30. Alexander "Skip" Spence
Moby Grape's mad axman
Case History: Spence was a founding member of both Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape, and managed to create one solo masterpiece, 1969's Oar, before a combination of schizophrenia and drug abuse made him a little nutty. After drifting in and out of institutions his entire adult life, Spence died of lung cancer in 1999 while a ward of the state of California.
Crazy Moment: A bit antsy from a long day of shooting speed, Spence once went after Moby Grape drummer Don Stevenson with a fire ax.
29. Rick James
Fuck superfreak — and just plain old freak
Case History: A tireless advocate of marijuana use. James progressed to cocaine in the early '80s, estimating that he freebased $7,000 worth of cocaine a week for five years — $1.8 million total. James was jailed in 1994 for assault, false imprisonment and furnished drugs after he and his girlfriend were accused of torturing two female crack buddies.
Crazy Moment: James once bought a leather jacket with black mink lining for $28,000 "out of ego," then realized that it was too small for him.
28. Wendy O. Williams
Car-exploding, clothes-hating punk legend
Case History: Williams, a stripper-turned-Mohawked-lead-singer of the loud but tone-deaf Plasmatics, differentiated herself from New York punk pack with ultraviolent onstage stunts such as cutting her band's equipment up with a chain saw. Williams retired from punk to rehabilitate animals in Connecticut, and then unexpectedly shot herself in 1998.
Crazy Moment: Blowing up an explosives-packed Ford Pinto on Tom Snyder's talk show Tomorrow in 1981.
She's So Crazy: "I don't believe that people should take their own lives without deep and thoughtful reflection." — From Williams' suicide note.
27. Keith Moon
The craziest Nazi-impersonating percussionist ever!
Case History: The Who drummer's madness was determinedly antisocial, whether he was stuffing his drums with gunpowder on live TV, running naked around a bus filled with adolescent schoolgirls or parading through London's Jewish neighborhoods in a Nazi uniform. After a poignant final TV appearance in which he proved unable to destroy his drum kit, Moon succumbed to his lifelong drug and alcohol abuse in 1978, graciously dying before he got old.
Crazy Moment: Fresh from rehab, he celebrated on an airplane with a food fight, a screaming fit and an over-the-PA rendition of "The Lone Ranger."
He's So Crazy: In a restaurant once with six prostitutes, Moon loudly announced to the room, "And now, the astounding Moonio will perform his world-famous multiclitoral stimulation!"
26. Iggy Pop
Could have become a golfer. Decided to become a nut job
Case History: Pop was born James Osterberg and raised in a Michigan trailer park. He formed the Stooges in 1967, lacerated and exposed himself onstage — and invented punk. In 1974, a squabble with Detroit bikers the Scorpions led Pop to threaten them on live radio; they turned up at that night's show and threw shovels at him. He once lived solely on German sausages for an entire year.
Crazy Moment: In 1975, Pop toyed with the idea of becoming a professional golfer, but admitted himself into a mental institution instead.
He's So Crazy: "I'd sometimes wake up with bumps on my head, blood on my shirt and something green coming out of my penis."
25. John FruscianteChilis guitarist who lost the plot — and his teeth
Case History: In 1992, the guitar prodigy bailed on the Red Hot Chili Peppers because the voices in his head were telling him to take heroin and cocaine — which he did, constantly, for the next six years, decamping to the Hollywood Hills and getting so wrecked that his teeth fell out. In 1998, he successfully completed rehab and rejoined the band.
Crazy Moment: In 1997, Frusciante recorded the solo album Smile From the Streets You Hold in large part because he needed drug money.
He's So Crazy: "To me, music is the…voice of all the people who have lived and died. At least the ones that I'm connected to."
24. Captain Beefheart
He sang "Ice Cream for Crows." We have no idea why
Case History: Avant-garde blues shouter Beefheart was abrasive, tyrannical and possibly clinically mad. While recording 1969's Trout Mask Replica, he locked his Magic Band in a house for eight months; once a week someone was allowed out to fetch food. In the meantime, his musicians struggled to interpret the music he was "writing" on the piano, an instrument he couldn't actually play.
Crazy Moment: Giving the Magic Band new names to match the costumes he made them wear. His clarinet player, the Mascara Snake, quit shortly after.
23. G.G. Allin
His live show was, quite literally, shit
Case History: The '80s shock-punk stalwart — named Jesus Christ by his father — built a career based on shows filled with nudity, defecation, mutilation, self-abuse and audience abuse. At one show, Allin attempted to have sex with a dead cat. A promiscuous man, he expressed disappointment when he tested negative for HIV, and he promised to commit suicide onstage. Instead, he died of a rather ordinary heroin overdose in 1993.
Crazy Moment: Allin was buried in a jockstrap embroidered with the phrase EAT ME.
22. Jerry Lee Lewis
The Killer likes 'em young. And related to him
Case History: By the time he turned 21 in 1956, Lewis had been jailed, twice married (bigamously) and thrown out of Bible college. That year, he showcased his new 13-year-old bride (who was also his cousin) around Europe. A few short wives later, he had accidentally shot his bass player, lost two spouses and a son (to drowning, overdose and a Jeep wreck), was hospitalized with bleeding ulcers and had been bankrupted by the IRS.
Crazy Moment: Once, behind the wheel of his Rolls-Royce, he tried to get into Graceland to see Elvis Presley. Rejected, he threw a champagne bottle through the car window without rolling it down first and then drove back to say hello again with his nose smashed.
21. Julian Cope
Even his alter ego is saner than he is!
Case History: One of English pop's finest singer-songwriters, Cope is also a pagan who eulogizes the Norse god Odin and refuses to delineate time into B.C. and A.D. In the '0s, he lectured journalists on the benefits of hallucinogens, lived on a traffic island and, rumors say, sold his songs to visitors at Paul McCartney's trout farm. He spent eight years writing The Modern Antiquarian, an exhaustive — and well-received — appraisal of Britain's prehistoric landmarks.
Crazy Moment: In 1990, he joined protesters in an antipoll tax demonstration in England dressed as Mr. Sqwubbsy, a seven-foot-tall alien.
He's So Crazy: "We went out driving to the mushroom field the other day, picked a load and carried the car home."
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