The Billion Dollar Supergroup: The wild story of The Kings of Chaos
Virtually everyone has dreamed up their own supergroup at some point, and while it’s something of an exhausted icebreaker question at parties when trying to establish someone’s music taste, it’s still an interesting question that can lead to some interesting debates. Will you follow the masses and pick Jimi Hendrix as the lead guitarist, or is that too obvious of a response, and would he even work with the other musicians you’ve opted for?
Under normal circumstances, the rules of the game allow you to pick just one musician per instrument to establish who gets the nod of approval, otherwise you’re then just listing a bunch of your favourites. At the same time, it’s also best to avoid picking two members of the same group, as at that point it defeats the purpose and mystery of whether they’d work well as an ensemble.
Musicians also seem to love to play this game as well, and sometimes their own curiosities will get the better of them and they’ll end up actually forming a supergroup as a side project to see just how things pan out. It must require a lot of organisation to get a group of already established musicians together, no matter how small the band might be in terms of members, since they’ll always have their own schedules to work around and have to set aside time to pursue exciting ventures with their new cabal.
If it sounds like it could be an ordeal to coordinate just four or five superstars of music, then just imagine what it might be like to reach double figures in members together at one time. Kings of Chaos tried to do just that and more, and every single part of the project seemed to live up to the name in how it panned out for them. The supergroup were established in 2012 as Rock ‘N’ Roll All-Stars, and they certainly weren’t lying about their initial moniker either, bringing together members of Guns N’ Roses, Kiss, Def Leppard and many more.
A total of 11 members made up the group’s first lineup, and everyone within the assemblage was a star in their own right, but due to the nature of there being so many gigantic names in their ranks, not everyone could stay around at all times, and there have been constant shifts in the lineup since their formation. 32 members have at some point been a part of the band in the last 12 years, with some only making a single live appearance. If those statistics seem a little chaotic on their own, bear in mind they’ve also only released two songs to date in an official capacity, one of which was a cover of the Deep Purple song ‘Never Before’ as part of a tribute album to the hard rock group (who they also shared a member with).
Their first-ever tour, a 10-day run in South America, was nothing short of a disaster. It only lasted four shows, and drummer Matt Sorum of Guns N’ Roses had taken it upon himself to manage the band himself, which featured his former bandmates Duff McKagan and Gilby Clarke alongside the likes of Gene Simmons and Joe Elliot. “We were on an old ‘70s aeroplane with a ‘70s promoter who did all the things that ’70s promoters do,” recalled Elliot of the catastrophic tour. “The promoter didn’t sort out the local promoters properly. They weren’t going to pay us. And if they weren’t going to pay, we weren’t going to play.”
However, while many would have perceived the whole spectacle as being a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on everyone’s respective successes, Elliott defended the decision to embark on the tour. “We’re doing it because it’s a chance to do something different,” he told Louder Sound in 2013. “You’re stepping out of your hamster wheel and maybe bringing something back to the day job.”
But, were they truly adding anything new to the world of rock music, and why were they not writing their own original material despite the wealth of talent that they had among the ranks? When the band made their decision to play two nights at a 7,000 capacity venue in Cape Town in 2013, the organisation fell to experienced artist manager Steve Wood to shepherd everyone over for the performances. “It looks daunting,” Wood said at the time of the performance, “and you have to have the right calibre of people. You’ve got to have megastars, basically. Look, we’ve got four of the guys from Guns N’ Roses. That’s four times as many as the real Guns N’ Roses have these days.”
Kings of Chaos’ existence as a glorified covers band is one of total insanity, and while nobody within the group ever truly seemed to realise that, it’s very clear that everyone on the outside knew exactly just how strange and misguided the concept was from the outset.
