Random Bands Whose Whole Thing Is Hating Each Oth (15 items)

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  (#1) The Beatles

  • Pop music, Rock music, Pop rock

  They may have been at the top of the world in the 1960s, but the Beatles would have rather been anywhere else. Even though people blame Yoko Ono for the band’s demise, she’s hardly the culprit behind the dissolution. Following the group’s sojourn to India to mediate with the Maharishi, the band was more fractured than ever. As ludicrous as that sounds, it resulted in The White Album, one of their most daring efforts. 

  While recording the album, the group constantly exchanged nasty barbs. Starr quit the band for a short while after being teased by other band members, and the introduction of Yoko Ono to the studio did not sit well with anyone other than Lennon.

  The band soldiered on and even booked a date at London’s Roundhouse, where they were meant to play their first show since Candlestick Park in 1966. However, the band was in low spirits during the rehearsal period for what would become Let It Be and Abbey Road, with McCartney pushing the band to write as much as possible. Producer George Martin said, "Paul would be rather overbossy, which the other boys would dislike. But it was the only way of getting together... It was just a general disintegration."

  George Harrison quit the band for real during these sessions, telling the group, "Put an ad in [the papers] and get a few people in." He returned shortly afterwards, but the damage was done and the band unraveled completely before their final two albums were released. 
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  (#2) Creedence Clearwater Revival

  • Blues-rock, Blue-eyed soul, Swamp pop, Rock music, Garage rock, Swamp rock, Country rock, Rock and roll, Country, Southern rock, Roots rock, Hard rock

  Creedence Clearwater Revival may have only been together for five years, but in that time they managed to have a string of hits that can rival any group that's been together for twice as long. Like a lot of bands whose whole deal is hating each other, CCR were done in by a leader -  in this case John Fogerty - who refused to give up even a little bit of creative control. 

  By the early '70s, singer and songwriter John Fogerty had taken on full artistic responsibilities for the band, and that didn't sit well with the other three members. They favored a democratic process for songwriting, but Fogerty said there was no way that kind of thing would work. After Fogerty's brother quit the band, they attempted to soldier on as a trio, but that's when things got really messy. 

  CCR released Mardi Gras in 1972; the album was critically and commercially reviled. As if that weren't bad enough, they were losing money because of the contract with their label. The band members blamed each other for their problems and soon the band was done. Two decades later, John Fogerty described CCR as a "time bomb," saying the rest of the band didn't understand his artistic vision - which also happened to be a vision that raked in cash. He told POP: 

  We went to an Italian restaurant and I remember that I very clearly told the others that I for one didn't want to go back to the car wash again. Now we had to make the best possible album and it wasn't important who did what, as long as the result was the very best we could achieve. And of course I was the one who should do it... I don't think the others really understood what I meant, but at least I could manage the situation the way I wanted. The result was eight million-selling double-sided singles in a row and six albums, all of which went platinum. And Melody Maker had us as the best band in the world. That was after the Beatles split, but still... And I was the one who had created all this. 

  When the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, Fogerty balked at playing with the original members of the band. Over the course of the following decades, the surviving members of the band have continued to file lawsuits against Fogerty for misuse and malfeasance of the Creedence Clearwater Revival name. 
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  (#3) Fleetwood Mac

  • Blues-rock, Pop music, Rock music, Instrumental rock, Pop rock, Soft rock, Blues, Hard rock

  Out of all the bands who hate each other, Fleetwood Mac is the one group who's managed to turn their acrimony into monetary gain. The addition of Stevie Nicks and her then-beau Lindsey Buckingham wasn't even the beginning of their inner turmoil. Fleetwood Mac was famously a completely different band from from the late '60s through the early '70s. 

  After the band brought on and subsequently fired a few members, the most well-known version of the group (Nicks, Buckingham, Fleetwood, and the McVies) came together and recorded hit after hit while hooking up with one another, fighting, and working on solo projects. 

  Both Lindsey Buckingham and Christine McVie have quit the band and returned at various points during the Mac's decades-long run. While McVie says she was just tired of the road, Buckingham's exits have always had more to do with his push and pull with Nicks. In 2018, Buckingham left the band again - a split that McVie said had to happen to keep the group on tour:

  It was the only route we could take, because there was too much animosity between certain members of the band at that point, there was just no way it could’ve gone on as a five-piece, a group with Lindsey in the band. So it was either just completely break up the band or make the best of it.

  In 2015, Buckingham told Dan Rather: 

  You would think after all these years, there would be nothing left to work on. But, oddly enough, Stevie’s and my relationship is still a work in progress, and I guess that says something, doesn’t it - about the care, about possibly the parallel motives that have driven us down the roads that we’ve been on. And I have nothing but respect and love for Stevie, and I hope she feels that way about me as well.
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  (#4) The Eagles

  • Rhythm and blues

  The Eagles are the ultimate Southern California country rock band. For every smooth groove and four-part harmony in one of their hits, there’s a gripe or disagreement about something from one of the members. Since their first incarnation as the backing band for Linda Ronstadt, the group has been a collection of testosterone-fueled singer-songwriters who’d rather duke it out than go to therapy. 

  While Glenn Frey and Don Henley more or less held things down as the principal songwriters and singers, they went through guitarists like toilet paper. Things came to a head in 1980 at a show in Long Beach, CA, when Don Felder, the guitarist who stuck around the longest, told Frey while on stage, “Only three more song till I kick your *ss, pal.” The band was over after that. 

  When the band got back together for the Hell Freezes Over album and tour, Henley and Frey allegedly formed a separate corporation from the rest of the band in order to handle a retrospective box set, presumably to make sure they could control the royalties. Felder didn't stick around for long after that. The Eagles are still on tour, so catch them before they break up again. 
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  (#5) Simon and Garfunkel

  • Pop music, Worldbeat, Rock music, Folk music, Folk rock, World music, Pop folk, Soft rock

  Even though they created some of the most memorable songs of the '60s, Simon and Garfunkel were at odds with one another from the beginning of their career. It couldn't have been easy for Simon to write songs while Garfunkel simply sang them, but it's Garfunkel's voice that makes those songs so memorable.

  The rift between the two seems to come from the fact that Simon wanted to do stuff on his own, and Garfunkel couldn't understand why his partner would walk away from their group. In an interview with The Telegraph, Garfunkel said that he and George Harrison of the Beatles were similar in that they were held down by their respective bandmates. He said: 

  George came up to me at a party once and said "my Paul is to me what your Paul is to you." He meant that psychologically they had the same effect on us. The Pauls sidelined us. I think George felt suppressed by Paul and I think that’s what he saw with me and my Paul. Here’s the truth: McCartney was a helluva music man who gave the band its energy, but he also ran away with a lot of the glory.

  However, Paul Simon saw their partnership as being one-sided. In 2016, he spoke with CNN about the duo's breakup and said that Garfunkel expected him to be a songwriting machine, something that he wasn't on board with: 

  Art went down for long periods of time to Mexico to shoot [Catch-22] and he wanted to be in the movies, as well as do [music]. So he said, "Well OK, the way I see it is I'll do movies for six months and you'll write songs and then I'll come back and then I'll sing, you know for six months." And I thought, "Yeah, the hell with that. That's not going to happen."
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  (#6) The Beach Boys

  • Pop music, Rock music, Psychedelic pop, Traditional pop music, Country rock, Pop rock, Surf rock, Art rock, Baroque pop, Psychedelic rock, Surf music

  There’s always been something magical about the Beach Boys. However, no matter how entrancing their vocal melodies may be, a family band is always going to fall apart. The rivalry at the center of the band was between Brian Wilson and Mike Love. If Wilson was the soul of the group then Love was its mesolimbic pathway, keeping the group motivated and never letting them slow down. 

  After Wilson’s first memoir, Love sued the songwriter for defamation, and that wouldn't be the end of the Love's lawsuits against Wilson. However, Love also harbors anger towards Dennis Wilson, the band's drummer. Not only did Dennis impregnate Love's 17-year-old daughter, but he also slept with Love’s then-wife Suzanne. Most of all, Love blames Brian Wilson for not standing up for him when his conservator kept Love’s name off the publishing rights of their early, most popular songs. He told Rolling Stone: 

  I wrote every last syllable of the words to "California Girls," and when the record came out, it said, "Brian Wilson" - there was no "Mike Love." The only thing I didn’t write was "I wish they all could be California girls." "Surfin’ USA," too, the big shaftola. Same thing with "I Get Around." I came up with "Round, round, round, get around, I get around" and redid Brian’s lyrics. And nowhere was my name mentioned on the record. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Murry. And, OK, so then what do I say? My only recourse was legal. But if I stick up for myself, Mike’s an a**hole. I mean, Brian wanted to settle, but he was in a conservatorship that wouldn’t let him. I give him credit for that. But I was cheated... by my uncle and my cousin, and I don’t think it’s ever going to be resolved. I mean, how you gonna resolve it?
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  (#7) The Kinks

  • Music hall, Pop music, Rock music, Garage rock, Folk rock, Protopunk, Country rock, Pop rock, Hard rock

  In spite of their lengthy and wonderful discography, it's easy to feel like history has overlooked the Kinks in favor of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. While those bands may have captured the hearts of America, the one thing they didn't have was a pair of feuding brothers. Ray and Dave Davies were born a couple years apart and they were fighting before they were in a band. 

  According to Dave, one of their first fights was as children when he pummeled Ray. When he went to check on his younger brother, Ray played opossum so he could beat up his older brother. When they actually formed a band, they made amazing music, but they even fought with the members of the band that they weren't related to. 

  The famous bit of infighting occurred in May 1965 when Kinks drummer Mick Avory smashed one of his cymbals over the head of Dave Davies while on stage, knocking him unconscious. Avory fled the venue, thinking he'd offed his bandmate, but Davies only needed 16 stitches. The band's infighting is one of the things that helped get them banned from America for four years in the '60s, when Beatlemania was riding high and they could have taken off. 
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  (#8) Van Halen

  • Glam metal, Rock music, Heavy metal, Hard rock

  Van Halen's in-fighting began during their inital period with David Lee Roth. Singer David Lee Roth thought the group's performances should be exciting and more image-based, while other members were less comfortable with Roth's flashy sensibility.

  Roth's desire for an exciting image led to a photo shoot that signaled the beginning of the end for this version of the group. Before releasing the album Women and Children First in 1980, Roth hired photographer Helmut Newton to take a bondage-inspired photo of him for the cover - and the rest of the band was not having it.

  Only two photos from the session have ever surfaced, one of Roth chained to a fence in tight leather pants, and another of Eddie Van Halen sneering into the camera. The band was resentful of Roth's showboating, but it took another few years for the singer to leave in order to start a solo career while trying to become a movie star. Since 2007, Roth has resumed touring and recording with the group.

  In 2013, Roth told the Opie and Anthony show: 

  There is always conflict. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. In our band, there is constant back and forth, and at the same time, I think everybody's more than old enough now to really respect what we've been allowed to do. We've been allowed to do this job for how many summers in a row? It's like we've never been kicked out of summer camp!
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  (#9) The Police

  • New Wave, 2 Tone, Ska punk, Ska, Rock music, Reggae, Pop rock, Punk rock, Reggae fusion, Post-punk

  The Police may seem like a chill new wave band, but while they were playing together during the 1970s and 1980s, they were anything but laid back. More interested in jazz and classical than poppy post-punk, the band brought a mercenary style to the English punk scene that they soon left behind. 

  Although they had a string of hit singles that are still oldies radio mainstays, the band was almost always in some sort of row. Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland got into such a bad physical altercation one day that Sting broke a rib, and there's a story about Sting screaming at guitarist Andy Summers so much that everyone in the room went "white-faced."

  The band has gotten back together for one-off reunion shows and even a tour that went well despite the trio's reverberating egos. However, Sting told Rolling Stone that he was never happy while he was in The Police: 

  The Police wasn’t a particularly happy experience for me. Getting what I had desired for so long - success - and finding it didn’t equate with actual happiness made me even more unhappy. What is happiness? Where is it? It’s not in selling millions of records. It’s not in being hugely famous or desired by all these people. It must be somewhere else. I needed to get out of the Police to find it. It wasn’t my intention to punish Stewart and Andy in any way. I was following my instincts.
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  (#10) Guns N' Roses

  • Glam metal, Blues-rock, Rock music, Heavy metal, Rock and roll, Hard rock

  For a band that definied the late '80s and early '90s hard rock scene, Guns N' Roses really didn't get along. Aside from the heavy substance use, there were four very big personalities in the band, which can be a recipe for disaster. 

  Guitarist Izzy Stradlin drank so much that he couldn't play songs in key, and in order for the band to get through a set, the roadies allegedly had to turn down his onstage volume. However that's not the thing at the heart of the fight between Axl Rose and lead guitarist Slash. According to their ex-manager, the breaking point was Slash working with Michael Jackson. 

  The band's ex-manager Doug Goldstein explained that Slash playing guitar with Jackson at a tribute concert pushed Rose over the edge. He said:

  I told him not to do it because Axl was [harmed] by his father when he was two and he believed the charges against Michael Jackson. So I asked Slash, "How much are you receiving?" and he said, "I’ll just receive a big screen television." When Axl found out Slash was going to play with Michael Jackson and that the payment was a big screen TV, he was devastated. He thought Slash would support him and be against all [wrongdoing]. From Axl’s point of view, that was the only problem. He could ignore the [controlled substances] and the alcohol, but never the child [harm]. 
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  (#11) Ramones

  • Pop punk, Rock music, Classic Punk, Punk rock

  The Ramones may have presented themselves as a united front in leather jackets and mop tops, but they were nowhere near the same page as one another. Offstage, the four Ramones couldn't stand one another. While Joey wanted to sing pop songs at a breakneck speed, their guitarist Johnny was mostly concerned with the business of the band, and the two hardly spoke to each other for most of the band's existence. 

  Listen to the first four Ramones albums and you'll hear a band working at the peak of their abilities, but by the '80s, the guys were fried. Most of the problems occurred when Johnny Ramone started getting physical with band members when they didn't play up to his standards. In 2011, the band's manager Danny Fields said: 

  Dee Dee was terrified of Johnny, because Johnny would punch him in the face... It would always be after the show, about something like, "You did a B-major when you should have done a C-minor." I’d stand outside the dressing room. Inside you’d hear glass shattering and bodies slamming into walls.

  The band didn't just act out through means of physical violence, they were just plain awful to one another in their personal lives. While recording End of the Century with Phil Spector, Joey Ramone brought his girlfriend Linda to California with the group. Within a few months, guitarist Johnny Ramone had persuaded her to leave the singer and stick with him. The two were married within a few years, and Joey never forgave Johnny. 

  Even though Joey said that Johnny crossed the line and ruined the band by pursuing Linda, he also said the band couldn't break up because they were "always going to be the Ramones." 
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  (#12) Kiss

  • Glam metal, Rock music, Heavy metal, Rock and roll, Hard rock

  At the heart of the dispute between the members of Kiss is that only two of the members - Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley - believed they were truly committed to making the band work. Even though the two aforementioned members worked with guitarist Ace Frehley and drummer Peter Criss on their seminal albums, they believed Frehley and Criss weren't pulling their weight. 

  One of the biggest sticking points between the two sides of the group was the fact that Frehley and Criss liked to party and the other two members didn't. While speaking with Guitar World in 2019, Simmons said: 

  Life doesn’t give you three chances. You get one chance. But Ace and Peter have gotten three chances. They were in and out of the band - fired - three times. For [controlled substances], alcohol, bad behavior, being unprofessional... all the clichés are clichés... So the only reason Ace and Peter were let go the first time, and then the second time and then the third time, is that they weren’t carrying their load. You can’t be in a car with two flat tires. It’s not going to go anywhere. It’s your responsibility to change the f*cking tires so that the whole car doesn’t stop. It’s nothing personal. 
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  (#13) Oasis

  • Rock music, Britpop, Alternative rock, Indie rock

  Noel and Liam Gallagher have been at each other’s throats since they were children, but it’s not until they formed one of the most successful bands of the '90s that their sibling rivalry escalated into a full-blown feud. When the band first toured America in 1994, they used controlled substances and played one of the worst sets of their careers. Liam hit Noel with a tambourine, Noel quit the next day, and after some reflection, he rejoined the group. Two years later, when the band was set to record an episode of MTV unplugged, Liam claimed to have laryngitis, sticking Noel with solo vocal duties.

  Rather than head home to rest his voice, Liam sat in the balcony, where he drank and heckled the band throughout the set. Liam refused to tour America with the band, once again forcing Noel to sing, something that the elder brother believes ruined the band’s chances for stardom in America. 

  The hits kept coming in 2000 when Liam allegedly questioned whether Noel was actually the father of his oldest daughter. Noel quit the band and only returned for a UK tour, but has said that Liam’s never apologized. In 2009, Noel quit the band for good, saying: 

  It’s with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer. He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.

  Since the breakup, the Gallagher brothers have continued exchanging barbs on Twitter, with Liam referring to his brother as a “POTATO” and jabbing at him for having a scissor player in his band. The eldest Gallagher has mostly kept his cool since the split, although he did tell i-D magazine: 

  I think at the beginning, from this side of the fence, there was a lot of good will as in, yeah, man, I f*cking hope it works. It’s about time. But that’s all gone now because it got personal. So it’s like, f*ck what he does. As long as he keeps promoting my record, there’s a good boy.
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  (#14) The Smashing Pumpkins

  • Shoegazing, Gothic rock, Alternative rock, Psychedelic rock, Hard rock

  Depending on who you ask, the Smashing Pumpkins is either a collection of four rockers from Chicago or it's the masterwork of Billy Corgan. The band began in 1988, but the first signs of infighting came in 1996, a year after the release of the landmark Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. When their touring keyboard player passed from substance use while using with drummer Jimmy Chamberlain, the band fired Chamberlain outright - but that was hardly the end of their interpersonal struggles. 

  By 1999, Chamberlain was back in the band, but this time bassist D'arcy Wretzky was on the outs with the band. She quit the group during sessions for Machina/Machines of God, citing problems with Corgan's need to control everything. In 2000, the band broke up after playing a four-hour show in Chicago.

  Four years after the breakup, Corgan claimed it was guitarist James Iha's fault that the Pumpkins broke up, he also said that Wretzky was a "mean-spirited [substance user]." In the 2000s, Corgan had a revolving door line-up of Smashing Pumpkins, and throughout the decade he made allusions to something that Iha did while never coming out and saying what happened. 

  Things seemed to level out with the band around 2016. Suddenly Corgan was speaking with Wretzky again, Jimmy Chamberlain was back in the band, and even Iha was playing various instruments on Pumpkins songs and popping up every now and then to play guitar. However, when Corgan announced that the band was getting back together, he really meant that he was getting back together with Iha and Chamberlain for a reunion tour - and leaving Wretzky out in the cold. The band released a statement saying: 

  James Iha, Jimmy Chamberlin, and William Corgan haven’t played a show with D’arcy Wretzky for over 18 years. But it’s not for a lack of trying. For despite reports, Ms. Wretzky has repeatedly been invited out to play with the group, participate in demo sessions, or at the very least, meet face-to-face, and in each and every instance she always deferred. We wish her all the best, and look forward to reconnecting with you all very soon.

  Wretzky responded by posting a series of Corgan's text messages about the reunion and adding: 

  If one takes the time to read it carefully, one will notice that as the conversation continues, the roll [sic] i’m offered becomes ever smaller. Finally Billy says that what I deserve is a T-shirt w/my face on it. I spoke with him and asked him if there was any possible way that I’d be able to play bass on the tour and he said no.
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  (#15) New Order

  • Synthpop, New Wave, Electronic music, Electronic dance music, Hi-NRG, House music, Electronic rock, Electronica, Techno, Madchester, Alternative dance, Alternative rock, Post-punk

  After Ian Curtis took his own life, ending Joy Division, the remaining members continued playing as New Order. Their initial tracks were of the same post-punk, bummed-out ilk, but they soon worked in synth pop and dance music into their sound. Even as they scored hit after hit, the two main writers in the group - Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner - were constantly fighting. 

  Even though Hook and Sumner got along for most of their shared career, Hook wrote in his autobiography that over time, Sumner's perfectionism grated on him. Even though there was a lot of partying in the group, according to Hook, the thing that drove the band apart was the music. He said: 

  [Sumner] was bored, he wanted to move on, because he’s that type of person. So there was a struggle, and it was very disheartening in any kind of relationship to suddenly become redundant, especially when you were name-checked all the time as being a very vital part of the group. It was quite weird, it was a very confusing period. We went through a massive period of feeling very bitter, very angry, and very frustrated. 

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