Van Halen's infamous contract rider in the1980s demanded a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed.
Van Halen's lead singer, David Lee Roth, wrote in his 1997 autobiography that the "No brown M&Ms" rule was actually a test to ensure that venues were paying attention to all the contract's details, including crucial technical and safety requirements.
But after careful research, Doug Mack of the Snack Stack newsletter offers a different explanation, Van Halen just wanted to be assholes.
From Snack Stack:
The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the M&M test is almost certainly what it seemed to be in the first place: a way for some of rock music's biggest egos to make a statement about just how demanding and brash and obnoxious they could be. In the 1980s, there were rumors that Van Halen's candy demands were an attempt to emulate KISS, which (supposedly!) had banned red M&Ms due to the red dye scare of 1976 (a real thing) or because Van Halen had once played an especially good gig after eating M&Ms that just happened to not include any brown ones. Those stories seem plausible, as does the possibility that the band just wanted to give the impression that they were kinda assholes—WE'RE CELEBRITIES, DO AS WE SAY.
[Via The Browser]
