- 5 months ago
When bandmates clash, the drama is real... Join us as we explore the bands who couldn't stand their own frontmen! From ego clashes to financial disputes, these musical partnerships crumbled under the weight of personality conflicts, control issues, and betrayals that ultimately tore them apart.
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00:00It's a lot of attention put on a lot of negative stuff.
00:04Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:06And today, we're counting down our picks for the bands that, for one reason or another,
00:11couldn't help but hate their lead singer.
00:13One day, she said, well, they were jealous.
00:17And I had never really even stopped to think of it that way.
00:2210. Journey
00:24Rock stars often come with pretty big egos.
00:27But in the case of Journey, the chemistry problems were a lot simpler.
00:32Don't stop believing.
00:36Hold on to that feeling.
00:39Steve Perry, in his own words, claimed that he never actually felt like a real part of the band.
00:46During the 80s, when he first left, he did so of his own free will,
00:50failing after a push to gain creative control of the group.
00:53Eventually, the feeling just got very clear to me that I need to just stop.
00:59And I didn't know where I was going.
01:01I didn't know what I was going to do or where I was going to go.
01:04But in 1998, when he left again, that cold relationship between him and the other members
01:09was a lot more pronounced.
01:11After Perry injured himself in a skiing accident, he refused to rush into the surgery required
01:16to get him back on stage.
01:18When he left again, Journey acted fast and hired a sound-alike, Steve Ogierry, to replace him.
01:24Sing it!
01:25Any way you want it!
01:27That's the way you need it!
01:28Any way you want it!
01:30Number 9.
01:31The Smashing Pumpkins
01:33Billy Corgan might be one of the leading figures of alternative rock, but he's certainly a difficult character.
01:39For me, being in a band is like being in a family.
01:41And the family rules apply more than the band rules.
01:45You might know him as a pretty outspoken figure in the press, a guy who is never shy about
01:50dissing his fellow musicians.
01:53But his work as frontman of the Smashing Pumpkins brings with it some other problems.
01:58Corgan, to put it lightly, likes to be in control.
02:01And he was so particular about every element of his work that he basically pushed bassist
02:07Darcy Retsky out of recording sessions for their seminal album, Siamese Dream.
02:12I don't think the real story is as interesting to people as the story they want, and if I
02:16feed into that, then I sort of create this never-ending woulda, coulda, shoulda.
02:20Corgan insisted on re-recording her tracks himself.
02:23By the time their follow-up album came, Corgan was actively pushing everyone out.
02:29Retsky eventually left, and the band themselves broke up in 2000.
02:33It was like, just different lanes of commitment in my mind, but I'm more appreciative as time
02:38has gone by that everybody approaches music completely differently.
02:41Number 8.
02:43Talking Heads.
02:44The problem with genius is that it often comes at a cost.
02:49I've come to love collaborating with people.
02:52I feel like when it works, you get, you know, one plus one equals three.
02:56You get something bigger than the sum of the parts.
03:00It doesn't always work, but when it does, that's what you get.
03:04For Talking Heads, ask any member of the band about what it's like to work with frontman
03:09David Byrne, and you're likely to be told he's a truly odd person.
03:14Byrne was described as incredibly cold, while totally determined to take every ounce of power
03:19he could within the group.
03:21I remember decades ago, I was more my way or the highway, so I'll work with you, but
03:29I'm going to tell you what you're going to do.
03:32And you don't always get the best, it can work, but you don't always get the best results.
03:38Byrne, who describes himself as being on the autism spectrum, found it difficult to empathize
03:43with his bandmates' wishes, rarely made eye contact, and would be critical of any success
03:49his peers had outside of Talking Heads.
03:52Bassist Tina Weymouth, and guitarist Jerry Harrison in particular, had very few kind words
03:57about him as a collaborator, leaving the idea of a reunion at next to impossible.
04:02How did it feel when you guys were up there together?
04:06It was fun, but it was tense.
04:07Yeah.
04:08Uh, I remember there were some musical mistakes that drove me around the band.
04:15Number seven, Skid Row.
04:18For Skid Row and their singer Sebastian Bach, to say things were volatile would be an understatement.
04:23A band like that was never going to have a long, prime run.
04:34Though they hit big early, Bach's ego was an issue.
04:37And in 1996, he was fired from the band after a disagreement following his decision to book
04:42them as the opening act for Kiss without consulting the others.
04:46It was the beginning of the end for the band, pretty much, even more than the beginning of
04:50the end.
04:50And it's like, was it like infighting and the band was like, yeah, the band was just
04:55falling apart.
04:56For one thing, it showed that Bach has little regard for his bandmates.
05:00And on top of that, their bassist, Rachel Bolin, was already booked that night for a gig
05:04with a side project.
05:06Whatever happened behind closed doors on that night?
05:08It was the final nail in the coffin for Bach's time with a group.
05:12But I always get this, you know, when are you going to get the band back together, the
05:15reunion tour and all the other things?
05:17And I'm thinking, you know, he's going to say, you know, he goes, and I go, yeah, you
05:21know, promoters are waiting.
05:22And Sean Penn goes, dude, I've been waiting for that.
05:25Number six, Dead Kennedys.
05:28One of the biggest sins a musician can commit against their fellow bandmates is taking their
05:33money.
05:34Let's move them out!
05:37Dead Kennedys singer Jello Biafra found himself in a legal battle due to non-payment of royalties
05:43that he owed his bandmates.
05:44Biafra, who was head of record label alternative Tentacles, had seemingly withheld $75,000 in
05:51royalties over the course of a decade.
05:53I mean, I was getting sued up the ass by the now estranged former members of Dead Kennedys
05:58because I didn't want to put Holiday in Cambodia in a Levi's commercial.
06:01As soon as the others found out, they were understandably furious.
06:05According to a whistleblower, Biafra actually discovered the payment mistake and concealed
06:09it from the band.
06:10He was eventually forced to pay $200,000, and as you might expect, the relationship between
06:16the band and their former singer has never healed.
06:19Also made it such an ugly situation, I've refused to ever perform with him again.
06:23Number five, Van Halen.
06:25Stylistic differences within a band generally boil down to musical decisions.
06:30Judging from some of my peer group, I'm not sure I would hand them the responsibility.
06:35But in the case of rock and roll wild man David Lee Roth and the rest of Van Halen,
06:40not so much.
06:41Roth firmly believed that the band needed to put more effort into their look and their
06:46onstage presence.
06:47Sounds like a pretty fair suggestion, right?
06:49What happened with the old band is after a while, you know, that kind of activity slows
06:55down a little bit.
06:56Well?
06:57When the singer hired a photographer to shoot him in a very risque, bondage-influenced fashion
07:02for their next album cover, the band were not happy.
07:05The rest of them very clearly wanted to put their music first.
07:09But Roth's superficial priorities and constant showboating onstage were becoming a problem,
07:14and eventually, he left to pursue a solo career.
07:17But what happens is they get very bitter and very angry and very harsh, and that's not why
07:21I joined the music.
07:22Number four, Queensryche.
07:25Every band has their breaking point.
07:27And despite years of success as one of the most successful progressive metal bands of
07:31their era, Queensryche found theirs in 2012.
07:35Empires, here we go!
07:41Singer Jeff Tate was reportedly involved in a violent backstage altercation with the rest
07:46of the group that got him fired.
07:47Because we had kind of a bitter breakup, and I guess I was very angry over how it was handled.
07:56Prior to that, he installed his stepdaughter to run the band's fan club and his own wife
08:01as their manager.
08:02The others obviously felt that their voices were being diluted within the band, and so
08:07they decided to fire Tate's family members without consulting him.
08:10This led to the fight and eventual tensions that saw Jeff get fired shortly after.
08:15A total mess on all fronts.
08:17A lot of water's under the bridge now, and I can be a lot more forgiving of people.
08:24Number three, Credence Clearwater Revival.
08:27When things get so bad that your lead singer won't even let you attend your own induction
08:32into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, you know that the band is beyond saving.
08:36He said, besides, you know, I don't care.
08:39I don't care about the music.
08:41Just give me the money.
08:42Oh, God.
08:43And I look at him, there wasn't much more to say after that, but that was, right there
08:49was the reason I didn't play at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with him.
08:52Here's the thing.
08:53Credence Clearwater Revival singer John Fogerty was clearly onto a winning formula during the
08:58band's heyday.
08:59The problem was that he ran the band as a dictator.
09:03He simply didn't believe that his bandmates could bring forth the type of ideas that could
09:07contend with his.
09:08Internally, within me, I felt like everything was going great.
09:13By the end, they kind of hated him for it.
09:16Eventually, Fogerty's brother Tom left the group and they imploded shortly after.
09:21John Fogerty described CCR as a ticking time bomb and in the end, they only sustained their
09:27success for about four years.
09:29I thought I had discovered the formula.
09:33This is how this works for us.
09:35Number two.
09:36The Beach Boys.
09:37The Beach Boys were, without question, one of the defining bands of the 1960s.
09:43A boundary-pushing group of musicians who perfected many genres.
09:48But at their core, they were a deeply troubled band.
09:59When their main creative force, Brian Wilson, descended into a substance-fueled downfall that
10:04damaged his mental health irreparably, his bandmate, Mike Love, grew impatient.
10:08Or you didn't always get along, maybe 100%.
10:12But music was the bond that brought everybody together.
10:16Love, as some of you will know, is by no means a beloved figure in rock history.
10:21But after getting tired of waiting for Wilson to recover, he decided to carry on without him.
10:26For decades, Love was involved in legal battles and petty squabbles over songwriting credits.
10:32But in reality, the general consensus was that Love always had a problem playing second fiddle
10:38to legitimate genius.
10:40You thought I was angelic.
10:42Are you angelic?
10:43Yeah.
10:43You are a little bit angelic.
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10:58Number 1 Guns N' Roses
11:03When a band has cycled through as many members as Guns N' Roses had, you just know that something's
11:09wrong.
11:14The 1980s saw GNR climb just about as high as any band could possibly climb.
11:20But at the center of it all, Rose's addictions and rapidly growing ego were getting out of
11:25hand.
11:25He battled for attention, creative control, and ultimately every inch of power he could
11:30claim, fighting his bandmates, most notably guitarist Slash, to the point that he quit.
11:36It wasn't even me necessarily leaving the band.
11:40It was not continuing on with the new band that Axl put together that he was now at the
11:45helm of, which was the new Guns N' Roses.
11:47A band that volatile were never going to survive for long.
11:51And with Axl's unpredictable and downright chaotic behavior, the fact that they even survived
11:56after their first album is a miracle.
11:59You've got a situation where nobody involved wants to revisit.
12:04It's not just me.
12:05It's the whole, you know, the whole band.
12:08But what problematic lead singers did we not mention?
12:12Be sure to let us know in the comments below.
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