Van Halen and the Brown M&Ms
We have all heard some eccentricities celebrities demand when on Backstage. But today we are going to talk about a very famous one requested by Van Halen, the american Rock Band and the real reason of it.
I started this blog with the intention of analysing situations under both the analytical and creative mind. Trying to depict how both in many occasions obtain the same conclusions. In this case, we are going to focus on details. There is no doubt that attention to details can turn a wonderful work into a master piece. Actually, that is exactly what differentiates them. Details.
The famous M&Ms Van Halen clause appeared for the first time in their 1982 World Tour contract. It was a 53 pages long contract and in one of the sections, this odd, weird, eccentric request:
- M&M’s (ABSOLUTELY NO BROWN ONES).
“Details make perfection, but perfection is no detail.”
– Dai Vernon
Van Halen became a really famous band by the time, and they were pioneers in producing big live exciting shows. They toured around with 9 18-wheeler trucks, when the standard was no more than 3.
This meant they went into huge productions that requested a lot of preparation and, guess what? A great deal of attention to detail. Not only for the sake of the show, but also for the safety of all members involved in it.
So they added the M&M’s clause on purpose. It looked as a bizarre whim from the artist. A Diva’s request. But it actually was a genius idea.
Think about it. You have a huge production, you need everything to be perfect. You are requesting high detailed technical requests regarding amperage of the sockets, space between elements and hundreds of other requests.
So there, in the middle of all of it you request a bowl on m&m’s without brown ones.
They just had to enter their dressing room and find the bowl of M&M’s. If it contained a single brown one, they knew they had to check everything from the ground up because they didn’t read the contract carefully. So here we have, a Rock Band inventing Quality Assurance.
This is a great example of how a technical checklist that must be thoroughly followed can use creativity to simplify the process of assuring it is followed correctly in an easy and quick way. You must acknowledge it is pure genius .
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