From 50-foot stage dives and brawling with biker gangs, to on-stage animal slaughter and the most unusual substance anyone has ever ingested, here are four of the craziest rock stars who are, somehow, still alive today:

Related:
Keith Moon: The most explosive rock star in history
The rise and fall of New York’s most scandalous nightclub
Violence and adultery: The dark side of John Lennon

Iggy Pop
The fact that Iggy Pop is still alive today is a minor miracle. You only need to take one look at his haggard face and beat-up body to see how much stress he’s put himself through over an outrageous and unpredictable career that’s spanned some 50 odd years and is somehow still ongoing.

The man who is credited as the first ever to take a running jump into the crowd from on stage and call it a stage dive, Iggy has struggled throughout his life with drink and drug addiction, so much so he even checked himself into a mental institution in 1976 to try and kick his bad habits.

Among a career full of wild and dangerous antics, one that particularly stands out is from February 9, 1974, in what went on to be The Stooges’ last concert for almost 30 years at Detroit’s Michigan Palace. Before the gig, Iggy gave a radio interview in which he publicly insulted a local motorbike gang called the Scorpions. Of course, this cockiness didn’t sit well with the gang, so they turned up to the concert especially to harass the band, pelting them with bottles, cans, eggs - whatever they could get their hands on.

Unperturbed by the hostility, Iggy continued to taunt the crowd, saying: “You pr***s can throw everything in the world… your girlfriends will still love me.” He then went on to lead the Stooges in an improvised 45-minute version of Louie Louie, in which he continued to exchange insults with the crowd.

During the mammoth song, one particular heckle touched a nerve in Iggy and he snapped, jumping off the stage to confront the bikers face-to-face. Naturally, he took a beating from the gang before managing to worm his way back out of the crowd as a full-scale riot ensued. And the best bit? The audio was all caught on tape and used for the legendary album Metallic K.O.

Here’s a video of him at his powerful best:

Keith Richards
During an illustrious career spanning more than 50 years and 200 million sold records, Keith Richards made his name as one of the greatest guitarists in history.

Stories of wild parties and crazy behaviour from him, the other members of the Rolling Stones and the rest of their rock star friends are many, and include him nearly burning down the Chicago Playboy Mansion, after setting a fire in the bathroom while on one of his wilder drug trips.

Throughout his career, he’s been fuelled by such a cocktail of drugs that it would look imposing to even the most experienced of chemists. However, the strangest of all the things that have entered Mr Richards’ nose has to be the ashes of his dead father.

Describing his famous father-snorthing incident, he said, “It’s not like I ate him. I just snorted him! There was powder on a table what else am I supposed to do? It got me off!” Here’s his full explanation:

Ozzy Osbourne
Most members of heavy metal bands tend to get unfairly accused of being into strange, dark fetishes, and Ozzy Osbourne is no exception to that, however while he may not be into any crazy cults or devil-worship as some people like to think, he’s certainly not dubbed the “Prince of Darkness” for nothing.

To get an idea for just how much of a nutcase he is, we’ll take you back to 1981 and a board room full of CBS Records executives in Los Angeles. Having recently been sacked from Black Sabbath due to his excessive intake of every narcotic under the sun, Osbourne was in the process of launching his solo career.

Keen to impress the execs, Osbourne had smuggled two live doves into the meeting and planned to set them free as an expression of peace. However, under the veil of a sack load of drugs, a heavily intoxicated Osbourne had a sudden change of heart, deciding that a more impressive gesture would be to bite the head off one of the doves, throw it down on the table and then storm out of the meeting.

Although not popular with animal-rights campaigners (especially after a similar incident on stage the following year when he bit the head off a live bat), Osbourne went on to release 11 studio albums, the first seven of which went multi-platinum in the US. Here he is talking about his controversial incidents:

Eddie Vedder
Aside from being one of the best lead singers of all time (he was ranked seventh on a list compiled by Rolling Stone), Eddie Vedder was also completely fearless.

Although he’s mellowed now, during his earlier years, the now 50-year-old Pearl Jam frontman built up quite a reputation for taking the art of throwing yourself off a stage into the crowd to completely new heights (literally).

The aforementioned Iggy Pop was the one credited with starting the frankly irresponsible rock-star tradition of stage-diving, but that was clearly not dangerous enough for Vedder, who would routinely climb scaffolding and stage sets in order to take his stage-diving to the absolute limit.

Check out the video below to see just how insane this man was. It’s a wonder he’s still alive today.