The tallest rock stars are rarely the ones you would guess from album covers. Krist Novoselic of Nirvana stands 6 feet 7 inches, Joey Ramone of the Ramones was 6 feet 6 inches, and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac is listed at 6 feet 5 inches or 6 feet 6 inches, depending on the source. A 2013 Star Tribune list of rock’s tallest stars put these three at the top.
Each played a different role, on bass, vocals, and drums, and each turned unusual height into something fans remembered. This guide covers who they are, how tall they really are, and how their stature shaped what they did on stage.
How Tall Are These Three Rock Stars?
Novoselic is the tallest at 6 feet 7 inches (201 cm), Ramone was 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm), and Fleetwood falls between 6 feet 5 inches and 6 feet 6 inches. Celebrity heights are almost never measured under controlled conditions, so each figure below is a widely reported number rather than a clinical one.
| Name | Band | Role | Reported Height |
|---|---|---|---|
| Krist Novoselic | Nirvana | Bass | 6 ft 7 in (201 cm) |
| Joey Ramone | Ramones | Lead vocals | 6 ft 6 in (198 cm) |
| Mick Fleetwood | Fleetwood Mac | Drums | 6 ft 5 in to 6 ft 6 in |
Novoselic’s figure matches both the Star Tribune list and the Astrotheme celebrity height database. Ramone’s matches the Star Tribune as well, and Wikipedia’s entry on his bandmate Johnny Ramone describes Joey as distinctive for a height of 6 feet 6 inches.
Height figures for working musicians often come from interviews, band bios, or fan databases, and boots or posture can add or subtract an inch in photos. People also lose a little height with age, so the numbers for Novoselic and Fleetwood, who are both in their sixties or later, may differ slightly from what they measured in their prime.
Joey Ramone’s height is easier to pin down for another reason. He died in 2001, so his reported figure has stayed the same for more than two decades, and sources agree on it more than they do for the other two.
Krist Novoselic: The Bassist Who Anchored Nirvana
Krist Novoselic is the tallest of the three, and his height was part of the picture from the first time Nirvana appeared on television. He played bass beside a frontman who was far shorter, and that contrast became one of the most recognizable images of the early 1990s.
Early Life in Aberdeen
Krist Anthony Novoselic was born on May 16, 1965, in Compton, California, to Croatian parents. He grew up in Aberdeen, Washington, a logging town where he met Kurt Cobain through the local punk scene.
The two formed Nirvana in 1987, and Novoselic played bass from the first lineup onward. The band’s debut album, Bleach, came out in 1989 on the Seattle label Sub Pop, and Nevermind followed in 1991.
That second album made Nirvana one of the biggest rock bands in the world within months. Novoselic’s role was to hold the low end steady under Cobain’s guitar and voice, which is harder than it sounds in a three-piece band with only one other melodic instrument.
Standing Beside Kurt Cobain
Cobain is commonly reported at about 5 feet 9 inches, which left roughly a ten-inch gap between the two founders. Novoselic was usually framed right next to Cobain, so the size difference read clearly in photographs and on television.
His height also produced one of rock’s most replayed accidents. At the 1992 MTV Video Music Awards, he tossed his bass into the air at the end of a performance and it came down on his head.
A bass guitar looks almost small in the hands of someone 6 feet 7 inches tall, which added to the comic effect of seeing him play next to Cobain. Fans tend to remember that moment as a joke, but it also shows how much of a target a 6-foot-7 performer presents. Microphones, camera frames, and monitor placement all had to account for him.
Life After Nirvana
Nirvana ended after Cobain died in 1994. Novoselic went on to play in Sweet 75, Eyes Adrift, and later Flipper, according to the biography summarized by Astrotheme.
He also turned toward politics. Novoselic helped create JAMPAC, a political action committee for musicians in Washington state, and later wrote a book on music and government titled Of Grunge and Government. He has also supported electoral reform and served on the board of the voting-rights group FairVote.
Nirvana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, its first year of eligibility. That makes Novoselic one of the few tall rock musicians whose public career has run as long in civic work as it did in a band.
Joey Ramone: The Gangly Voice of Punk
Joey Ramone, born Jeffrey Ross Hyman, was the lead singer of the Ramones and probably the most visually striking frontman in early punk. At 6 feet 6 inches, with a thin frame and long black hair that nearly hid his face, he looked nothing like the muscular singers of 1970s arena rock.
EBSCO’s biography calls him an imposing front man, and period photographs bear that out. Joey usually towers over the group, which was framed as four tough kids with one very tall singer.
From Drummer to Frontman
Ramone was born on May 19, 1951, and grew up in Forest Hills, Queens, where he attended Forest Hills High School alongside his future bandmates. His younger brother, Mickey Leigh, later became a singer-songwriter too.
The Ramones formed in 1974 with Johnny, Dee Dee, and Joey, who all adopted the stage surname Ramone. They began playing CBGB, the Lower Manhattan club that became the center of New York punk, later that year. Joey started as the drummer while Dee Dee sang, but he moved to lead vocals soon after the group formed.
Moving him to the front changed how the band looked. A singer who stands 6 feet 6 inches tall is impossible to miss on a small club stage.
The Look That Defined the Ramones
The band’s self-titled debut album arrived in 1976 and is considered by some to be the first punk album. It included “Blitzkrieg Bop,” the song most people connect with the band.
His influences were not what the look suggested. The Famous People profile of him lists The Who, the Stooges, and the Beatles among his favorites, which helps explain why songs like “I Wanna Be Sedated” sound as melodic as they do fast.
Joey’s height gave the group a silhouette that was easy to recognize on a poster. Next to the compact Johnny on guitar, his lanky frame made the Ramones look like a cartoon of four tough kids from Queens.
His writing carried a point of view as well. On 1986’s Animal Boy, he co-wrote a protest song about President Ronald Reagan.
Legacy in Queens
Joey Ramone died of lymphoma on April 15, 2001. The Ramones were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 18, 2002, in a ceremony Joey did not live to see.
On November 30, 2003, New York named a street Joey Ramone Place, on the block near CBGB where the Ramones got their start. His height and hair are still the shorthand for him, and the first image many fans picture when they hear the name.
Not every part of his story was smooth. Joey and Johnny stopped speaking for years after Johnny married Linda, who had been Joey’s girlfriend, and the two reportedly never reconciled.
Mick Fleetwood: The Towering Drummer Behind Fleetwood Mac
Mick Fleetwood is the co-founder, drummer, and long-time leader of Fleetwood Mac. He is listed at 6 feet 5 inches by the Star Tribune and Google’s profile of him, and at 6 feet 6 inches by several other sites.
Among the three, he is the one whose height is least obvious on record covers, because drummers spend most of a show seated.
A Childhood Abroad and a Blues Apprenticeship
Michael John Kells Fleetwood was born on June 24, 1947, in Redruth, Cornwall, England. He spent most of his childhood in Egypt and Norway because his father served in the Royal Air Force.
He worked his way through the British blues scene, including time with John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers. In 1967, he formed Fleetwood Mac with guitarist Peter Green, and bassist John McVie joined him. The band’s name combines Fleetwood’s surname with McVie’s, and its self-titled debut came out in 1968.
The early lineup played British blues, a long way from the polished sound the group later became known for. Fleetwood stayed through every lineup change and became the member who kept the group going. The band reunited in 1997 for a live album and tour called The Dance, and he was part of that return as well.
Rumours and the Height Gap
The band’s biggest moment came with Rumours, released in 1977 and later certified diamond. By then the group had five members, and the visual difference between Fleetwood and singer Stevie Nicks, reported at about 5 feet 1 inch, was a feature of their live shows.
Nicks was often seen in tall platform boots on stage, which narrowed the gap a little. Even so, the tallest and shortest members of the lineup stood roughly a foot and a half apart.
Fleetwood was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 as a member of Fleetwood Mac. He is still active in music in his late seventies.
Why His Height Is Listed Two Ways
The gap between 6 feet 5 inches and 6 feet 6 inches comes down to rounding and who is doing the measuring. One website gives an outlier figure near 6 feet 2 inches, but the more frequently repeated numbers cluster around 6 feet 5 inches to 6 feet 6 inches.
Since no official measurement is published, about 6 feet 5 inches or taller is the safest way to put it. A single exact number would claim more certainty than the sources can support.
What Their Height Did, and Did Not, Change
Height gave each of these tallest rock stars a stronger visual identity, but it did not decide how far they went. Novoselic’s bass lines held Nirvana together, Ramone’s voice defined punk’s vocal style, and Fleetwood’s drumming drove one of the best-selling albums ever made.
What height did change was how they were seen. A tall bassist beside a shorter frontman, a gangly singer in a four-piece, and a drummer whose frame was easy to miss behind a kit all became part of the way fans remembered the music.
The three also share a pattern. Each helped start a band that outlasted a painful stretch, whether a death, a long conflict between members, or years of lineup changes, and each stayed visible as the face of that survival.
Taken together, these three are the tallest rock stars most fans can name, and each shows a different way a physical trait becomes part of a public image.