Random Famous Musicians Who Once Had Terrible Day Jobs (22 items)

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  (#1) Kurt Cobain

  • Grunge, Alternative rock, Punk rock

  Before the Nirvana frontman topped the music charts, he worked as a janitor when he was about 17 years old. Cobain was able to fund a demo for the band with his custodial earnings. It appears that Cobain's colleagues were even grungier than him: "When I was a janitor I used to work with these guys Rocky and Bullwinkle. They'd clean the toilet bowls with their bare hands and then eat their lunch without washing their hands. They were very grungy."
  
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  (#2) David Bowie

  • Rock music, Psychedelic pop, Electronic music, Protopunk, Glam rock, Psychedelic rock, Hard rock, Blue-eyed soul, Pop music, Experimental rock, Dance music, Pop rock, Experimental music, New Romanticism, Progressive rock, Art rock, Avant-garde

  It's hard to believe that David Bowie was ever anything but a rock god. However, the future Ziggy Stardust had to start somewhere. Bowie heard a tune by Little Richard when he nine years old and immediately thought he wanted to be one of Little Richard's saxophone players. It took him a couple years, but Bowie eventually got a job as a butcher's delivery boy when he was about 13, in order to buy that sax.

  
  
   
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  (#3) Dave Mustaine

  • Thrash metal, Progressive metal, Heavy metal, Punk rock, Speed metal, Christian metal, Hard rock

  The Megadeth frontman had to hit the streets at the age of 15 to support himself. Mustaine started dealing drugs in Los Angeles. He explained on VH1's "Behind the Music" special on Megadeth, "I started to deal pot because there's not really any other way for a 15-year-old to make money besides [selling] your a** and I wasn't into that."

  He added, "I was dealing drugs to someone who worked at a record store and she would come and have sex with me during the day and then she would drop off records and I would give her pot. That's how I got my first Iron Maiden record, my first Motörhead record. Part of the whole style I even have right now is obviously heavily indebted to her being a dope fiend."
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  (#4) Ozzy Osbourne

  • Doom metal, Glam metal, Blues-rock, Heavy metal, Alternative metal, Hard rock

  Whether or not Ozzy Osbourne ever actually bit the head off of a bat during his live concerts is still a big question mark. However, he definitely worked for two years at a British slaughter house. The Prince of Darkness described a typical day at the abattoir: "I had to slice open the cow carcasses and get all the gunk out of their stomachs. I used to vomit every day; the smell was something else." Ozzy also says that he's pretty much a vegetarian now.
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  (#5) Jonathan Davis

  • Nu metal, Electronic music, Electronic dance music, Acoustic music, Heavy metal, Electronic rock, Hard rock, Dubstep, Fusion, Industrial metal, Experimental rock, Funk metal, Experimental metal, Avant-garde music, Alternative metal

  Korn frontman Jonathan Davis went to school at the San Francisco School of Mortuary Science, which is about as far a cry from a music school as one can get. After school, the metal singer became an embalmer at a funeral home and worked at the Kern County Coroner's Department. He said of his pre-rock star life, "My dad and mom both thought I was a problem child or some[one] that wanted to cut up dead bodies. I’ve seen [the dark side of life]. Other people don’t see it first hand - they read about it or see pictures, but when you see it staring you right in the face, it’s an eye-opener.”
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  (#6) Kanye West

  • Hip hop

  Kayne West may be part of the Kardashian clan now and cashing his own big time rap paychecks. However, the hip hop star worked in customer service at the Gap as a teenager in Chicago. He raps about it on the the song "Spaceship:" "Let's go back, back to the Gap, Look at my check, wasn't no scratch."
   
  The experience wasn't all bad for West, who credits his teenage gig for inspiring his love of fashion. West wrote an article titled, "The American Dream," for Paper magazine in 2015. He spoke about his latest endeavors into fashion and brought up the importance of his early job at Gap, "When I was working at the Gap at 15, I don't think I had any desire to actually make clothes, but I always felt like that's what I wanted to be around. I loved the fabrics, I loved the colors, I loved the proportions."
  

  
  

  
  
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  (#7) Jon Bon Jovi

  • Glam metal, Classic rock, Rock music, Country rock, Heavy metal, Pop rock, Glam rock, Hard rock

  Jon Bon Jovi had his first hit single, "Run Away," at the age of 20. But even he had a couple brief day jobs before fronting one of the biggest rock bands in the world. His first job was making Christmas decorations. Next, he worked as a janitor at his cousin's recording studio, a very smart move considering he could record when the studio was vacant. His first professional recording came in 1980, blending elements of his daytime gigs with his apparent love for Star Wars. The track was called "R2-D2, We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

  
  
  
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  (#8) Rod Stewart

  • New Wave, Rock music, Rhythm and blues, Hard rock, Blues-rock, Blue-eyed soul, Pop music, Folk rock, Traditional pop music, Pop rock, Soft rock, Soul music, Progressive rock

  Rod Stewart dropped out of high school at the age of 15. Afterwards, he held several odd jobs including screen printer and electrician's assistant. Stewart was never a gravedigger, which was a common myth about his pre-rock star life. But he did work at the Highgate Cemetery in London, where he learned an important lesson. The British singer-songwriter worked marking graves and measuring burial plots. He said of the experience, "You learn a lot about yourself, doing physical work. And what I learned about myself was that I didn’t like doing physical work."
  
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  (#9) Madonna

  • Pop, Electronica

  Madonna has been a pop star on the music scene since her early 20s. Before the world knew her as just Madonna, she was Madonna Louise Ciccone. One of her first jobs was at a Dunkin' Donuts in Time Square. Believe it or not, Madonna was not a natural fit for a gig in customer service. She was fired after just one day for squirting jelly from a donut onto a  customer.
  
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  (#10) Mick Jagger

  • Blues-rock, Rock music, Dance-rock, Reggae, Rhythm and blues, Rock and roll, Soul music, Country, Psychedelic rock, Blues, Funk

  Perhaps Mick Jagger's gig as a temporary porter (errand person) at a psychiatric hospital served as the inspiration for The Rolling Stones song "19th Nervous Breakdown"? Jagger worked at the Bexley psychiatric hospital while he was a student at the London School of Economics. The job was not all work and no play, however: Jagger lost his virginity to a nurse in the hospital's store cupboard.
  

  
  
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  (#11) Patti Smith

  • Blues-rock, Rock music, Protopunk, Alternative rock, Art rock, Punk rock, Art punk

  Patti Smith, the Godmother of Punk, had an awful experience working an early job at a toy factory after graduating high school in 1964. "The stuff those women did to me in that factory was horrible. They’d gang up on me and stick my head in a toilet full of piss.” The silver lining to that experience is that it gave her the inspiration to write her first single, "Piss Factory," a tune that is often cited as the first true punk song.
  
  
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  (#12) Courtney Love

  • Noise rock, Grunge, Folk rock, Power pop, Post-grunge, Alternative rock, Punk rock, Indie rock, Hard rock

  Before Courtney Love married Kurt Cobain and her band Hole took off on the record charts, she stripped to fund her music career. The frontwoman arrived in Los Angeles in 1989 and performed at Jumbo's Clown Room in Hollywood and Nude, Nude, Nude! Century Lounge near LAX. She explained how she funded her band in an interview with LA Weekly, "To me back then, 300 bucks in a day was fine. I was able to do the kind of stripper economy which is ... for every $5 I made, I would give Eric Erlandson (Hole guitarist) three of them and that's how we bought our van and we bought our backline."
   
  
  
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  (#13) Jay-Z

  • Hip hop

  Jay-Z is not just a successful hip hop artist, he's also an entrepreneur. The rapper's net worth is around $520 million. Plus he's married to Beyoncé, who is worth a couple bucks herself. Apparently his old gig as a drug dealer selling crack in the 1980s helped him with his major financial success. "I know about budgets. I was a drug dealer. To be in a drug deal, you need to know what you can spend, what you need to re-up."
  
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  (#14) Tom Waits

  • Blues-rock, Rock music, Folk music, Experimental rock, Experimental music, Alternative rock, Jazz, Blues

  Tom Waits got a job at Napoleone Pizza House in San Diego at the age of 14. He started in the back washing dishes but eventually became a cook. The growl-voiced singer appeared to be a good worker, the owner Sal Crivello said, "He started when he was in high school, about sixteen years old. He was shy at first, but I think that was just because he was young. He washed dishes, and then he became a cook. He was an excellent worker. He made good pizzas."

  Waits worked at the shop for about five years. His time at the pizzeria even inspired some of his later tunes. He mentions Sal and Joe (the other owner) in the songs "Can't Wait To Get Off Work," and "The Ghosts of Saturday Night - After Hours at Napoleone's Pizza Parlor."
  
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  (#15) Jack White

  • Blues-rock, Punk blues, Rock music, Garage rock, Country rock, Pop rock, Alternative rock, Bluegrass, Alternative country, Indie rock

  Jack White worked as an upholsterer and even opened up his own upholstery place in Detroit called Third Man Upholstery. The slogan for his place: "Your furniture's not dead."

  The White Stripes frontman shared a funny story about hiding records inside furniture during an interview with NPR:

  "Brian and I had a band called The Upholsterers [and] for the 25th anniversary of his shop, we made a hundred pieces of vinyl. We made a record we stuffed into furniture that you could only get if you ripped the furniture open. We even made it on clear vinyl with transparency covers — we thought you couldn't even X-ray it to see if it was in there. I'm talking about — really, you could rip open a couch and think it's not there 'cause it's inside the foam — sliced inside the foam and slid in there. I mean, we really went to great lengths to make sure possibly no one would ever hear our record! But it's there. It's so great. It's there. There's a hundred pieces of furniture out there that have those records, and maybe one day someone will find them."
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  (#16) Pink: McDonald's Cashier

  When she was still Alecia Moore, pop singer Pink had a job at McDonald's in Doylestown, Pennsylvnia. Some people look back on their first job in a nostalgic manner, even if it was menial work. However, Pink seems a little haunted by her time spent at The Golden Arches: "Sometimes I dream I am back there, broke and working at McDonald's. It's like the worst nightmare because I would never want to be back there. I've worked hard to get where I am."
  
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  (#17) Chris Cornell

  • Rock music, Grunge, Psychedelic pop, Heavy metal, Rhythm and blues, Psychedelic rock, Blues, Hard rock, Pop music, Funk metal, Contemporary R&B, Pop rock, Post-grunge, Alternative rock, Funk rock, Alternative metal

  You may know Chris Cornell as frontman of the grunge band Soundgarden, but before he hit the top of the charts with "Black Hole Sun," he worked as a fish handler in Seattle. It's clear that his gig cleaning fish was not as glamorous as being a grunge god. "I did it for years, from my early teens on," he recalls. "My job was to wipe up the slime and throw away the fish guts. I met pretty much every sous-chef in town because they would come in and look around at what we had. I think we had the best wholesale seafood in town. The owner was impeccable about it."

  
  
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  (#18) B.B. King

  • Blues-rock, Soul blues, Rock music, Memphis blues, Electric blues, Jazz blues, Rhythm and blues, Big band, Jazz, Soul music, Blues, Country blues

  Legendary blues musician B.B. King held several farm jobs in the Mississippi Delta region. He picked cotton and baled hay. But the job he loved the most was driving a tractor. After dropping out of high school to earn money, he discovered that he was a "superstar" when it came to riding tractors. "I learned - I was kind of into - today I guess you would say technology because I learned to drive tractors and I was pretty good. I had never heard the word 'superstar' but when I think about it today, I was a superstar tractor driver. I loved it."

  He added, "But as a tractor driver I was popular. Hey, the girls look at you. I made a lot of money. I've been crazy about girls all my life. That was my downfall, I guess. It still is. But I made a lot of money. My salary compared to everybody else was great. I made $22.50 a week. I have chopped cotton for 75 cents a day. I've picked cotton for 35 cents a 100. When you're driving a tractor, you're sitting up there, all you got to do is use your expertise to keep it straight and don't plow up the cotton, which I didn't do too often because Mr. Barrett wouldn't have put up with it. So you slept very well at night having to do that every day. My music and being a tractor driver seemed to make me popular with the people."
  
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  (#19) Boy George

  • New Wave, Disco, Pop music, Rock music, Indian classical music, Contemporary Christian music, House music, Reggae, Dance music, Soft rock, Soul music, Electronica

  The Culture Club frontman was a cultural icon in 1980s, but before he became Boy George, the Brit was just a grocery bagger named George Alan O'Dowd. It appears that Boy George was always about pushing boundaries and breaking rules. The "Karma Chameleon" singer was fired from his gig at the supermarket for wearing the store's grocery bags.

  
  
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  (#20) Eddie Vedder

  • Grunge, Folk rock, Alternative rock, Hard rock

  Eddie Vedder became one of the poster boys for the Seattle grunge scene in the 1990s. Before his great success, the Pearl Jam singer served as a security guard at the posh La Valencia Hotel in LaJolla, California. The "Jeremy" singer was reportedly canned for playing his guitar when he was supposed to be working. 

  
  
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  (#21) Snoop Dogg

  • Hip hop music, Pop music, Gangsta rap, G-funk, Reggae, Hyphy, Rhythm and blues, West Coast hip hop, Dub

  Snoop Dogg is now known as one of the most groundbreaking west coast rappers ever. However, when he was still Calvin Broadus, he worked at a grocery story bagging groceries. Snoop was fired from the job because he just couldn't resist the temptation. "I was better at stealing the groceries than I was at bagging them."
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  (#22) Stacy Ferguson

  • Hip hop music, Blue-eyed soul, Pop music, Rock music, Dance-pop, Contemporary R&B, Pop rap, Rhythm and blues, Hard rock

  Back when Fergie was still Stacy Ann Ferguson, she voiced the character of Sally Brown for a few Peanuts TV Specials and The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show. Fergie held a couple other TV gigs before breaking out with The Black Eyed Peas in 2003. She was part of television's Kids Incorporated presentation team and co-hosted a TV program called Great Pretenders.

   

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