April Fools Pranks – Rock And Roll Style

As you probably have heard(or witnessed), April 1st is known to the world as the glorious day of April Fools pranks. Everyone around the globe is bending the minds of their friends, thinning the line of truth and fiction, all in the name of humor. Or, just because they want to freak someone out.

And the rock and roll world is not exempt by any means.

This year, April 1st generated a slew of pranks, jokes, and flat-out ridiculous happenings. Here are some of the best rock music industry April Fools pranks of this year, as well as some of the best from the last:

Coldplay Launches Angst – A New Fragrance

Out of the plethora of things you can do in the rock world to sell out, I’m pretty sure making your own cologne or perfume ranks pretty high on the list. Coldplay, a popular alternative-rock band, announced yesterday that they were releasing their own fragrance. Even better, they labeled it “Angst”, in a somewhat-appropriate move of marketing.

Chris Martin, the bands front man, stated that “This is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. People like to smell nice, and we thought we could help them out.” Thanks for your help, Chris! God knows rock ‘n roll needs to smell better.

I’d say that the cologne was flying off the shelves, but it is conveniently “sold out” from their online store. There goes our hopes and dreams of smelling like teen spirit.

John Mayer And Tony Romo Start A Gold Prospecting Company

Twitter is an interesting place. Come April 1st, it’s almost commonplace for people to update their Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or any other social networking site saying that they are doing something ridiculous. This year, John Mayer announced via Twitter that Tony Romo and himself would be starting a gold prospecting business. They aptly named the business Golden Retrievers, and claimed that they had secured a website.

Though, this April Fools joke comes up a bit short, considering that the website that he links to isn’t claimed at all. Sorry, John, but you might want to stick to the music industry. Somehow I can’t envision you panning and mining.

Neil Diamond Nominated For The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame

This one has confused a lot of people, possibly including Neil Diamond himself. It hasn’t been officially confirmed if he was, in fact, nominated. This could be a chain of unfortunate April Fools pranks leading to everyone simply being…the fool. Neil Diamond posted via Twitter that he just heard that he had been nominated for the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame. Could this have been a joke on Neil, or a joke on us? Who knows, anything can happen on the beginning of April.

There were plenty of other pranks in the music world this year, like Joe Jonas stating that he was going to join NASA, or One Thirty BPM claiming that The Smiths were going to reunite. One random Twitter posting by Paramore’s Hayley Williams claimed she was going to punch a baby. Though many of these aren’t as thought-out as some of the great April Fools pranks of the past, they still can get at least a chuckle.

Speaking of great pranks of the past, let’s see how our musicians fare from past years April Fools pranks….

Dave Mustaine To Re-Join Metallica

If you didn’t already know, Dave Mustaine was the original lead guitarist for the super-popular metal band Metallica. In 1983, he was kicked out of the band, but according to this news post, Mustaine was coming back to the troupe. This announcement was supposed to take place for the ceremony where Metallica was introduced to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 4th, 2009.

To top off the already-fishy article, it adds that one of the bands former bassists, Jason Newsted, would be joining as well. If that doesn’t give it away, I don’t know what could. Nice try, Parce Musik.

Nine Inch Nails New Album Strobelight – Produced By… Timbaland?

Probably one of the most hilarious pranks of the past few years was Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor announcement that they had a new record called Strobelight, which was being produced by Timbaland. Reznor had recently made it clear that he abhors ex-Soundgarden front man Chris Cornell’s album Scream, which was in fact, produced by Timbaland. Even more hilarious is the web page launched for the album, complete with an interesting track listing. This is a prime example of making a point, and making a prank. Good job, guys.

The music industry is a great place to fool a large audience, and it’s always fun to wake up on the 1st of April to see what crazy stories have popped up. After all, music is passion, and jokes are always funnier when you actually care about what’s going on.

Did you have any good April Fools pranks or experiences this year? Write them in the comments below!

Scotty Smith
Guitarist Rock ©2008-2009