April 11, 2007 – Richie Sambora and wife, actress Heather Locklear, divorce after 11 years of marriage.
April 11, 2014 – Kiss, Nirvana, Linda Ronstadt, Cat Stevens and the E Street Band are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Kiss is inducted by former Rage Against the Machine guitarist and obsessive Kiss fan Tom Morello. He closes his speech by saying, “Tonight proves, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the high school bullies and the critics were mistaken. We Kiss fans were right. So let’s celebrate.”
April 11, 1983 – Metallica fires original guitarist Dave Mustaine due to Mustaine’s alcoholism, drug abuse and personality clashes with the rest of the band. Mustaine says, “I would drink and have fun until someone would refute something I had said. And then that was war, baby. I’d be aggressive and confrontational because I was a violent drunk. I lost all inhibitions when I was drinking, and that didn’t go over too well in the end.” Mustaine later formed Megadeth.
April 11, 1981 – Eddie Van Halen marries actress Valerie Bertinelli, star of “One Day at a Time.” They had met eight months earlier when Bertinelli’s 17-year-old brother took her backstage at a Van Halen concert in Shreveport, Louisiana. They divorce in 2007.
April 11, 1966 – Richie Furay, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Dewey Martin, and Bruce Palmer make their public debut as Buffalo Springfield – a name they stole from the side of a steamroller – at the Troubadour in Hollywood, California. They didn’t even get to play in the main room, but performed in the venue’s smaller front room, the Folk Den.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO:
April 11, 1971 – Oliver Riedel, bass (Rammstein)
April 11, 1961 – Nigel Pulsford, guitar (Bush)
April 11, 1961 – Doug Hopkins, guitar (The Gin Blossoms) (d. 1993)
April 11, 1958 – Stuart Adamson, vocals, guitar (Big Country) (d. 2001)
HEADBANGERS HEAVEN:
April 11, 2017 – J. Geils (born John Warren Geils, Jr.), leader of the J. Geils Band, dies from natural causes at his home in Groton, Massachusetts. He was 71. Geils formed his namesake band in 1970, and they released 11 albums prior to their dissolution in 1985, mainly due to the departure of lead singer Peter Wolf. In 2012, Geils was forced to file a lawsuit against the other members of the band when they planned to tour without him.