Every rock musician wants street cred (well OK, maybe not Daughtry, but still…). It bolsters your reviews, adds weight to your message and enforces the fantasy that you are one badass mofo. Sure, you could pick up a heroin addiction, but that’s so cliche. Why not take things one step further? Johnny Paycheck, the singer of “Take This Job and Shove It,” may not have killed anybody, but he certainly upped his country cred by being sentenced to seven years in jail after a shot he fired grazed a man’s head. Lots of rappers have been convicted of murder, though it’s usually not the wisest in terms of a long career trajectory. Other murderous musicians inclue famed R&B singer Little Willie John who was convicted of manslaughter and big band leader Spade Cooley who stomped his wife to death after she said she wanted she divorce. Stomped her to death! But what about the rockers? Which ones solidified their place in rock’s pantheon with the dubious distinction of having killed someone? Probably more than you think. Here’s a look:

Bobby Beausoleil of Love
This Manson family associate was an early member of Love, but the musician earned his place in rock & roll lore after murdering music teacher Gary Hinman, which is described at length in the book “.” Beausoleil killed Hinman after a drug transaction went bad and left “Political piggy” on a wall in Hinman’s blood at the crime scene. He was sentenced to death, but that was commuted to life in prison without parole after California overturned the death penalty. Beausoleil is still in prison and was denied parole in 2008.

R.L. Burnside
The Mississippi bluesman, who gained fame with a rock audience towards the end of his life thanks to collaborations with Jon Spencer, spent six months in jail for shooting a man in 1959. “I didn’t mean to kill nobody,” the guitarist said of the crime. “I just meant to shoot the sonofabitch in the head. Him dying was between him and the Lord.” His boss at the time pulled some strings to keep the musician’s stay in prison short.

Don Drummond of The Skatalites
Just a few months after a song he’d written, “Man in the Street,” hit the UK top 10, the Jamaican-born trombonist of the Skatalites stabbed his girlfriend to death on New Year’s Day, 1965. When police arrived on the scene they found a knife in her breast and her hand in the bell of Drummond’s trombone. He died in prison four years later of natural causes, but many people suspected foul play in his death, speculating it may have been payback for his crime by Jamaican gangsters.

Bård G. “Faust” Eithun of Emperor
After agreeing to go for a walk with man in the forest, the drummer for black metal band Emperor, stabbed him to death when he made a pass at him. Eithun wasn’t prosecuted until two years after the crime occurred, and he was ultimately sentenced to 14 years in jail. He was released after serving nine.

Jim Gordon of Derek and the Dominoes
An undiagnosed schizophrenic, session drummer and Derek and the Dominoes member, Jim Gordon, gruesomely murdered his mother in 1983 with a hammer and a butcher knife after being told to do so by the voices in his head. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison, where he still remains, having twice been denied parole.

Lead Belly
He wasn’t a rocker himself, but he influenced several generations of bands including Led Zeppelin, Nirvana and Creedence Clearwater Rivival. Lead Belly had several stints in jail, one of which was for killing a relative of his in 1918 over a woman. He was eventually pardoned for the crime after writing a song for Pat Morris Neff, the then-Governor of Texas.

Sam McBride of Fang
Out of his mind on heroin, the singer for the Northern California punk band killed his girlfriend Dixie Lee Carney in August of 1989 by strangling her. He copped a plea for voluntary manslaughter and spent six years incarcerated. He’s since been released and has reformed Fang, though he remains the only original member.

Joe Meek
Meek is a musical anomaly not because he committed suicide after killing his landlord, but because he wrote a whopping 45 hit singles without being able to play an instrument or write music. His biggest hit was the 1962 single “Telstar” from British band The Tornados, but he produced hits for a number of artists throughout the ’50s and ’60s. After his career went south, so did his finances and his mental health, and Meek became increasingly paranoid, eventually killing his landlord with a borrowed gun and then turning it on himself.

Vince Neil of Motley Crue
The Motley Crue frontman killed the drummer of Finnish glam rock band Hanoi Rocks when the pair were involved in a drunk driving accident. After a day of partying, the duo were on their way to a liquor store when Neil lost control of his De Tomaso Pantera and collided with an oncoming car, seriously injuring the pair in the other car and killing Nicholas “Razzle” Dingley, the Hanoi Rocks drummer.

Jon Nödtveidt of Dissection
The lead singer and guitar player of the Swedish death metal band Dissection was convicted in 1997 of helping to kill a homosexual. He was released from prison in 2004, the same year he reformed his band. He committed suicide shortly thereafter by shooting himself in the head inside a circle of lit candles.

Sid Vicious of The Sex Pistols
Though the details behind Nancy Spungen’s death will never be known, her boyfriend, bad boy bass player Sid Vicious, was charged with her murder after her stab wounds were traced to a knife owned by the Sex Pistols bassist. “I stabbed her,” he later told the police, “But I didn’t mean to kill her.” Before he could stand trial, Vicious OD’d on heroin.

Varg Vikernes of Mayhem
Few musicians have as controversial a past as Vikernes, a member of the bands Burzum and Mayhem, who is connected to a series of church burnings in his native Norway as well as stabbing fellow Mayhem member Oystein Arseth 23 times. Though the motive for the murder is unclear, Vikernes claims he killed Arseth in self-defense after his former friend plotted to torture him on video tape. In 1994, Vikernes was sentenced to 21 years in prison. He was released on May 24, 2009 after serving 15 years.

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