10 Rock Artists That Tried To Destroy Their Career

When Pink Floyd were first cutting their teeth on the England club scene, their songs were never really meant for the stadiums of the world. This was the kind of music that you could listen to and be transported to another place, with the band thriving off the communal energy that came with those small venues. Once the band got too big for those kind of shows though, Roger Waters attempted to close himself off from his fans entirely.

During the promotion cycle for Dark Side of the Moon, Roger and the rest of Floyd were already pretty burnt, making Wish You Were Here a rebuttal to the corporate pigs that try to just get something out of you. While it may have been a good way to let off steam, both Wish You Were Here and Animals made for Roger going further into his own head, getting more and more frustrated with fans that were looking to raise hell whenever they went to a show instead of actually paying attention to the music.

Channeling all of that passive aggression into his art, the Wall might be a lot more autobiographical than even Roger Waters would like to admit, taking the pressure that comes with being a rock star and laying it on so thick that the protagonist snaps and closes himself off from society entirely. The rock and roll machine might be a hard tightrope to walk half the time, but the bigger the checks are at the end of the tour, the more liable you are to lose yourself.