GROUPIES are women who literally worship musicians and will do anything for free for them. Their ultimate prize is to sleep with musicians. They do not even wait for you to approach them, especially if they feel you are oblivious of their advances. These are found all over the world. Groupies are known to say that to sleep with a musician is their way of getting intimate with the creativity in the musician.

Pamela De Bares, a popular groupie in the USA, defined a groupie as “A girl who loves to be with the guys who play the music that makes her feel damn good”. It is believed the word “groupie” was created by the rock band, The Rolling Stones. A comedian once said that an ugly guy gets ignored by girls all his life till he picks up a guitar and all these girls start throwing themselves at him.

Do not make the mistake of thinking that groupies are found among professional sex workers only. They are also found among “decent” girls too. Professional sex workers will offer to sleep with the musician for free. But most groupies are just ordinary women who are actually even gainfully employed but believe it is a score to sleep with a musician. They do not want anything in return. Sleeping with a popular person is the big prize.

If you wish to study topics that involve sex or are deemed shameful in conservative circles like in Zimbabwe it is very difficult. It is easier to study people in western countries because they are very open about sexuality. In fact, Pamela De Bares and another groupie, the late famous American author, Jackie Collins, even wrote books I’m with the Band and Rock Star respectively where they tell everything in detail.

In Africa, we have groupies that throw themselves at musicians too but you will be very lucky to meet one who will openly talk about it. They are very discreet but the end result is the same.

In the USA, the most popular groupie of the 1970s era was a woman who became known as Cynthia ‘Plaster Caster’. She was nicknamed Plaster Caster because her groupie career started when, as a school pupil, her class was given an assignment by their teacher to plaster cast anything and she mischievously decided to plaster cast male genitalia and approached a member of a Rock band that was in town. He agreed but she said the plaster casting did not go well because she did not have the right material but she said she was happy that she lost her virginity to the musician. That was how she started her groupie lifestyle and her ‘plaster casting’ career. She would approach male musicians and ask to plaster cast their genitalia and she still has the collection. The musicians included Jimi Hendrix and many other very popular Rock stars. She would also sleep with them.

In 1987 talk show host Oprah Winfrey invited Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of the rock band

Kiss to her show to discuss the issue of groupies. Gene Simmons jokingly said that the reason he started playing guitar was his love for women, not just the money in music, when he was young girls did not like him that much, but when he started playing music his dream came true, he said in the past ten years that time he had slept with over two thousand women. Asked by Oprah if sleeping with groupies was good for him he replied “Candy is not supposed to be good for you, but so what? It tastes so good”. He said everybody has a fantasy and the difference with groupies is that they act on their fantasy, they do something about it.

His bandmate Paul Stanley was equally unrepentant, very candid and upfront with his views, describing being surrounded by groupies after a show as being like a buffet. He said it was part of the fringe benefits of being a musician. He further praised the practice saying, “It does not go through the facade of preliminary dates.” Asked if he did not see it as using women, he said, “We perceive women the way they put themselves out.”

But in a penitent tone in December 2014 on the Wendy Williams show, Gene Simmons admitted again that he slept with thousands of groupies but said he changed his ways when he got married. He admitted he had been a “jackass” most of his life.

“I’ve been self-absorbed all my life, self-centered, arrogant, selfish, and full of myself and it took the angel that walked into my life Shannon, without her I would be lost, we have been together 31 years (but married for three years that time),” he said, adding that it took him 29 years to grow up.

There are also some musicians who are very hungry for groupies and do not wait for the women to

come to them. They actually have people they use to scout around the venue for groupies that might want to follow the band to the hotel room or give them backstage passes. That is an open secret among musicians worldwide. Zimbabwean musicians will not openly admit to these things, though.

Sex is one thing that is readily available and easily accessible to any male musician even before making a breakthrough and generally, sex is the greatest weakness of MOST men. It is very difficult for men to resist such advances, especially when they come from an attractive woman. When we were based at Nyamanhindi Hotel as Crocodile Rockers Gang in 1991, prostitutes and groupies would offer financial support to the band in return for “relationships”. All they wanted was the satisfaction of being a band member’s girlfriend.

In Zimbabwe, the women throw themselves at musicians in very discreet ways. She may ask for an autograph or a picture, then secretly slip a note with her name and mobile phone number in your pocket or in your hands so that you can get in touch with her.

She might hunt for your number, from the band’s security team, roadies, or even radio stations and pretend to be interested in a music business deal, only to reveal her intentions when she contacts you.

One time I was on a flight to the USA as a member of Tuku’s band and a gentleman across the aisle asked for my number because he wanted to attend our show. The young woman sitting next to him did not say anything. But she later approached me as I collected my bags to confirm if she got my number correctly. She later called me and explained what she wanted. I was seated with Namatayi Mubariki, a female bandmate, so when she approached me at the bags collection bay she explained that she had to steal my phone number that way because she had thought Namatayi was my wife. So groupies are not even moved by the fact that some musicians are married.

Some give cell phone hand signs to a band member that she likes during a performance when your eyes meet. If the musician shows interest or nods his head she will come backstage during the break or after the show to get their phone number. You should note that in this age of technology, just accepting to exchange numbers with her is to agree to her advances. If the musician calls her to the hotel room they just get straight to business because both of them know why she asked for the phone number and why she agreed to come to the hotel room.

In 2005, I was playing at an open-air gig in Lusaka, Zambia with a popular Zimbabwean artiste, a young girl came closer to the stage and threw a piece of paper rolled over. She then discreetly gave me a sign that it was a letter, but not for me, but for the bandleader. Our band leader was in his late 50s. I kept the letter. After the gig, I gave the bandleader his letter.

Later on, he came to me and jokingly asked me, “Pastor, did you read the letter that you were asked to give me?” (He used to call me Pastor) I took it and read its contents. The girl was 18. She was asking the band leader if she could come to his hotel room and spend the night with him. She explained that she did not want anything from him but just to sleep with him for just one night. She assured him in the letter that she was very skilled in bed. She wrote her name and phone number, too. We just laughed it off and he gave it back to me and I threw it in the waste bin. During an interview, the band leader’s wife said during their early days in marriage, she would get so offended when groupies threw themselves at her husband but she got used to it because the bandleader did not entertain them.

Since the artiste is an international superstar, we toured different countries, and when it comes to groupies I noticed that among African countries, South Africa and Swaziland have the most brazen groupies who are open about their identity and intentions.

Groupies present a serious challenge in this era of STIs, HIV, and AIDS. During the late 1990s, a big number of musicians — including all members of Chikokoko except myself and the bass player succumbed to HIV. My friends could not resist the temptations. Every morning after a gig the main topic of discussion was the groupie experiences of the previous night.

As I wrote in my first book, Following the Melody, I had sex for the first time as part of this band and got infected twice with sexually transmitted diseases. Because of those two experiences, I decided to stay celibate till I got married. I kept my principle and stayed sexually pure until I got married in 1994. It is because of this that I am alive today. I am 100 percent confident I would have died. The drummer and I were the youngest band members. We got the biggest number of temptations from both groupies and prostitutes. My drummer friend could not resist. He passed away in the late 1990s. But I stuck to my principle and here I am writing this story.

A number of bands were wiped off because of a single groupie who would sleep with the whole band on separate occasions. I have a friend who once worked at a club, and he told me of one groupie who frequented their club who was fond of bass players only, every band that came to play at the club in most cases she would go home with the bass player, and each bass player would be thinking he is special, not knowing that she did the same to the last ten bands that came before him. I know some musicians who later left their wives for groupies only for the groupies to cheat with other musicians because they couldn’t resist the desire to sleep with a new musician, some musicians also married groupies only to have miserable marriages because they could not stop the practice.

So what new musicians need to know about groupies is that these women who worship musicians are anywhere and everywhere, it does not mean you are a lady’s man when they follow you.

Groupies are not limited to secular music. They are also there in gospel music circles. The difference is that in gospel music this is done in a subtle way and is far more discreet such that the ordinary person might not notice it. Here the groupies avail themselves both to gospel musicians and religious leaders.

From the book Poor & Famous chapter 17.

Author: Clive”Mono” Mukundu, Edited by Philip Chidavaenzi & Bernadette Mari-Deve

Monolio publications, Harare, Zimbabwe 2018