The contract the Van Halen band used for many years with various performance halls required that the band be provided with a bowl of M&Ms® with all of the brown ones removed. The clause included language stating that the group could cancel the performance yet still be paid in full should there be a single brown M&M® found backstage. This provision was not inserted to cater to a temperamental artist but instead was placed into the contract by Van Halen singer David Lee Roth for a specific legitimate purpose.
The band uses literally tons of special equipment and needs specific safety features to be provided by the performance hall in order to put on the show, especially in older buildings whose stages simply may not be designed to handle the weight. If Roth saw that there was brown candy or no candy at all, he knew that the venue did not read the whole contract and that the band could have been working under dangerous conditions.
Please click on the NPR website to hear Roth explain in his own words the reason for the candy clause and his policy of trashing the dressing room of the performance hall whenever he discovered an M&M® infraction.
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