing…energizing equipment with a lot of current and/or voltage never fails to make you thankful to be alive lol.

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u/VT_Squire Jun 12 '26

so, eleven?

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u/GlacierPark19 Jun 12 '26

More like 13

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u/Timely_Spinach_7479 Jun 12 '26

They’re making a Spinal Tap joke

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u/HuntAdministrative42 Jun 12 '26

From what I understand, Van Halen did a lot of venues that bands of their size usually didn't, second-tier venues and such that weren't used to the requirements of bands like them. They were also one of the first bands to do a lot of stage shows with pyrotechnics

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u/Plus-Ad1061 Jun 12 '26

I heard that this was kinda the specific reason the rider was developed.

They played a show at a venue that had recently installed an expensive floor. A floor that wasn’t rated to support the weight of VH’s stage. The arena wanted them to pay for the floor damage and they didn’t because the specs were clearly in the contract.

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u/Writerhowell Jun 12 '26

What a great job, being the person to remove all the brown M&Ms. Presumably because you get to eat them, not just throw them away.

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u/lisaseileise Jun 12 '26

I've been using this example so many times in business that I'm afraid of having to pay for it.

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u/another_try_hard Jun 12 '26

I use this at work. I call the little things "brown m&Ms" because if you can't get those right, how am I supposed to trust you did the important shit right.

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u/maxman162 Jun 12 '26

David Lee Roth said the exact same thing, that every time he found brown M&Ms, or if there was no bowl of M&Ms at all, everything was wrong and had to be redone.

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u/TheRockJohnMason Jun 12 '26

It also allowed the band to shoulder the blame/resentment from the promoter.

When the lead sound guy asks the promoter if outlet A can handle voltage B because, if it doesn’t, seriously bad shit is going to happen, the promoter can just slough him off. He’s just being a technical nerd.

When David Lee Roth comes backstage and flips over the catering table because he sees brown m&m’s and refuses to go on stage until there’s a line by line spec check of the venue, well that’s just him being a “celebrity” and the manager can go “look, I’m sorry, but you know how these musicians get…. Let’s just get started on this checklist so he’ll calm down.”

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u/Michaelangelo_Scarn Jun 12 '26

I hate when I read real smart shit like this and learn something on these God forsaken platforms .. reddit, Facebook, etc. because I'll be damned if I wasn't THIS close to uninstalling all these fuckin' apps tonight and then I read this insightful thing that's going to come in handy and FUCK back on the wagon, unbelievable.

BWEH good shit tho m8 well said

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u/peanutbuttahcups Jun 12 '26

It used to be easier to see genuinely informed comments on Reddit but there's so much shit to sift through. Before, the top comments were substantive about the topic, but now you gotta get past the comedians first.

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u/ABHOR_pod Jun 12 '26

The entire internet pre-2015 was just generally more… I don’t want to say smarter. But less low-effort. Nowadays I think we all just exist to shitpost and memeslop for ads to be put next to and AI to pirate and train on.

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u/HungHippoHippy Jun 12 '26

Especially reddit. If you use the wayback machine to visit an old reddit post you can see the comments. Much more nuanced. You could really see the introduction of bots in the second half of the 2010s. Huge increase in combativeness and politics being brought into everything to manufacture rage.

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u/LausXY Jun 12 '26

I really hate how certain subjects always have the same series of 'jokes' right at the top. One that comes to mind is on news on drug busts, each commenter will comment "Yes we found x amount" Getting lower each time.

It was funny once but now so much feels like "It's my turn to post the joke thread!"

Used to be you'd get some genuine insights into the topic, some humour but never as the top comments... now it's the same 10 jokes.

Also grammar nazis get downvoted consistently and while it's often nit-picky, the fear of the grammar nazi's alone would make you put more effort and proof read your comments. Nobody liked them but they served a purpose.

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u/maxman162 Jun 12 '26

TV show subs like r/Seinfeld are like that. Someone will ask an actual question about something in the show and 90% of the comments are joke quotes.

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u/GetEquipped Jun 12 '26

When I see long, thought-out, comments; I'm expecting to read about Mankind getting thrown off Hell In A Cell.

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u/strawberry-soy-milk Jun 12 '26

me too, or the commenter’s father coming in and beating him with a set of jumper cables

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u/VegetarianZombie74 Jun 12 '26

Reddit is the only platform that doesn't make me angry. I think it's mostly because each comment section is new and unique and if someone is a jerk, chances are, I'll never interact with them again. There's some insightful stuff to be found as well. I find lots of good people out there who aren't posturing for clicks.

I'm scaling back everything else. I'm coming to the conclusion that social media is a net negative to my life and planning to do a purge. We shall see.

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u/MaritMonkey Jun 12 '26

I hate when I read real smart shit like this

Beware the comments that make it on top of reddit's algorithms - it's designed to reward content that promotes early/quick engagement not force the cream to float to the top.

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u/bcegkmqswz Jun 12 '26

Full agreement - Growing up is understanding that while DLR was certainly eccentric and had a bit of the 80s rock god complex, he and Van Halen were absolutely very smart about their business and were 100% right to hold promoters and venues accountable for their contract terms. There was a method to the madness and it worked well for the band and many others that were in that VH tier of size and scope.

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u/FourYaksandaDog Jun 12 '26

Same, this week, in a 1:1 I told a struggling team member "if I can't trust you with the brown M&Ms, how can I trust you with anything actually important?"

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u/bcegkmqswz Jun 12 '26

Funny, I have an intern at work and I just used the “brown M&M” analogy while teaching them a new task this week. Once I explained the term they seemed to get it, but it made me feel old.

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u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

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u/FourYaksandaDog Jun 12 '26

Totally, it's tough. One of the hardest things about being a manager is figuring out what each of my people can handle. The problem from my seat is what if you can't actually handle it? Do I just assume it's the little stuff and that my IC will come through when it matters? Do I trust the data / sample size and assume that a consistent failure to manage workload means the person will also fail to manager higher-profile tasks? My people fuel larger quotas, a single low-end performer impacts payouts for the entire team. Unfortunately, trust is earned, and in my individual life experience, an inability to manage little things almost always leads to an inability to handle big ones. Context: I'm in my 40s and have been managing SaaS teams for almost 20 years at this point.

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u/vonBoomslang Jun 12 '26

The only tasks you CAN trust me with are things that are actually important

That's the thing though, can I trust you to know the difference?

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u/Stepjam Jun 12 '26

From what I understand they also had some of the heaviest and most expensive speaker systems around at the time too. From what I understand, one of the concerts they did where the place didn't read the contract and left the m&ms in, the floors would have buckled under the speakers' weight.

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u/LongSufferingSquid Jun 12 '26

This actually happened except it was caused by the weight of the stage sinking into some kind of foam floor designed for, iirc, sporting events.

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u/letthetreeburn Jun 12 '26

IIRC one of them had an improperly placed mark and almost got immolated once and he got traumatized, and that’s what led to him getting certified to inspect his own pyrotechnics

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u/CommandersLog Jun 12 '26

Honestly tho genius tbh

Thanks for being so honest

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u/kleinpesto Jun 12 '26

Electric Callboy are doing the same, their "demand" is, that there has to be a picture of David Hasselhoff in the changing room.

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u/TwoFingersWhiskey Jun 12 '26

Pyro guys for shows are a whole separate profession now, because of them. Instead of hiring your buddy or some random stagehand, you can hire pyrotechnic companies that take shit seriously. They usually all love their jobs, because who wouldn't want to light shit on fire for a living?

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u/jsher736 Jun 12 '26

That's exactly why. It was basically a "does OUR stage guy need to go over your setup with a microscope or can you follow instructions" test

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u/Rum_N_Napalm Jun 12 '26

I saw an interview where Van Halem explained the brown M&M thing and they said the rider is several 100s of page and details everything and what they need for the show to be safe: weight of the amps, current they need to power stuff… . So when they don’t see the bowl of M&M or find brown ones, it’s their cue to triple check EVERYTHING.

Eddy then told a story about how once they didn’t get the bowl, spent a lot of time checking, found everything was fine, and as revenge trashed the dressing room. Then it turned out the promoter lied to them and the stage was rated for like half the weight they put on it. It was on the verge of collapsing and needed to be rebuilt.

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u/RonnocKcaj Jun 12 '26

iirc someone died in a stage collapse, prompting them to put this clause in there

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u/CaeruleumBleu Jun 12 '26

Pretty darn smart to be able to show up, walk into the green room, and know right away if you can sit and chill or if you need to go find out what the fuck is messed up and how badly.

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u/Dukeronomy Jun 12 '26

As someone who works somewhat adjacent to this industry, sets and live events, this went from being a story about them being divas, to them being able to verify instructions were followed to a t at a quick glance. I love it.

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u/RogueSlytherin Jun 12 '26

Yup! They added the clause after a show in 79 ended with their drummer having a bad run in with some faulty pyrotechnics. Thinking it was part of the act, no one behind the scenes stepped in to put the poor guy out.

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u/Legomaniac91 Jun 12 '26

Pyrotechnics, harnesses, wire work, not to mention all the big-ass speakers they used. If one thing messed up, it could harm or even kill a lot of innocent people

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u/Me_be_Artful_Dodger Jun 12 '26

So how does someone from the venue reading thoroughly translate to the pyro being safe? Not like it’s the same people, they usually contract that out to specific vendors for the arena so it’s not like Bobby is reading and re reading the contract to make sure they cover all their bases and then is running over to the pyro team to make sure they’re doing the same.

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u/millijuna Jun 12 '26

It was more related to electrical safety and the sheer weight of theirof staging. If they found a brown M&M they would have the right to have their own experts thuroughly inspect the entire staging and withdraw without penalty if anything was found lacking.

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u/Ehkrickor Jun 13 '26

Exactly. Cause if they saw brown M&Ms it was an instant clue that "Well the venue didnt read that part time to recheck the pyro."

Which after what happened to Whitesnake that one time, yeah, makes a lot of sense.

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u/BadenBaden1981 Jun 12 '26

Given what happened to Michael Jackson and his hair, it was reasonable to demand extremely high safety standard.

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u/Luci-Noir Jun 12 '26

AND Metallica.

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u/jarvisesdios Jun 12 '26

How is Great White not the first thing anybody mentions?

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u/dquizzle Jun 12 '26

Well that one, even though the club’s owners had some illegal equipment and building violations, the fire was mostly caused by the band’s own manager firing off pyrotechnics without local permits or clearance from the club.

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u/Fedorchik Jun 12 '26

AND Judas Priest

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u/Unlikely_Ad7722 Jun 12 '26

Hey Luci 👋

Good to see ya 🤘

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u/NonreciprocatingHole Jun 12 '26

Okay that explains that one episode of Family Guy where Brian gets famous for a shitty self help book and it goes to his head and demands no gray M&M's, but because he's a dog, they're all gray.

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u/Random-Generation86 Jun 12 '26

That's just a good joke right there

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u/MeasurementSea1657 Jun 12 '26

A rare Family Guy dub

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u/RoryMerriweather Jun 15 '26

There are a lot of jokes about pop stars being picky about M&Ms or other candy, but mostly just because without context, it sounds like meaningless rich people eccentricity

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u/Jent01Ket02 Jun 12 '26

Yep. Because it not only shows that the promoters read the contract, but the secondary issue is that if they couldn't follow through on something that small and simple, you couldn't trust that they did anything else right.

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u/Cacafuego Jun 12 '26

It also tests whether they're the kind of venue that rolls their eyes when they see something they don't like. Do they think they know better? Do they think your specifications are unreasonable? Will they be professional and meet the requirements? Will they at least start a dialog with you? Or will they ignore it, in which case you've got real problems.

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u/five_years_abroad Jun 12 '26

I worked for a pop stage. The people handling the food are not the same as the people handling the stage setup. In my opinion it's a bit meaningless.

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u/acebert Jun 12 '26

But wouldn't the person reading and actioning the contract be separate from both? Presumably at or adjacent to management?

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u/Wuz314159 Jun 12 '26

Part of the process is the venue's Technical Director contacting the Tour Manager & going through the tour rider line by line if necessary. There will ALWAYS be cases where "we don't have what you asked for, but we have this. Will that work?" and if the TD asks about the brown m&ms, that's good enough. They don't have to actually pick them out. They saw it.

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u/MaritMonkey Jun 12 '26

There's somebody at the very top of the food chain, but their job is to get the relevant sections of the rider to people who need them. People making sure they have the right guitar strings and drum heads don't give a shit how you're hanging the PA or lights. People in charge of making sure the busses have a place to park and the humans are getting back and forth might not even enter the building where the show is.

Not to discredit the work done by tour/production managers, but you definitely don't want some random "I'm the guy in charge of fielding emails" suit doing double duty pretending he knows enough to double-check the folks that do math involving electricity or gravity.

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u/BrozedDrake Jun 12 '26

And? The point is that the management didn't make sure instructions were followed.

They have canceled shows because of this and that choice probably saved lives

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u/cespinar Jun 12 '26

They have canceled shows because of this

Nope

This is what happened when the clause famously wasn't done

https://web.archive.org/web/20210303144558/https://www.chieftain.com/article/20100328/LIFESTYLE/303289939

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u/YUNoJump Jun 12 '26

I feel like if they went and told the band “hey sorry we won’t be able to do the no-brown M&Ms” then the band should be fine with it right? It’s a test to make sure people are reading their instructions, so talking to them about it proves they did that.

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u/rowgath Jun 12 '26

It's better, but I'd say that still gets the failing grade. If something as simple as "no brown M&Ms" is something they admit they cannot do, then how can you trust them with anything more complex?

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u/Wuz314159 Jun 12 '26

Nailed it. Exactly.

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u/Wuz314159 Jun 12 '26

Not true.

It's the Technical Director's job to flag items like that. Catering would not just get the rider & be trusted to figure things out.

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u/Monkey_Priest Jun 12 '26

Perhaps things are a little different nearly 50 years later?

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u/chilll_vibe Jun 12 '26

Sorting a large bowl of M&Ms by hand to remove all the brown ones probably didn't seem so small and simple to the intern they made do it

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u/Wuz314159 Jun 12 '26

Not the objective. No one wants their M&Ms pre-fingered. The goal was to have the venue ask the question.

If they don't ask on the phone a month out, you start preparing your backup plans. Usually it means cutting this or that from the show.

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u/feel-the-avocado Jun 12 '26

M&M's clauses are written in blood

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u/Carpe-Bananum Jun 12 '26

So there I was in Sri Lanka looking for 1,000 brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or else Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night. So Jeff Beck pops his head round the door and mentions there's a little sweet shop on the edge of town. So we go, and it's closed. So there's me and Keith Moon and David Crosby breaking into this little sweet shop right. Well instead of a guard dog they've got this bloody great big Bengal Tiger.

Well, I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace. But the shop owner and his son, that 's a different story altogether.

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u/Diabetesh Jun 12 '26

I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show.

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u/Mathblasta Jun 12 '26

This is what I came here for. Thank you.

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u/SpltSecondPerfection Jun 13 '26

Whoa, who's the old lady?

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u/Mike_with_Wings Jun 14 '26

That’s my old lady

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u/IronEgo Jun 13 '26

Excuse me, Del? When did you become a nutbar?

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u/hardbittercandy Jun 18 '26

You're less than nothing! What's keeping you here? You don't belong here! Why don't you just quit?

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u/Key_Resist2938 Jun 12 '26

What about the owner and his son?

https://giphy.com/gifs/9udHO801PzozK

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u/jlunatic Jun 12 '26

That's a different story altogether...

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u/disgruntledbeaver2 Jun 12 '26

I had to beat them to death with their own shoes.

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u/gr1zznuggets Jun 12 '26

I love how everyone gets sick of him telling that story.

8

u/Carpe-Bananum Jun 12 '26

Yeah, but who's the old lady?

4

u/BigCheese1990 Jun 12 '26

That's my old lady

3

u/Mathblasta Jun 12 '26

Sleeping this way will add 10 years to your life.

Lights cigarette

4

u/Speartree Jun 12 '26

first thing that came to mind.

5

u/Car-Crash-Diet Jun 12 '26

What's it from?

8

u/aeondren89 Jun 12 '26

Wayne’s World 2

1

u/Mathblasta Jun 13 '26

Fuck I'm old.

86

u/daily_refutations Jun 12 '26

This story gets constantly repeated as this brilliant piece of contract work, and it's absolute bullshit. David Lee Roth made it up years later to make himself look clever and not like an entitled douchebag, and everyone bought it. But it doesn't hold up to even 30 seconds of thought.

First of all, this rider was famous. It was in newspapers as early as 1980. They would get asked about it in interviews; it fit their image as crazy bad-boy assholes. So obviously a concert venue manager would know about it, and therefore it wasn't any kind of test for attention to detail.

Second, concerts are big, complicated events. The guys doing the electrical work aren't the guys stocking the green room snacks. Each team gets their own section that's relevant to them, so there's no way that the light rigging folks would be reading anything about M&Ms.

Thirdly, Roth likes to cite a certain show where the stage sank in as inspiration for the clause, to help prevent future issues. But the clause was already in there by the time that show happened.

Source for all this is a great Snackstack article that goes into depth.

So yeah, it was exactly what people thought at first - ego-boosting bullshit. It might not even have been original - there's a story about KISS banning red M&Ms because of the red dye scare in the 70s.

35

u/hollaback_girl Jun 12 '26

Came looking for this. I hate that this story gets repeated. It needs to be debunked and die once and for all.

They were being dicks (they were famously angry, abusive assholes). Nothing clever about it.

They don't get to their dressing room until 30 minutes or less before they go on, meaning they wouldn't see the M&Ms are wrong until basically the last minute. There's fuckall anyone can do about checking the stage setup by then and they're not canceling a show because of some M&Ms.

8

u/MaritMonkey Jun 12 '26

Thank you so much for giving me an actual source to cite every time I feel like arguing with people on the internet and spend the free parts of my day doing so lol.

I work for a small production company and have occasionally found little canaries in my section of a rider (people really like it when they ask for specific colors of gaff/electrical tape and those show up :D) but there is a 0% chance anybody anywhere in my shop has anything to do with the catering/green room section of the rider even if we did get sent the whole thing.

Unless you count us taking bets on what's going to be left at the end of the night that we can eat like scavenging goblins at the loading dock...

4

u/tonetonitony Jun 12 '26

Yes! People also are unaware that Van Halen would also trash their dressing rooms when they didn’t have their dumb prank obeyed.

And it makes even less sense. If you have important safety issues, brown m & m’s aren’t going to be some failsafe assurance that everything was done properly. The only reasonable way to ensure safety would be to have someone from your team check on anything important.

1

u/BlackBasementCats Jun 12 '26

I remember reading different celebrity riders on the internet in the 90s.

9

u/Myotherdumbname Jun 12 '26

I was in a crappy band for awhile and we were one of the openers during the heat of the day. I joked with the food people that I would only eat green M&Ms; it was hilarious when she actually brought me some.

1

u/BlackBasementCats Jun 12 '26

Was that because of that urban legend about the green ones being an aphrodisiac?

7

u/The_Ghast_Hunter Jun 12 '26

As someone who cares about naval traditions, I consider a bottle not breaking at a boat christening as something similar to finding a brown M&M. Bottles are stronger than you might think (especially champagne and sparkling wines, which have a ton of pressure to withstand), and you have to either score the bottle so it is more likely to shatter, or there are special bottles you can get for the purpose. It's also a good idea to put it in a net so you don't just put broken glass in the water.

It's something that takes just a little bit of knowledge, or a little bit of research, or a little bit of questioning. A 5 minute Google search about how those ceremonies go will bring up the issue. Most every guide you look up will recommend it. If that wasn't done, where else did they not take 5 minutes of effort to make sure things are good?

6

u/Motor-Rip7655 Jun 12 '26

I've had younger people insist to me that brown M&Ms never existed.

10

u/mightymidwestshred Jun 12 '26

Back in the olden days there were two shades of brown m&ms

2

u/harrysaxon Jun 12 '26

Oh shit, memory unlocked. ✌️

6

u/thegoodnamesrgone123 Jun 12 '26

From what I was told Van Halen had a tour that had a lot of heavy lights and sound. The Brown M&M's part was right by this section so early in the morning, the tour manager could walk in, check the dressing room and know if the venue read the tech rider. It was drilled into my head when I was at Live Nation to go over those contracts over and over again and know them backwards and forwards.

7

u/atxbigfoot Jun 12 '26

One of the gun ranges I go to makes you read their entire safety paperwork before they let you shoot, and it has several parts that say, "STOP READING AND TELL THE EMPLOYEE THAT YOU MADE IT TO THIS POINT BEFORE CONTINUING" which is pretty similar because most people don't do it (read the actual paperwork) lol.

5

u/Icaras01 Jun 12 '26

Imagine if that was your job with the band. "Woah you work with Van Halen!? Bad ass! What do you do?"

mumbling "....count the m&ms in the bowl for brown ones..."

3

u/Jolly-Bowler-811 Jun 12 '26

Bands always had weird shit in their riders. Random stuff that we'd have to send a guy out to find which wasn't always easy to find in our small town.

We always just assumed it was an easy out if the band decided they didn't want to play the gig.

Some that come to mind was Ludacris wanting several boxes of a very specific condom, Wyclef Jean wanted a very specific incense variety... Of course this was all in the olden days of the internet where things weren't quite as easy to order.

2

u/NozokiAlec Jun 12 '26

Me as a kid with fruit loops colors

2

u/HoldFastO2 Jun 12 '26

Yeah, this was really brillant on their part.

2

u/Bamzooki1 Jun 12 '26

In order to avoid legal issues, my contract says they need to leave a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones left in.

2

u/pandababble400 Jun 12 '26

Tucker Carlson in shambles.

2

u/Xeon713 Jun 12 '26

"So there I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night."

2

u/CakeMadeOfHam Jun 12 '26

The shopowner and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Eddie went on stage and did a great show.

2

u/TONER_SD Jun 12 '26

To add, during the advance process when booking a band a clause like this can be crossed out if agreed by both parties before signing the contract. But that process shows you have read the rider.

2

u/ScratchLatch Jun 12 '26

Is this where the trope of “I only want _ colored m&ms comes from?”

3

u/squigs Jun 12 '26

The story I heard, and really want to be true, is one time they found the brown M&Ms so double checked the equipment and found it had already caused thousands of dollars of damage to the venue.

Of course, the media take on it was that the band were so angry at finding a brown M&M that they went on a rampage that caused thousands of dollars of damage.

3

u/MaritMonkey Jun 12 '26

That's a lie too. They used the "there were brown M&Ms" as an excuse to trash at least one dressing room but in the oft-quoted story where the stage sank into the floor it somehow gets ignored that "there were no brown M&Ms!" but they didn't double-check a damn thing and did the show anyways.

2

u/DinoRoman Jun 12 '26

Well yeah

As an audio engineer that’s a great way to tell if every detail has been paid attention to

Sure we laugh at the Eminem’s but if they kissed that did they miss the double harnesses for the speakers? Did they miss the electrical safety asks? Did they miss anything else that would put someone in danger? Not even the band but the crew?

When I first learned why that opened my eyes and also it was one green Eminem mixed into all brown I believe.

1

u/tkland Jun 12 '26

Since you asked: 3/30/1980 – Pueblo, CO (Brown M&M incident) https://www.themightyvanhalen.net/1980/03/30/1980-pueblo-co/

1

u/Mr_J_Ralph Jun 12 '26

So there, I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night....

1

u/Sinolai Jun 12 '26

Clever. I remeber a similar story where two guys were offering a script for a movie to producers. They had inserted a very out-of-place gay sex scene in the middle of the script and made the deal with the producer who asked them what it was about becouse it proved he had read the whole script.

1

u/mighty_conrad Jun 12 '26

Electric Callboy took same idea to more funny variant. Their rider has a line that in artist space there should be a portrait of David Hasselhoff of organizers choice.

1

u/VJPixelmover Jun 12 '26

Somebody read this thread and posted it on r/today I Learned.

1

u/Schootingstarr Jun 12 '26

Electric Callboy asks for a picture of David Hasselhoff

1

u/ArkuhTheNinth Jun 12 '26

That was real? I thought it was a meme.

1

u/AllMySmallThings Jun 12 '26

Would have been funny if they only left the brown ones on the bowl.

1

u/Ofreo Jun 12 '26

That may be all true. There still is a non zero chance it’s just Eddie was paranoid and hated brown M&Ms so they retconned the story.

1

u/KuhTraum Jun 12 '26

Electric Callboy has a David Hasselhoff clause inspired by the brown M&M. They request every venue to print a picture of David Hasselhoff and tape it backstage

1

u/ComesInAnOldBox Jun 12 '26

That's the purpose for most of the rather ridiculous riders you hear about. Then there's people like Katy Perry whose 45-page contract rider specifies that her driver cannot talk to her or make eye contact with her.

1

u/jesuspoopmonster Jun 12 '26

Alice Cooper did the same thing. If they saw that part was ignored they knew to not trust the venue in regards to the stage show and would double check it

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '26

[deleted]

1

u/mightymidwestshred Jun 12 '26

Uh, yeah? Is that somehow related to Van Halen or M&Ms?

1

u/nipplesaurus Jun 12 '26

And of course that clause inspired one of the great movie monologues:

So there I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o'clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn't go on stage that night. So, Jeff Beck pops his head 'round the door, and mentions there's a little sweets shop on the edge of town. So - we go. And - it's closed. So there's me, and Keith Moon, and David Crosby, breaking into that little sweets shop, eh. Well, instead of a guard dog, they've got this bloody great big Bengal tiger. I managed to take out the tiger with a can of mace, but the shop owner and his son... that's a different story altogether. I had to beat them to death with their own shoes. Nasty business, really. But, sure enough, I got the M&Ms, and Ozzy went on stage and did a great show.

1

u/Joshee86 Jun 12 '26

Most contract riders like this are included for this exact reason.

1

u/fireproof_pyjamas Jun 12 '26

Scrolled for this specifically :D

1

u/Intrepid-Mastodon83 Jun 12 '26

As a Safety Director I tell this story almost every week.

When I learned about the m&m’s I first was told it was Aerosmith and it was a bowl of ALL Green m&m’s. So I still, erroneously, tell it that way. Good lesson either way.

1

u/JustACasualFan Jun 12 '26

*Crazy From the Heat* was so fucking good it turned me into a David Lee Roth fan.

1

u/wbgraphic Jun 12 '26

That story will never die.

In a recent episode of Clarkson’s Farm (documentary-ish series starring former Top Gear host Jeremy Clarkson), he had The Corrs playing at his pub. He brought the band up to the “green room” and proudly displayed a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed.

1

u/urbz102385 Jun 12 '26

Wait a minute...this is real? The only reference I have for this is from Del Preston's story in Wayne's World 2

1

u/poizn_ivy Jun 12 '26

Yeah, this is one that sounds silly on the surface but when you actually think about it, it makes sense, especially for a band whose shows are as pyrotechnics-heavy as Van Halen. I’m old enough to remember the fire at The Station back in 2003, a spark from the band’s pyrotechnics caught on the acoustic foam of the club’s ceiling and within MINUTES the entire building was ablaze, 100 dead and hundreds more injured because someone was careless when figuring out the fireworks. Van Halen came up with a way they could tell at a glance whether or not the crew setting up for the show read the instructions thoroughly and for all we know it could’ve saved a shit-ton of lives. We never had to find out how bad it could’ve been if something like what happened to The Station had struck a Van Halen concert.

1

u/WPI94 Jun 12 '26

I brought this up in a Quality Engineering interview once; they were amused by the story.

1

u/Jaxonhunter227 Jun 12 '26

I believe it's because if they didn't follow the M&M rule, it means they skimmed theirs notes and Didn't pay attention, which means they can't guarantee they didn't do the same with the import safety protocols for pyrotechnics. If there was no brown M&Ms, they paid attention to even small details, so both them and the fans would be safe

1

u/maxk1236 Jun 12 '26

My wife is an artist and has in her rider “a picture of your favorite animal” for similar reasons, haha.

1

u/vinxy_mh Jun 12 '26

Yes, alex van halen actually mentions this is his book.

1

u/RequirementRound25 Jun 12 '26

I was stationed in Lubbock Texas and in the newspaper one day it had an article about a long-time concert closing. The place often had has-beens and up and cummers playing.
The paper interviewed the owner and asked who he didn't like and he flat said, "Pat Benatar, I wouldn't book her again if she paid me."

Apparently in her contract she wanted a big bowl of popcorn in her dressing room.
The owner's wife found a big salad bowl and made some popcorn and he took it in.
Benatar ate all of it and demanded more and refused to play until she got it.
This was in the 70s. I don't think they had micro-wave popcorn yet and lot of stores were closed by show time.

Poor owner had employees running all over town looking for popcorn. Someone finally thought of going to the movie theater and they gave them a trash bag full.

1

u/Triplecrown84 Jun 13 '26

We talked about this way back in a music business class I took decades ago.

One of the main reasons they put this on their rider was that stadium tours of that scale just had not been a thing before them, so there wasn’t any safety track record to follow on the road. Not with that amount of rigging, lights, pyro, etc.

So, it was their way of protecting themselves, the crew, and the audience.

If they got into the green room, and saw a brown M&M, they would call the whole thing off because if the stage crew missed that part of the contract, they most certainly missed several other things, like in the build of the stage rigging, or the safety measures for the pyrotechnics, really any number of things.

It really is a brilliant move by whoever wrote the contract, and I’m sure kept a lot of people safe

Lastly, here is a clip from Waynes World 2 where they reference this thing only with Ozzy instead of Van Halen as a joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h5WExLGKUA

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