The Rock Star Myth

I was walking around my local mall with the wife and kids on Saturday and noticed the increasing fascination with what I'll call The Rock Star Myth. Everywhere I go, I see people of all ages with shirts that say "Rock Star", or they're trying to look like rock stars - the ones they see on TV, in movies, and in video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Remember that show called Rock Star, where the guy got chosen to be the new singer for INXS? It was truly hilarious/horrific in the way that it reinforced middle-America's idea of what a rock musician is. It was all leather pants, died black hair, 27 bangles on each wrist and Les Pauls scraping the stage. You could almost picture the manicured network suits in their corporate conference room, sipping their lattes and talking about how they wanted the show to be "edgy", when in fact it was Appetite For Destruction scrubbed clean and served up for a polite studio audience.

Now, to anyone who's ever actually been in a working, touring rock band (cough, cough) this stuff is hilarious. Because we know how far from reality all of this lame posturing and imaging really is. Yes, there are many people in bands who look like the animated characters in Guitar Hero, but their reality is sordid, I can assure you, no matter how big of a legend they are in their own mind. Sleeping on floors, all night drives, crappy food, in-fighting, poorly attended shows, indignities at every turn - it's just the tip of the iceberg when describing what a real rock, uh, "star" endures on a daily basis.

Ultimately, shows like Rock Star, tween-focused movies like Band Slam, and games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero just propagate an entirely BS notion of what being a working musician isn't. Now, don't get me wrong. I love the rock. I'm all for youthful enthusiasm and chasing the dream, and I sincerely hope that the kids at the mall someday get to experience what it's really like to be in a living, breathing rock band. But once confronted with that cold, hard reality, I suspect many of them will retreat to their Xboxes before they even make it onto a stage. ~ Tim