Berserk Button/Music

When a nice, normal character suddenly goes into a rage, you've hit his Berserk Button.

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• You can burn my house, steal my car, drink my liquor from an old fruit jar. Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh, Honey, lay off of my shoes...
• Post-hardcore band At the Drive In's (and now The Mars Volta) Cedric Bixler-Zavala flips a shit when people mosh, slam-dance, or crowd surf during their shows, and has been known to patronize the audience by calling them sheep and baah-ing at them. Omar Rodríguez-López also hates slam-dancing to the point where he slams his guitar on the ground and stops playing.
• Never refer to the frontman of the gothic-rock band The Sisters of Mercy, Andrew Eldritch, as a Goth within his hearing. Likewise, never allow industrial artist Al Jorgenson (Ministry, Revolting Cocks, Lard) near your copies of Ministry's With Sympathy or Twitch if you wish to keep them intact.
• Don't throw stuff at Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme, or mosh into women at a show. At best you'll be called a 'cocksmoker' and told to "smoke a bag of dicks." At worst you'll be pulled out of the crowd and bottled.
  • Also, beating your girlfriend is a great way to get Homme to throw you out of the band and tell you to never come back, something Nick Oliveri found out the hard way.
• Never aim your camera at Guns N' Roses unless you want to take a beating from Axl Rose, who will dive off the stage and lay the smackdown on you if he sees it.
  • Actually, Axl has too many Berserk Buttons to count. He'll leave the stage because of ONE faulty spotlight.
  • To press Steven Adler's Berserk Button, call Axl Rose Bon Jovi and try to hit him.
• Even if he does agree with your views, Pete Townshend is still going to take you to school if you dare run across the stage stating your views during The Who's set. Abbie Hoffman infamously did just that during Woodstock. Townshend was not amused.
• Emilie Autumn does not like people who steal things off the stage, especially her bears. Her fans also tend to get very, very pissed off when things get stolen.
• From Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, it is NEVER a good idea to harm children in front of Michael Jackson during the Smooth Criminal mini-movie/music video. For clarification, Frank Lideo/Mr. Big planned on hooking all the kids in the world on drugs, and when he captures Michael's child friend, Katy, he threatens to get her high. Michael gets pissed. THEN, after he and his guards beat him up a bit, Mr. Big tells a guard to kill Katy. Michael, thanks to a magical shooting star, gets incredibly pissed off, turns into a robot, and takes out all the guards and Mr. Big.
• Bat for Lashes has expressed her anger over people comparing her to Tori Amos. Then there's the unfortunate implication that she's saying that it's insulting to be compared to her, period.
• Do NOT mention John Lennon's assassin by name! Seriously, just don't! Yoko Ono actually got someone fired from a Lennon biopic simply because his real name was the same as John's assassin!
• If you're chatting amiably with a My Chemical Romance fan, do not mention that you think they're Emo unless you're wearing flame-retardant clothing.
  • This applies to the band themselves as well, particularly singer Gerard Way, who has voiced his hatred for Emo many times and really doesn't like people labelling them as an emo band. (For the record, they're pop punk or alternative rock.)
• Glenn Danzig should have known better than to fuck around with North Side Kings backstage. One good thing did come out of the incident, though: Memetic Mutation of him getting decked during a confrontation with one member.
• One of the contributing factors to Dave Mustaine being kicked out of Metallica was his berserk button which went off constantly. Dave once broke a man's arm because he insulted drummer Lars Ulrich. Though Dave was let go of the band, you can't deny that was a rather sweet, if uncalled for gesture.
• When asked about (in)famous smooth jazz saxophonist Kenneth "Kenny G" Gorelick, guitarist Pat Metheny gave a well-reasoned argument as to why he didn't like his music but generally had no ill-feelings towards the guy (a position bordering on saintly, considering most of the jazz world considers him the Antichrist...). HOWEVER, when Gorelick dubbed himself over jazz great Louis Armstrong, Metheny delivered a superbly out of character verbal assault, labeling his performance "lame-ass, jive, pseudo bluesy, out-of-tune, noodling, wimped out, fucked up playing".
• Try calling Mark Wahlberg 'Marky Mark' and see how that goes for you.
• Do not suggest to a Within Temptation fan that they are a ripoff of Evanescence, Nightwish, or any other symphonic metal band that Within Temptation predates.
• Don't even allude to Hailie Jade Scott in a song, lest you incur the wrath of her father.
  • Insulting Hailie, in addition to pissing off Eminem, will also bring down the wrath of D12, Dr. Dre, 50 Cent, G-Unit, Obie Trice and DMX. Ja Rule and Everlast can tell you that.
• Jazz pianist Keith Jarrett is notorious for stopping his concerts and throwing on-stage fits whenever audience members cough too loudly or make some other distracting noise. There have been reports of cough drops being handed out to the audience before the concert in some instances.
• In the Replacements song, "Shootin' Dirty Pool," the protagonist loses it when someone shouts out, "Why don't you get a haircut, sister!"
• Call Mark McGrath "Sugar Gay" and see what happens.
• Don't call Meat Loaf "Marvin" or tease him about his weight. And if you're dating one of his daughters, you will bring her home early or he will introduce you to another kind of bat out of hell.
• If you are Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones, do not, under ANY circumstances refer to your bandmate Charlie Watts as "my drummer." Last time Mick did something like this, Charlie slugged him and said, "Don't you ever call me your drummer again! You're my fucking singer!"
• Duran Duran: Do not mention Warren Cuccurullo to Andy Taylor fans, or Andy Taylor to Warren Cuccurullo fans. Also, do not mention the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Jann Wenner, the Grammys, Paul Young, Amanda de Cadenet, most American music critics, Hollywood Records, or Mick Hucknall to a Duran fan.
• Bryan Ferry: Don't insult his children, even if they've said things in the press that aren't exactly politically correct (e.g. his son Oliver advocating the controversial fox hunt).
• Do not piss off Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack De La Rocha!
• Up until very recently, mentioning the other members of Kajagoogoo was a good way of making Limahl very, very angry. (Their '80s split was not at all amicable.)
• On a similar note, mention any other former member of The Smiths aside from Johnny Marr to Morrissey and you're just asking for trouble.
• Mark E. Smith of The Fall is a fairly amiable guy. Except if you mention Pavement to him. Do that at your own peril.
• Don't start fights with the fans in front of Dave Grohl at a Foo Fighters concert.
• Andy Biersack has cussed out haters from onstage multiple times and told anyone who wanted to throw something at him that they should come onstage where he can kick their asses.
• Do you play guitar? Don't even think of playing "Stairway to Heaven" or "Smoke on the Water" if you want your instrument intact afterwards, unless your name is Jimmy Page or Ritchie Blackmore, respectively.
• Eric Bogle's song "Do You Sing Any Dylan?" is about the question guaranteed to cause any folk singer to fly off the handle.
• Madonna doesn't like hydrangeas.
• Due to assorted examples of Award Snub over the years, it's not a good idea to mention The Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame unless it's to complain that your favorite band isn't in it.
• Cover versions in general can cause fans of an original artist's blood to boil, especially any case of Covered Up.
• It was a bad idea to mention Vivian Campbell in front of Ronnie James Dio. Behold. The ranting starts at about 45 seconds in. Bear in mind this is coming out of probably the nicest, most considerate guy to ever make heavy metal music.
• You know those announcements before a Broadway musical begins, telling you not to take pictures during the show? You'd better do what they say, especially if the star is Patti Lupone. Not only will she stop singing, chew you out, and have you ejected from the theater, but everyone else will applaud her and you will (deservedly) look like a moron.