What is it about musicians? Steven Tyler was born in an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, and then climbed up and fell down again. Mick Jagger too.
Justin Bieber, who looks like a lesbian, has probably slept with 100 girls by now.
Well...
It’s limelight, pretty much. Everybody wants to be on “that side” of the spotlight for a little bit, or at least get to be a small piece of it.
“Living in the Limelight, The universal dream...”
-Rush, “Limelight” from 1980’s Moving Pictures album.
That song is a pretty good description of that world.
Some people vicariously live out what they wish they themselves could do, through those that are fortunate enough to actually get to do it.
Out of the dozens of musicians that I knew personally growing up and being part of that world, only one or two ever got close to making “the Show”, and even that was only briefly.
There are tons of fantastic musicians who never get any spotlight other than locally. And maybe sometimes, that’s enough. They put food on the table, pay their bills, while people “sit at the bar, and put bread in my jar, and say Man, what are you doing HERE?” as a young Mr. Billy Joel so aptly put it in “Piano Man”...
Which, by the way, is also a fantastic album...
It’s also interesting to note that none of those three individuals you mentioned would be anywhere NEAR as famous as they are without THE BANDS that back them - the REAL musicians who supply the lifeblood of any song.