Most down-to-earth musician

Here's an interesting question: given that they have made it, but most everyone has had a run in with a musician at a concert or a pub or hotel or whatnot, who is the most down to earth musician you've met?

Mine is a tie:
Cudd from Mudvayne- he's hilarious as hell, and not above asking people to bum a smoke. As a matter of fact, he tried bumming a light off a guy after a concert of theirs and the guy just gave him the lighter, so he had the fan autograph it. Now that's cool

Jason of Primer 55- saw him at Ozzfest, when he proceeded to go into the crowd and enjoy the other bands. When I saw him, he was tore up from a mosh pit and crashed the hell out next to me on the lawn, Drinking and just shooting the crap. I actually saw him and the band a few months later- attending a Disturbed show as fans. Even remembered me and bought me a beer. Classy as hell.

And the award for the worse goes to Scott Stapp of Creed. God, he is by far the most ego-inflated prick I've ever met in my life. I wanted to slap him so badly...

Mr. Stapp ego buster

[Edited on Feb 15, 2003 by dialated420]

Ian from Fugazi was one of the cooler people I have met.
Rollins was very cool once (we spoke about Van Halen), and another time he started to actually run away when my friend tried to talk to him.
William H. Macy was one of the coolest and most chill actors I have ever met. Totally cool.
Abel Fererrar was nice, but he also took about about half the bag of a certain something we were doing together--fiend! He doesn't share well. snif snif

Allison Wolfe talked to me after a Cold Cold Hearts show. I was asking her questions for an acquaintance's zine survey, but I also had a GI-GAN-TIC crush on her for years (still do, of course) so that was fun. For the record, her favorite robot is C3PO and her preferred method of her own execution would be the gallows (she seemed particularly excited at the prospect).

I talked to Chris Knox from New Zealand and a couple guys from The Lynnfield Pioneers at their show together.
Knox actually did artwork for a small magazine my friend was editing, and it's funny, he (Knox) seemed kinda intimidated by my friend's let-it-all-hang-out demeanor at the mag offices. Strange. Knox is very fun.

Dan and Mike from the Pioneers were very cool. I talked to one of 'em about getting into music myself, and he was very encouraging. When I mentioned their drummer, JP, really kicked ass (he really did) Dan agreed, and the way he spoke was with genuine love for JP.

You might think, "Well, the Lynnfield Pioneers wouldn't pull an ego trip; they're nobodies." First of all, no band is too small to have egos. Secondly, one of the gestures that touched me the most was when Mike offered, completely unsolicited, to share his nachos with me. What's the big deal about that? During their set, they mentioned they had several hellish hours getting to the show on I-95 cuz some idiot told them that DC was "only a couple hours" from North Carolina...so they basically drove all day, got in traffic around DC, probably hadn't had any food, and here they are offering me their nachos.

I never met him, but from what I've read I imagine Neil Young is a hell of a guy.

ian watkins of lostprophets is one of the coolest guys i've ever met, but then they're all awesome guys. watkins has a bad reputation, mainly thanks to certain people who try to tarnish his good name with filthy lies, but he's such a friendly guy, and we share the exact same sense of humour. hehe.
jonah matranga is possibly the nicest guy i've ever met though. no ego at all, just a lovely genuine down to earth guy, not to mention one of the finest singers of modern times. what a talent!

all the guys from afi are really sweet although now they are a lot harder to talk to with all the hype and stuff. it used to be a lot better.

sick of it all is another very down to earth band, at least from what i have seen and learned from them.

I actually got to hang out with Brody Armstrong of The Distillers( for those of you who dont know who she is, she is Tim Armstrong of Rancids wife) for a while, she was really awesome, we met her at a Dennys after a show in Denver. We were a little nervous to approach her, but me and my friend Drew, were quickly laughing our asses off at some of the stories she was telling us about the shit that happens at the shows. She even offered to buy our dinners. bad ass woman, bad ass band

Vinnie Paul from Pantera. One of the nicest men I've ever had the pleasure of conversating with.

Chris Martin from Coldplay is pretty down to earth. He and his bandmates don't seem to take themselves too seriously and despite success and acclaim in a number of countries, they're genuinely humbled by fan reactions at their shows and they enjoy talking to people.

who the fuck is mudvayne?

Brendan Benson is cool as shit.
And while I've never met Ed Vedder I hear that is not only down to earth but that is just a really cool guy in general.

JVB

my mum somehow arranged for chris knox to send me a birthday card when i turned 18. he's also a really well known cartoonist and drew a little pic for me. another time i saw him after a gig and started talking to him... when i mentioned the card he still remembered it! he's a really nice guy, through and through.

ben harper is really cool too - i met him through a radio station i was working for in 1998, and we all went out for drinks with his publicist and stuff. he bought me four rounds

oh, and badly drawn boy is a bit of a prick... he tipped a pint down my back one time and didn't even think to say sorry. bet he wouldn't like it if i set his stupid hat on fire.

[Edited on Feb 15, 2003 by vaj]

the guys of From Zero are pretty cool...saw them at a Godsmack show, none of my friends knew who they were but they were one of my favorite bands...they saw their set and got hooked, and the band was leaving the stage and we went and chilled with them got autographs hee hee, they're awesome guys

but i guess Aaron Lewis is pretty down to earth...he sees things as they are...

Ted Nugent!! Oh wait, he's just crazy. Sorry, Ted.
Guided by Voices was pretty cool. When I met them, they were too concerned with keeping the beer flowing to even consider being pretentious.

evan dando was cool. sitting and having a smoke & beer in the majestic before a show in detroit.

Kittie was always really easy and fun to hang out with. Morgan and I talked about our devotion to silverchair for a good 10 minutes. The (original) band were all very personable and touchy-feely and we were more than welcome to any food or drinks or whatever backstage.

Static-X have always been very very friendly to us, remembered us every single time, from meetings to crowds, to whatever else. Same thing with the food and drinks and all, too. It's kind of like '!' when you're backstage and you're there when Wayne steps out of the shower with his hair down and you can see that his toenails are painted black etc etc.

And of course Michael Jackson. One of the nicest people I've ever met. Very gracious and humble and just genuinely sweet.

One thing that kind of irks me to this day is when I was thisclose to meeting Placebo with about 20 other fans outside of the venue a few hours before their show, they compeltely dodged us and wouldn't give any of us the time of day. That was the first time (of two, total) I was ever starstuck (it doesn't happen easily). It made me mad because for one, they aren't huge here in the US like they are elsewhere, so it wasn't like a mob, it was a handful of us diehard fans there before the show.. we weren't screaming or anything.. just a few cameras and CDs to sign.. it just.. it still bothers me.



It's okay. I'm over it.

Jenna

Louis Bellson

heh they're a band...dunno what you'd call them, metal seems too quiet...

oh lol the drummer from Disturbed fucked a friend of mine in a hotel room...sad thing is, though she LOOKS like she's about 25, she was 16 at the time uhh...that doens't get off this board, heh, disturbed is one of my favorite bands, don't wanna be the cause of their demise...but she said he was pretty cool lol...she's such a slut...

lol I was gonna mention Disturbed. I don't care for them too much but the lead singer was nice to me and touched my mouth the way they do in movies before they have that passionate sex. You know where they run their fingers across the bottom lip and it's all.. I dunno.. but I was like.. Holy shit that was straight outta the movies..



Jenna

hahahaha, did you go for it? heh i think they're good...but hey, thats just personal preference

i went to see placebo a few years back, and i'm not a huge fan, but i like them enough. anyway, we met them after the show, they went to the same bar that i used to frequent. long story short, they weren't very nice at all. seemed to think everyone was being a groupie... seen as i couldn't care less, i gave up.

oh, and when i went to see PJ harvey in london in 2001, i was trying to get outta the brixton academy after the show and brian molko burned my arm with his cigarette when he walked past me. i kinda screamed, he turned and said 'hmm' very offhandedly and tried to walk away.

so i, being a bit of a cow when i'm injured yelled 'do you fucking mind!?' and some cohorts of his were all like 'do you KNOW who this is?' at me. i chose to say 'a total has-been?' and because it looked like i was about to start a riot, my good friend pulled me away.

so, while i still like their music, i think a hell of a lot less of the band members nowadays.

Hahah did I go for it?! No! Haha! I'm not a groupie! What happened was I mistook him for somebody else and everyone around was like ".....that's the singer from Disturbed.." and I was kind of like..



And he kind of laughed and did the Oh-my-god-I-haven't-seen-you-in-so-long-I-can't-wait-to-be-inside-of-you-lip-grope-movie-sex-thing. ROTFL. I went:



Jenna

Brian Molko is such a 3-year-old-acting cunt (like when he banned the colour yellow backstage at some festival to spite Coldplay). But I love him dearly. He really needs to get his head out of his ass. Oh, but I love him. I am blinded, I know.

And he was probably on some high of seeing/being with PJ Harvey that night so he had to especially act like a diva. Haha.

Jenna

did he?! that's pretty fucking funny, i'll give him that

hee hee hee, too funny...thats one to remember i wish kittie would come here so i could have some run-in with a good band and not feel too uncomfortable...