Bad Dads: Five Of The Worst Fathers In Musical History

he's a genius too, you know

Dads--they have sure done a lot for music, either by being musicians and dads at the same time, making some rockin' dad rock, or just fathering incredibly talented children. In honor of Father's Day, we thought we'd bring you a short series on dads. Today we bring you some of the bad dads. (Some of them really bad.) Tomorrow, a few of the rad dads that changed the course of popular music and rock 'n' roll.

5. Courtney Love's father Hank Harrison

We have to admit we were conflicted on this one. Courtney Love's dad, a
road manager for the Grateful Dead, funded her explorations in the Liverpool music scene when she was 18 by mailing her packages of LSD and MDMA. (c/o Julian Cope when she was crashing at his flat.) This is self-evidently kind of awesome, albeit in a pretty messed up way. So after some deliberation, we put him in Bad Dads instead of Rad Dads. But it wasn't an easy call. Here she is performing "Plump" in 1995.

4. Katy Perry's father Keith Hudson

You thought that Katy Perry's worst offense was making saccharine music but it's actually much worse--according to her evangelical Christian minister father, she is also an irredeemable sinner. Katy's father Keith Hudson is not just your run-of-the-mill judgmental type of Christian; he's a really really fastidious judgmental type of Christian, robbing Katy of her childhood and forbidding her from reading any books but the Bible, listening to pop music, or referring to deviled eggs or the Dirt Devil vacuum. But don't worry--although he publicly declares that he is not only concerned for his daughter's soul, he's perfectly happy to cash in on her global notoriety in order to Spread the Word to other parents so they can forbid books and music to their kids. Here she is singing "Faith Don't Fail" from a 2001 Christian music album released under the name Katy Hudson.