Brown M&M’s

As a teenager I played in a few bands and wanted to “grow up” to be a rock star. I heard interesting stories about out of control behavior by the big boys. These performers would make ridiculous demands and then throw an expensive, destructive, expletive-laden fit if they didn’t get their way.

One of the most famous of these legends involved the group Van Halen. It was rumored that right in the middle of their huge list of demands, the contract stipulated that a large bowl of M&M’s was to be waiting for them in the dressing room, and every one of the brown candy pieces was to be removed. If any brown M&M’s were found, the band would go crazy and could immediately pull the whole show and legally demand to be paid in full for the gig they didn’t preform.

I always thought this tale was probably a combination of true prima-donna antics and mythical urban legend. Recently I discovered it was 100% true. And what I found out made me realize that David Lee Roth (the lead singer) was one of the smartest people in the buisness.

You see, at that time Van Halen played the biggest show that had ever been staged in many of the venues they were using. If the location did not pay attention to the hundreds of unique technical requirements in the contract, something would invariably go wrong with the sound system, or the lights, or there was even a risk of something potentially fatal happening.

So when Mr. Roth would step into his dressing room and see a bowl with brown M&M’s, he knew the contract hadn’t been taken seriously or even fully read. He wouldn’t cancel the show, but he would immediately call for a line check; he said when that happened they would always find something wrong. The urban legends were born when the band would have a little fun at finding the brown M&M’s and do things that purposefully perpetuated those myths (I mean, they were Van Halen, they did have a reputation to uphold!)

Brilliant management hidden behind rock-star persona.

The funny thing about this is that other bands followed the same behavior without any of the same motivation. Pretty soon there were performers everywhere with all kinds of silly backstage demands from live boa-constrictors to life-sized cardboard cutouts of themselves, to rose-pedals in the toilet—and don’t forget the brand new toilet seat covers. They wanted to do the same things Van Halen was doing to reap the same level success, or at least a similar measure of publicity.

How often do pastors look at what other church leaders are doing and unthinkingly duplicate it without having any idea of why it is being done in the first place? We want to copy another person’s method, because we think it may produce the same results, but it does nothing for us, or, worse, it just makes us look silly.

For instance, in the 1970’s Pastor Jack Hayford and Pastor Jerry Cook would sometimes sit on a stool while preaching. The Holy Spirit was evident in their ministries and the churches they pastored were exploding. Because of that many young pastors started preaching from a stool, but they didn’t get the same results.

What they didn’t realize was that each of these men preached five or six (or more) services in a weekend, and their backs were tired, so they sat down. Young preachers with only one service probably didn’t need to sit, but they were hoping there was something to be gained by copying the method of leaders who had “made it”.

The lesson:

1. We’re not always right about a person’s motives for doing something; they may have more going on than we can ever guess (David Lee Roth and the brown M&M’s).

2. We shouldn’t expect to get the same results somebody else has by copying the same thing that they are doing (Church on the Way, East Hill Church and Van Halen).