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‘If I Saw a Brown M&M in That Bowl…’ We Look Back at Music’s Most Notorious Riders
From Van Halen's brown M&Ms to Madonna's freshly installed toilet seats, the lore of rock star riders runs deep. Here, we explore it all.
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Music history is built on wild, unbelievable lore. There’s the Ozzy Osbourne ‘rubber’ bat incident and the countless TVs lost to a Led Zeppelin hotel stay, but when it comes to notoriety, it’s the humble rider that arguably does the most for a star’s reputation.
For the unfamiliar, a rider is a simple request from artists to venues of the things they need to perform. Food and music gear are the most common, but the bigger the artist, the wilder the demands seem to get.
From Ouija board-dictated riders to venues totally free of brown M&Ms and bananas, we take a look back at music’s most notorious riders.
Van Halen
If you follow the stories about outrageous rockstar riders back far enough, you’ll land at the one that started it all: Van Halen and their no brown M&M clause. In the ‘80s, if a single brown M&M was found backstage at a Van Halen gig, the entire thing would be cancelled with full pay for the band.
In his biography, lead singer David Lee Roth explained that “If I saw a brown M&M in that bowl [backstage]…well, [we had to] line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. They didn’t read the contract.”
Van Halen were busy changing up the live performance game, so the humble brown M&M became paramount to the attention to detail behind their success. In the ‘80s, tours would run off three trucks’ worth of staging and lights, but Van Halen had upped that number to nine trucks to deliver on what Roth described as a “super forward-thinking, gigantor, epic-sized Van Halen production.” Without that brown M&M clause, the band didn’t feel confident they could trust the setup of their 100-tonne staging.
The White Stripes
“We don’t want to see bananas anywhere in the building,” read The White Stripes’ infamous leaked rider.
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When The White Stripes performed at the University of Oklahoma, a group of students got hold of the rider and published it. Inside, a request for zero bananas in the building and a homemade guacamole recipe seemingly broke the internet, earning Jack White a newfound diva persona, and rumours that artists under the same label would never perform in Oklahoma again.
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In a letter taking aim at music publication NPR, White clarified, “anything on the rider is for the band and the crew.” “The guacamole recipe is my hilarious tour manager’s inside joke with local promoters, it’s his recipe not mine. It’s just something to break up the boredom, seeing who can make it best.” White was also quick to clarify the ‘diva’ request for zero bananas was actually due to allergy protocol, not a personal vendetta against the fruit.
Madonna
Madonna has a reputation for pushing boundaries and bringing controversy to the stage. Her “Justify My Love” video was famously banned by MTV for its sexually explicit nature and went on to be released as the first ever VHS single. Then there was her kiss with Britney Spears at the MTV Awards and her performances with a scandalous approach to religious iconography.
It seems Madonna is just as determined to keep things controversial backstage. Rumours swirled that she requires freshly opened, unused toilet seats to be installed in her dressing rooms. On her ‘MDNA World Tour’, her requests for 20 international phone lines, white and pink roses with the stems trimmed to exactly six inches, and all hotel furniture needing to be replaced with her own made headlines around the world.
Billie Eilish
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Billie Eilish has just wrapped her Hit Me Hard and Soft tour, publicly called out billionaires, dubbed Elon Musk a “pathetic coward,” and also, somehow found time to pull together a tour rider that gives us hope for the future.
On her tours, her rider is less rockstar demands and more a set of guardrails to keep her productions low-impact on the environment. Her shows don’t have any single-use plastic, all catering is 100% plant based, carpooling and public transport is encouraged for fans, and her merchandise is made from 100% sustainable materials.
As for her actual demands, Eilish told E! News it’s pretty simple: “If I just have chips and salsa, I’m good, anywhere I am, OK, that’s good enough. I’m good.”
Pharrell Williams
Rapper and producer Pharrell Williams has earned a reputation for bizarre rider requests thanks to the list being leaked in full in 2015.
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There’s the request for a framed picture of astronomer Carl Sagan, something Williams told The Washington Post reminds him “how lucky we all are to be on this planet and be able to do what we love to do every day.” Beef is only allowed if it’s grass-fed, and all advertising in the venue’s backstage areas is to be blacked out.
Williams’ rider is the handiwork of his tour director Gus Brandt who was also behind the Foo Fighters’ 2011 rider. Infamously including a word search, the band’s musings on what makes a “good” salad, and a ranking of ice cubes by the band.
Iggy Pop
Think outrageous, classic rock ‘n’ roll rider and Iggy Pop and The Stooges no doubt spring to mind. The 18-page tome is equal parts brazen jokes and earnest demands.
Iggy’s dressing room, for example, must be dressed by someone “with a little bit of artistic flair” and have two heavy duty fans so the crew can don a scarf and “pretend to be in a Bon Jovi video.”
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The Korg 2000 Digital Rack Tuner must be digital in the sense that it “works via an electronically generated number system” not “‘because it only works if someone holds it together with their fingers.” The rider’s author requests Marshall amps that haven’t recently been involved in a “piss on the live Marshall amplifier competition” and a brand of cigarettes disliked by the band so they can throw them in the bin. Makes sense.
Jos Grain, the rider’s author, claims the whole thing was dictated to him via a Ouija board.
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