10 Musicians Who Hated Being Famous

One of the biggest draws to being in a band is the glory. Almost every generation of rock bands can express indulging in the more free-spirited behavior that comes with being admired by millions of fans. On the other hand, not everyone goes into this job for the attention.

Many musicians pick up the instrument for the pure love of making music and aren't as fixated on being heralded as a rock god. A lot of times, musicians never want their music to reach a huge market, and are more often than not mortified when they actually reach beyond their intended target.

Once they get bombarded with the music press, you can practically feel their demeanor change from calm to tense at a moment's notice. This could lead to musicians being hostile towards fans or outright denying their rockstar status. At the absolute worst, some bands will consciously try to make something imperfect to shake the shackles of their initial fame.

Even if they ended up with some strange moments during their tenure, these musicians' struggles with fame have brought us some of the most interesting careers that the rock world has ever seen. Here are just a few examples of the bands that wanted to be good but weren't crazy about being successful.

Frank Zappa will forever be known as one of rock's most eccentric characters. Throughout his career, the man played by his own rules and did whatever the hell he wanted to do regardless of whether there was a market for it. Instead of buying into the hype machine of the music industry, Zappa used his entire career as an opportunity to troll.

Starting off in the 60's, Zappa's first few years saw him indulging in the psychedelic stylings of the time. Hating what the hippie culture stood for, Zappa came out with an album entitled We're Only In It For the Money, where he and his band posed in a garden as a parody of the Beatles' Sgt Peppers album.

It didn't stop there though. Even when going through his later work, Zappa would make bold left turns in order to divert his audience. When fans would be waiting for another art rock experience, Zappa would flip and make his next record a jazz-flavored epic or an operatic rock odyssey. Being a staunch advocate for anti-drug use, Zappa remained the one musician that was so anti-rock yet fit perfectly with the rest of the crowd.

For all the times he intentionally tried to kill his momentum, there were still legions of fans going along for the ride.