Famous musicians and their favorite candies

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As you dig into your favorite candy this Halloween, you might wonder what sweet treats famous musicians prefer! We did some research on what your favorite musicians might be stealing from their trick-or-treaters this year. 

 

Slash – chocolate 

The legendary Guns ‘n Roses lead guitarist told Rolling Stone that he keeps it stashed around the house. 

 

John Mayer – Enstrom Candies toffee

The “Gravity” singer/songwriter appears to love the toffee from this Colorado-based candy maker so much, he wrote a song about it in an Instagram story.

 

David Lee Roth – M&Ms (but not the brown ones) 

Van Halen’s tour rider famously included a clause requiring a bowl of M&Ms with all of the brown ones removed in their green rooms. David Lee Roth later explained that it was a strategy to make sure the riders were being read thoroughly by venue management. 


Cyndi Lauper – Candy corn


Candy corn gets a bad reputation, but “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” singer Cyndi Lauper doesn’t mind. “It’s really sugary but easy to eat!” she told Us.

 

ZZ Top – M&Ms and baby Reese’s peanut butter cups

The long-running rock band’s tour rider included a bag of plain M&Ms, a bag of peanut M&Ms, and a bag of baby Reese’s peanut butter cups. 

 

Tim McGraw – candy corn and Reese’s cups 

 

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A post shared by Tim McGraw (@thetimmcgraw)

The country music legend spilled his Halloween favorites in this Instagram video.

 

Taylor Swift – Squashies 

@xorcontent Taylor Swift favourite candies are Squashies #erastourtaylorswift #taylorswiftedit #taylornation #taylorswifterastour #taylorswifttok #taylorswift #taylorsversion ♬ Turning Page (Instrumental) – Sleeping At Last

Swift discovered the British candy “Squashies” – a marshmallow gummy – while living in England. She talks about them in this video. 

 

Iconic songs from Woodstock: Learn to play these classics with Fret Zealot

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The Woodstock Music and Art Fair – better known as Woodstock – was a pivotal moment for music history. The festival, which took place August 15 to 18, 1969 at a dairy farm in upstate New York, hosted 32 musical acts and almost 500,000 festival attendees. The event’s legacy is so vast that in 2017, the festival site became listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

You can recreate a Woodstock of your own with these song lessons – which were performed at the 1969 festival. 

 

Evil Ways – Santana

Carlos Santana’s band was relatively unknown when they performed on Aug. 16 at Woodstock. Their debut album Santana was released the same month, and previously they had only played locally in the San Francisco area. 


Proud Mary – CCR

Rockers Creedence Clearwater Revival had a less-than-optimal set at Woodstock. They took the stage at 3 a.m., to a tired crowd who gave the band little energy. Rhythm guitarist Tom Fogerty said that “We were ready to rock out, and we waited and waited, and finally it was our turn … there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud.” Nevertheless, they played their set, which included the hit “Proud Mary”. The set was featured on the album Creedence Clearwater Revival Live at Woodstock. 

 

Pinball Wizard – The Who 

I Can’t Explain – The Who

The Who were the second-to-last act scheduled to play on Saturday, Aug. 16. They didn’t end up taking the stage until Sunday morning at 5 a.m., playing their entire Tommy album. Their finale performance happened around 6:05 a.m., as the sun rose over Bethel Woods.

 

 Purple Haze – Jimi Hendrix 

Jimi Hendrix was a major star in 1969 and earned the festival’s final spot. However, Woodstock was plagued by weather and technical delays, causing the musical acts to stretch on until Monday morning. Hendrix opted to keep his spot rather than perform at midnight. As a result, he didn’t play for the entire crowd of half a million people – there were fewer than 200,000 attendees left by the time he performed with his Woodstock band, Gypsy Suns and Rainbows. The performance included his iconic rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner”. 

Voodoo Child (slight return) / Stepping Stone – Jimi Hendrix 

Foxy Lady – Jimi Hendrix 

Hey Joe – Jimi Hendrix 

Hendrix rarely performed encores, but at Woodstock, he played his first hit, “”Hey Joe” to close out the festival. 

Learn these songs by The Police with Fret Zealot

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The Police emerged into the British new wave scene in the late 1970s and early 1980s, bringing their reggae-infused rock sound to radios everywhere. The trio formed in 1977 in London, with Sting (bass, lead vocals),  Andy Summers (guitar) and Stewart Copeland (drums, percussion). The band found huge commercial success, being billed by Rolling Stone as “the first British New Wave act to break through in America on a grand scale, and possibly the biggest band in the world” in 1983. 

Concert de “The Police” au Madison Square Garden – New York le 1er Aout 2007

The group disbanded in 1986, but occasionally got back together for single performances before going on a world tour in 2007. Despite having a relatively short career, The Police have won six Grammy Awards, two Brit Awards, and an MTV Video Music Award. 

You can learn these songs by The Police and Sting with Fret Zealot. 


Every Breath You Take

The Police’s signature song, “Every Breath You Take” was recognized in May 2019 as the most played song in radio history by BMI. Sting said that he wrote the song while thinking of “Big Brother” and surveillance while writing the song. “I think the song is very, very sinister and ugly and people have actually misinterpreted it as being a gentle little love song, when it’s quite the opposite,” he told BBC 2 Radio.


Message in a Bottle

Andy Summers said that the “Message in a Bottle” guitar riff was originally supposed to be for another song, but during the band’s first American tour, Sting kept fiddling around with it until it became the riff as we know it today. Sting sings “sending out an S.O.S.” 31 times throughout the course of the song. 


Roxanne

Sting wrote “Roxanne” while the band was staying in Paris, France – and the song’s name comes from a character in the play Cyrano de Bergerac. An old poster or the play was featured in the foyer of the hotel. While recording the song, Sting sat on a piano keyboard by accident, causing the dissonant chord and laugh you can hear at the start of the track. Sting is even credited for this “contribution” in the liner notes, where he’s listed as providing “butt piano”.


Englishman in New York

On his second studio album, Sting wrote “Englishman in New York” about Quentin Crisp, a British raconteur and gay icon, who moved from London to Manhattan, where Sting met him.