Some bands have been able to overcome their differences. For other bands? It's a totally
different story. Music groups break up for all kinds of reasons, but these are some of
the pettiest in history.
Throughout history, there have been bands that have openly supported politicians, while
other groups have chosen to stay clear of anything even remotely political. But in the
Eagles, there were at least two members who disagreed about the band being involved in
political matters: guitarist Don Felder and singer Glenn Frey. On July 31, 1980, the band
closed out their tour with a benefit show for California Senator Alan Cranston. But,
as Rolling Stone noted, Felder wasn't too keen on the band openly supporting political
causes, and was reportedly very dismissive of Cranston when they met. That response infuriated
Frey, which added to the long-running tensions that he and Felder already had. From there,
the two men began lobbing insults at each other, live onstage. In front of the California
crowd, the two rock icons began threatening to fight each other as soon as the show was
over, fully prepared to end the evening in violence.
"You know, and I'm looking at him, and I am ready to go."
It would be the last appearance by the Eagles until they reunited in 1993 for Travis Tritt's
"Take It Easy" music video. A full concert special and tour followed, but even after
the reunion, Felder didn't stay with the group long.
The fighting between Oasis brothers Liam Gallagher and Noel Gallagher has been covered in the
media ever since the band formed in the early '90s, with Noel once telling Q magazine that
his younger brother was:
"The angriest man you'll ever meet. He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup."
The tension between the brothers was legendary and spilled over into public view a number
of times, but things got particularly nasty one evening in Barcelona in 2000, when Liam
implied that Noel's daughter was illegitimate. According to Pitchfork, Noel jumped on his
brother after hearing the insult, began punching him and busted his lip. Noel later told Q
magazine that he was keeping Liam, quote, "at arm's length" because his brother had
never apologized for the insult.
"Ultimately I think I did everybody a favor by leaving."
Oasis finally broke up in 2009, seemingly for good, but the animosity hasn't gone away.
In 2019, Liam even brought up his brother's old insult in a video by eating soup with
a fork.
Most times groups breakup behind closed doors and fans find out about it through a press
statement. But rap group Leaders of the New School broke up in 1993 during a taping of
Yo! MTV Raps. Before it happened, tensions between group members Busta Rhymes and Charlie
Brown were growing for a while. Plus, it was clear around that time that Busta was the
group's standout, so he was getting most of the attention.
Then came Brown's infamous appearance on Yo! MTV Raps, when he told host Fab Five Freddy
that he was trying to, quote, "get to know myself" when he should have been giving an
introduction. This led to a group huddle in the middle of the episode as Brown's bandmates
confronted him about the odd statement, and Brown told the rest of the band that he was
done. Shortly after the infamous TV appearance, Leaders of the New School parted ways, and
Busta Rhymes became a rap icon in his own right.
When it comes to rap pioneers, New York's Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five is
probably one of the first groups people think of. But the more the group made a name for
themselves, Grandmaster Flash became recognized as the star, often making lone television
appearances and going on tours without the Furious Five. But according to Furious Five
member Scorpio, Flash had nothing to do with their songs but still received top billing
and more work. Scorpio even called the legendary DJ, quote "The Milli Vanilli of hip-hop" in
a 2015 interview with Yaheard.com. In the same interview, Scorpio said that giving Flash
top billing in the group name was, quote, "the biggest mistake" in the history of the
band, and blasted Flash for using the group's songs in DJ sets to earn more money off their
backs.
If one were to make a list of the most common reasons bands split, having creative differences
would probably be among the top three. So it may not be surprising that such a problem
would make British band The Smiths break up, but some might be shocked to know it was over
one song. According to guitarist and co-founder Johnny Marr, the tension in the group mounted
when The Smiths' singer Morrissey wanted to cover a song called "Work is A Four-Letter
Word" by singer and TV host Cilla Black, which infuriated Marr. Marr later called the cover
song idea, quote, "the last straw" in The Smiths' relationship. The band broke up in
1987, a little more than three years after their debut album was released.
Sadly, Black died from a stroke in 2015 after falling in her vacation home in Spain, and
while honoring her at the time, it became clear that Morrissey covered her song because
he truly admired her. But Morrissey's admiration these days doesn't seem to extend to Marr.
Though the two men have frequently received offers to reunite the band, neither has ever
warmed to the idea.
It's a common story among bands: A group of young friends get together and decide to make
music, they find success after getting discovered, but then one member gets most of the spotlight.
That is exactly what happened to Baltimore R&B group Dru Hill, who hit a fair amount
of speed bumps once lead singer Mark "Sisqó" Andrews became the breakout star. And tensions
came to a head when the quartet was recording a song with Will Smith for his film Wild Wild
West. Besides Andrews, Dru Hill was made up of Tamir "Nokio" Ruffin, Larry "Jazz" Anthony,
and James "Woody Rock" Green, who talked about that Will Smith studio session during an episode
of TV One's Unsung.
According to Green, Dru Hill had agreed to be credited as a group on the song, but when
the session began it was clear that Sisqo was the one getting all the attention. For
him, that was the last straw, and he left the group in the middle of shooting the video
for the Wild Wild West song, something you can actually see when Dru Hill's appearances
shrink from four members to three.
Some of the best bands are the ones that have multiple songwriters, as listeners can be
treated to different styles and perspectives in a single project. But Sting saw having
more than one songwriter in his group The Police as a nuisance, and it eventually made
the trio go in opposite directions. The lineup of The Police consisted of Sting, guitarist
Andy Summers, and drummer Stewart Copeland. As Sting explained to Rolling Stone in 2007,
both of his bandmates wanted to be songwriters, but he was never a fan of their work in that
particular regard.
"Part of the frustration was that Stewart and Andy were driven to write. It's difficult
to tell somebody it's not a good song and it was usually me."
The members of The Police started to go their separate ways in 1984, when the band took
a hiatus and each member embarked on various solo projects. According to Copeland, though,
it wasn't about bad blood, as he explained to The Guardian in 2007:
"We broke up at exactly the right time. What would have gone wrong is if we had stuck together
to the point where we hated each other and started to hurt each other and self-destruct."
Sting, of course, would go on to have a remarkable solo career, while both Copeland and Summers
enjoyed solo projects of their own and became film and video game composers. In 2007, to
celebrate the band's 30 anniversary, The Police reunited for a blockbuster world tour.
Bands often break up over something that has to do with the music they're making, because
maybe they can't agree on a certain idea. It's not every day, however, that a group
splits because of a movie, but that's just what happened to legendary duo Simon & Garfunkel.
It began when both Art Garfunkel and Paul Simon were cast in the 1970 film Catch-22,
but only Garfunkel's performance made the final cut. The lengthy production drove a
wedge between the two singers, particularly since Garfunkel seemed keen to make more films
after Catch-22 was completed. In a 2016 interview with David Axelrod, Simon even claimed that
Garfunkel once pitched him the idea that he would act in films for half the year while
Simon wrote songs, then they'd get together and perform. For Simon, that wouldn't do.
In January 1970, the duo's final studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, was released.
By 1971 Simon & Garfunkel had broken up, and for a while the two men didn't speak much.
They did manage to reunite numerous times over the years, though, most recently in 2010,
but since Garfunkel's health has declined and Simon retired from touring in 2018, it's
unlikely it'll ever happen again.
Blink-182 members Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker didn't get along with Tom DeLonge for years,
and their beef eventually spilled into the press. In 2015, Hoppus and Barker said that
DeLonge quit the group and was being replaced by Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba. But DeLonge
took to Instagram to deny he'd actually quit. Then, in an open letter, he said that Hoppus
and Barker's lack of effort while recording their latest EP was actually what ruined the
group. As he wrote in his statement:
"I was in the studio for two months and they came in for around 11 days. I didn't mind
leading the charge, but we had all agreed to give it 100%."
Barker and Hoppus fired back in a Rolling Stone interview, claiming that DeLonge, quote,
"didn't even care" about actually getting the band back together, and that his Instagram
posts were just empty words. Still, a reunion could happen one day. In 2020, DeLonge told
Rolling Stone he hoped to play with his bandmates again, but it was all a matter of, quote,
"timing." Meanwhile, Barker and Hoppus continue to record new music with Skiba.
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