The only thing bigger than Keith Moon’s thunderous drumming was the legend that surrounded the raucous and rowdy drummer for The Who. Indeed, the story of Moon driving a luxury car into a swimming pool is among the wildest and most ubiquitous in rock ‘n’ roll lore. Whether on- or off-stage, Moon committed himself to pulling off dangerous and destructive antics, not the least of which included piranhas, shotguns, and exploding toilets during a summer tour in 1967.
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The British rock ‘n’ rollers were the support for the U.K. pop group Herman’s Hermits alongside American group The Blues Magoos. Guitarist Pete Townshend made sure the ten-week venture started on an abrasive foot by bashing Herman’s Hermits in the press, calling their headlining tourmates “s***” and stating that it was his duty to rid the world of music like Herman’s Hermits, per Classic Rock magazine.
Keith Moon, often with the help of bassist John Entwistle, made sure that things didn’t go smoothly from there. Though it’s hard to say who suffered more in their endeavors—the musicians and road crew, the hotel staff responsible for cleaning up their messes, or the pilots who had to make an emergency landing because of one of Moon’s flings.
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For the most part, Keith Moon’s antics didn’t physically harm others, save for the physical exertion necessary to clean up his messes. But there was one notable victim: a piranha. The main detail of the story, that Moon temporarily housed a piranha in his hotel bathroom, stays consistent across all accounts. But depending on who you ask, some say the fish died because the warm bathwater grew cold while Moon was out playing a show. Others say it choked on a raw steak Moon ordered the hotel staff to throw into the tub as food.
As if turning a hotel bathtub into a piranha enclosure wasn’t enough hotel destruction, Moon also decided to experiment with one of the 500 cherry bombs he picked up while on the road. The powerful, pocket-sized fireworks became an obsession for Moon, who, one night, decided to see what would happen if he flushed one down his hotel toilet. The only problem, however, was that the firework never actually went down the drain. Moon and his partner in crime, John Entwistle, fled the bathroom just as the cherry bomb went off, sending toilet shrapnel flying everywhere.
Perhaps the most potentially lethal shenanigan Moon got himself into was fraternizing with one of “millions of groupies” (as Herman’s Hermits manager Harvey Lisberg would later recount to Classic Rock magazine). One day, as the bands’ chartered jet was taking off on the runway, a station wagon appeared on the tarmac. “We must have been doing about eighty when the driver produced a double-barrelled shotgun. He pointed it at the plane and fired twice.”
The shooter, the band surmised, was the father of the aforementioned groupie. Luckily, he was a lousy shot from a speeding station wagon.
Photo by Chris Morphet/Getty Images
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