Copy linkEmailFacebookWhatsAppXLinkedInBlueskyThreadsImpact Link
SaveSaved
This story is available exclusively to Business Insider
subscribers. Become an Insider
and start reading now.Have an account? .
Ever wonder what it's like to hang out backstage with your favorite musicians?
2018-04-30
Thanks to nifty little documents known as tour riders, you don't have to wonder anymore.
Broadly speaking, tour riders outline all the terms that a venue must meet when an artist comes to give a performance. They generally include each artist's detailed demands for food, decorations, and other personal touches in their dressing rooms. Most give a surprisingly detailed snapshot of the artist's private backstage space.
But as you might expect, some celeb requests can get pretty exorbitant — even downright weird. We combed through dozens of leaked tour riders published on the website The Smoking Gun. Here's a look at some truly ridiculous requests made on the riders of 32 artists across the industry.
Pharrell Williams requests that his dressing room contain a framed photo of legendary astronomer Carl Sagan.
Pharrell Williams at the 2014 Grammy Awards.AP
Apparently Williams has been a longtime fan of "Cosmos" — the 1980 educational series that Sagan narrated.
"I watched 'Cosmos' as a child and I was always blown away by [Sagan's] mind and the way he thought," Williams once told the TODAY Show. "When I look at that picture I realize how lucky we all are [...] to be on this planet and be able to do what we love to do every day. Seeing Carl's face reminds me of it."
In 2015, One Direction asked each venue to provide a ping pong table, pinball machine, and "one other games [...] of your choice." They suggested pool, air hockey, or Space Invaders.
When the Backstreet Boys went on tour, they tried to keep things healthy. Their rider specified "NO candy chips, chocolate, or junk food of any kind" in the dressing room.
The Backstreet Boys in their heyday.Brenda Chase/Getty
Instead they asked for water, milk, fruit and veggies, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Katy Perry also has very specific taste in dressing room flowers. (And she might seriously hate carnations.)
Katy Perry at the 2017 Grammy Awards.Getty Images
"Arrangement of pink fresh flowers," her 2011 rider read. "White and purple hydrangeas, pink & white roses and peonies. If not available, seasonal white flowers to include white orchids — ABSOLUTELY NO CARNATIONS."
The Rolling Stones had actual people in their 1997 tour rider. The band wanted "two smartly dressed, well groomed hostesses to assist in serving food in the band lounge [...] Table waiting experience preferred."
The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, left, and Keith Richards, right, in 2013.Ian Gavan/Getty
Most artists demand a private bathroom at each venue they perform. Mary J. Blige requested that her bathrooms get a "new toilet seat" before her arrival.
Mary J. Blige in 2012.Getty Images / Ronald Martinez
John Mayer's 2006 tour rider includes "One Box of a Kids Brand Cereal" — either Cap'n Crunch, Lucky Charms, Count Chocula, Cookie Crisp, or Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
James Brown's voluminous hairstyles must have needed intense upkeep: He required a "professional hooded hair dryer" in his dressing room while on tour.
James Brown performing in 2000.Getty/Dan Callister
The Beach Boys wanted a specific brand of paper towels that was "VERY SOFT."
The Beach Boys backstage at the Grammy Awards in 2012.Larry Busacca/Getty Images
The environmentally conscious band also asked for ample recycling bins in their eating area. "THE BEACH BOYS AND THE PLANET THANK YOU!" one of their tour riders read.
That's according to a rider leaked before Bieber's May 2017 concert in Mumbai, India. The document also says that the Biebs needs a backstage massage table, a private jet on standby, Haribo Cola Gummies, several packages of white t-shirts, and twelve white handkerchiefs, among dozens of other demands.
The rockers of Van Halen famously demanded M&Ms candies, but "ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES."
Van Halen really had nothing against brown M&Ms taste-wise.Reuters/Lee Celano
In a 2012 interview, lead signer David Lee Roth explained that the odd demand always indicated whether the concert promoter had actually read the band's complicated contract.
Caroline was a senior reporter covering health for INSIDER. She frequently wrote about birth control, fertility, sexual health, body image, nutrition, and one of the internet's most contentious trends: pimple popping. Before joining INSIDER, she was a staff writer at Prevention magazine and the assistant editor at Down East, a regional magazine covering the state of Maine. She earned a BFA in writing, literature, and publishing from Emerson College in Boston and currently lives in New York.
