Frank Sinatra: One bottle each: Absolute, Jack Daniel's, Chivas Regal, Courvoisier, Beefeater Gin, white wine, red wine. Twenty-four chilled jumbo shrimp, Life Savers, cough drops.
Photographer Henry Hargreaves has a talent for portraying people and their personalities through objects and food. Recently, the Brooklyn-based photographer created this series, entitled Band Riders. A “rider” is an agreement set up between a musician and a venue that outlines a performer's specific requests, including how to set up equipment on stage, how to organize the dressing room, and what kinds of food and drink to provide backstage during a show.
Hargreaves had the chance to review some of these contracts and, because he found many of them ridiculous, was inspired to document the famous singers and bands across the world through their detailed and often outlandish rider requests. He selected some of the more bizarre demands and set them up in a vanitas-style still life photograph, specifically choosing this style to portray the artists because he said, “I felt that there was a direct connection between the themes in these types of paintings and the riders: the idea of time passing and the ultimate mortality of a musician's career as the limelight inevitably fades–they only have a short time in which they are able to make these demands and have them fulfilled.”
If you like this work, you may also enjoy Hargreaves' series entitled No Seconds, a project featuring the last meals requested by inmates on death row.
Axl Rose: Fresh Wonder Bread (white), Dom Perignon
Beyonc: Juicy baked chicken, heavily seasoned: garlic, sea salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Beyonc can only have Pepsi products.
Busta Rhymes: Twenty-four pieces of fried chicken, Rough Rider condoms, Guinness.
Billy Idol: One tub I can't believe it's not Butter!, Pepperidge Farms Soft Baked Nantucket Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Lady Gaga: Small plate of cheese (nonsmelly, nonsweaty), on ice.
Nine Inch Nails: Two boxes of corn starch.
Britney Spears: Fish and chips, McDonald's cheeseburgers without the buns, 100 prunes and figs, a framed photo of Princess Diana.
Foo Fighters: Big-ass kielbasas that make men feel self-conscious.
Mariah Carey: Cristal Champagne, bendy straws.
Marilyn Manson: Gummi bears.
New Kids On The Block: Hagen-Dazs ice cream, Oreo cookies.
Prince: Coffee and tea setup, including honey, lemon, sugar, cream, fresh ginger root. Physician will be used to administer a B-12 injection.
Van Halen: Herring in sour cream, large tube of KY jelly, M&M's (Warning: absolutely no brown ones).
Rihanna: Hard-boiled eggs, turkey bacon, turkey sausage, at any time throughout the day. Please be prepared!
