Rock n’ Roll. What sort of imageries does this term invoke when one comes across it? Long haired bizarre-looking group of musicians, running amok on stage, showing mostly aggressive alpha-male like attitude, shaking their heads in unison to the groove of the song, destroying guitars and drums violently in act of final conclusion, among many others as well. But even if all these forms of ‘artistic expression’ were somewhat acceptable, the last one is still considered ‘a bit too violent’ or ‘a bit too rebellious or anarchist’ in its intent, even though rebellion is widely understood to be the soul of the Rock n’ Roll music & all its sub-genres and fusion genres.
Concert goers from all around the globe are pretty much used to the sight of instruments being destructed onstage by several musicians. We all grew up seeing Kurt Cobain smashing his Stratocaster at Dave’s drum kit or Billie Joe Armstrong hammering his Les Paul against the floor repeatedly. Or the classic front-cover of London Calling album by punk rock pioneers The Clash featuring bassist Paul Simonon smashing his Fender Precision Bass? We’ve seen them all. Even though very few of us had any idea behind this violent act, one can’t deny that it did fascinate most of us. As a 14-year-old noob, the mere sight of gorgeous guitars being broken to bits & pieces did leave me overwhelmed mostly rather than impressed. Quite recently, various reports claimed that Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor was responsible for the destruction of 137 Gibson Les Paul guitars worth $160,000 during their mid-’90s The Downward Spiral tour. After all, what horrible crime did those instruments do to deserve such a disastrous fate? So, it kept me wondering for years until I had no other option left than to research it.
The history behind this onstage ‘ritual’ traces back to the 1950s when several Jazz artists wreaked havoc on their instruments. Pete Townshend of The Who is probably the most prominent rock artist to do so when he smashed his Rickenbacker guitar at the Railway Tavern in Harrow and Wealdstone in September 1964. Some would argue that Jimi Hendrix did that even before Townshend so that’s debatable. Guitars are favorites when it comes to abusing instruments on stage, but the truth is pianos were most likely first.
On record, Jerry Lee Lewis is widely thought to be the first rock musician to ever destroy an instrument during a live performance, who reportedly set fire to numerous pianos throughout the 50s. Later in ’67, Keith Moon during The Who’s debut on U.S. television on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour overloaded his bass drum with explosive charges which were detonated during the finale of the song “My Generation.” And thus, from then on, the showbiz world saw this trend of several notable musicians keeping this tradition alive, for some reason or the other.
But before Townshend & Hendrix, a similar form of the expressive art form called Auto-Destructive Art (ADA), primarily from which the custom of instrument abuse got its influence, was pioneered by a Bavarian artist named Gustav Metzger. The main objective behind this art movement was to highlight how objects can create self-harm & to draw attention to the destruction of previous beliefs. Through his artwork, in which destruction was part of the process of creating the work, Metzger wanted to showcase the destruction created from the war, and the movement was launched in England in the late 1950s. He first mentioned Auto-destructive art in his article ‘Machine, Auto-creative and Auto-destructive Art’ in the summer 1962 issue of the journal Ark. However, he had been practicing this form for a few years, creating his first acid paintings in 1959 as another means to protest against nuclear warfare. These works were created by spraying acid onto sheets of nylon, which produced rapidly changing shapes in the dissolving nylon making the work both auto-creative and auto-destructive
ADA was highly influenced by World War II, which had a different and lasting influence of art due to the extensive use of aircraft and the introduction of nuclear weapons. Gustav Metzger grew up during the Holocaust, lost his parents to Nazi attacks, all of which vastly inspired his artwork. Metzger disliked politics and commercialism and even states in his manifesto that “Auto-destructive art mirrors the compulsive perfectionism of arms manufacture – polishing to destruction point.”
In 1966, Metzger with John Sharkey even organized an event named DIAS (Destruction In Art Symposium) in London. According to the event’s press release, the principal objective of DIAS was “to focus attention on the element of destruction in Happenings and other art forms, and to relate this destruction in society.” This was followed by another in New York in 1968. It was a gathering of a diverse group of international artists, poets, and scientists, including representatives of the counter-cultural underground who were there to speak on the theme of destruction in art. The Honorary committee was led by Gustav Metzger himself and attracted the attention of both the international media and art community to the symposium, including the participation of Yoko Ono – wife of late John Lennon.
Pete Townshend, who happened to be Metzger’s student, saw his guitar smashing as a kind of auto-destructive art. According to a report by TheWho.net, Townshend broke more than 35 guitars in 1967 alone. Jimi Hendrix famously burned two guitars at three shows, most notably the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. In an effort to out-do The Who’s destruction of their instruments earlier at the same event, Hendrix poured lighter fluid over his guitar and set it on fire. Even Jeff Beck, then a member of The Yardbirds, reluctantly destroyed a guitar in the 1966 film Blowup after being told to emulate The Who by director Michelangelo Antonioni. Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Rainbow smashed guitars in performance throughout The 1970s.
Some, like Kurt Cobain, made an art form out of guitar destruction, who liked to demolish everything around him – amps, speaker cabinets, etc. Cobain was a notable user of cheap guitars of all sorts, not so much because of affordability but rather because, in Kurt’s own words, they are ‘cheap’ and ‘totally inefficient’ and also sound like ‘crap’ due to the fact that they mostly don’t stay in tune. Perhaps, making a broken guitar sing to his tune reflected all his internal conflicts and struggles through his rebelliously nihilistic songs. Currently, Matthew Bellamy of Brit alt-rock trio Muse holds the Guinness world record of breaking the most guitars in one tour. During the 2004 tour, the vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist of Muse reportedly managed to smash a mind-blowing total of 140 guitars – a feat still unmatched.
But not all musicians are bound to this art movement. Some did it out of anger & frustration, mostly due to hectic touring schedules and/or technical faults. Whereas, in the Grunge & Punk Rock scene, this onstage antic was seen more as an act of anti-establishment anarchist statement. Green Day frontman Billie Joe Armstrong destroyed his guitar along with bassist Mike Dirnt, with drummer Tre Cool smashing his drum set at the end of a live performance of iHeartRadio music festival in Las Vegas in 2012, out of frustration at not being given enough time for his performance. And then there are some who did it just because it made great showmanship and kept the crowd roaring for more, and in show business, fame means money! Each musician does it for their own reason, and every audience member interprets it in their own way in the context of the music. So aspiring artists, next time if you plan on demolishing your instruments, ask your conscience what motivates you to do so rather than just going with the trend.
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