Question of the Day (Music Folder edition!?): How many original band members is enough?

[King Kamala]

Inspired by the recent Pantera reunion on its controversy.

In the past decade, we've seen many bands that we know and love age and mutate into bizarre forms. John Mayer replacing Jerry Garcia in the newest Grateful Dead offshot! AxlDC! That Pantera reunion I just mentioned!

When it comes to legacy acts, where do you draw the line? Are you as many original members as possible or bust type of person? Do you not care as long as the music is still good?

 

[Epic Springs]

Depends on the level of talent being replaced. If a no name bassist or drummer is replaced, most people probably wouldn't notice. Replacing a singer is obviously the hardest due to being the "face" of the band and the foundation of its sound but can RATM carry on without Morello? Rush without Neil? The answer is simply "hell no"

Longevity also plays a factor. Rob joining Metallica seemed like a placeholder move but he's been with the band for 20 years so he "feels" a part of them.

 

[King Kamala]

For me, it depends on not just the members but the band itself. I have no qualms with Foreigner continuing on with zero original members because to me, they've been definitive faceless, arena rock. As long as it sounds good, what the hell?

I mean I'm sure there are people who feel a deep personal connection to the music of Foreigner and are still spitting feathers over Lou Gramm not being with them but I think they're vastly outnumbered by people who just want to hear "Jukebox Hero" and "I Want to Know What Love Is" played well.

I get mindset of acts who want to keep the music of the '60s-'80s ('90s now?) alive for my generation to see after the actual acts have died and or retired but it feels like there's some bridges that no one wants to cross. Stones should stop when Mick or Keith croaks.

 

[The Thread Killer]

I know I am probably opening myself up to a tremendous amount of mockery for this, but my absolute favourite band is Deep Purple. Even though they are all in their 70s now, they are still going strong. Well, maybe not so strong, but they are still going. They have had so many lineup changes over the years that the only original member they still have is the drummer. However, a lot of the lineup changes have lasted for quite some time. So long as there is some type of continuity with the lineup, it doesn’t bother me too much. Their most famous lineup (the Machine Head era, famous for Smoke on the Water) was not even the original lineup.

Speaking of classic rock bands, look at Rainbow. The only consistent member of that band was ever Ritchie Blackmore the guitarist. Black Sabbath had plenty of lineup changes over the years, but plenty of those were still good. Then again, some of them were not.

There was a corrupt concert promoter back in the 70s who was finding out the names of different famous bands that had not been trademarked. He was then offering huge sums of money to former band members to take the band on the road under the assumed name. He did it with Steppenwolf and other bands, people would buy tickets to see the band and when they got there they would find out that there was only one original member, usually it was a bass player or drummer, it wasn’t a vocalist or guitarist or anybody who had actually contributed to the music.

Then again, look at Motorhead. Their classic lineup was Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Philthy Phil. They ended up having a complete lineup turnover of everybody except Lemmy and they still ended up being great right up until the end. I guess the key there was the fact that Lemmy was writing the lyrics and was the lead singer.

 

[909]

Only one if it's the right one

 

[King Kamala]

They have had so many lineup changes over the years that the only original member they still have is the drummer.

Yeah, I could have and maybe should've said most famous lineup instead of original lineup considering how many famous bands aren't necessarily known for their *original* lineup (aforementioned Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac, Journey, etc).

Circumstances also play a factor. I'm seeing The Wailers with zero original members (only connection is Aston Barrett Jr is the bandleader/drummer) but it's $25 at a roadside bar in Hampton Beach, NH. I don't think anyone's feeling ripped off like people who saw Steppenwolf in the early '70s.

 

[The Thread Killer]

There are a couple of Canadian bands that lost vital members and there is a bit of a split amongst the hard-core fans regarding whether or not they should perform again. The Tragically Hip (who are barely known in the United States but were hugely successful here) lost their lead singer and chief lyricist to brain cancer. He told the other guys in the band before he died that he wanted them to continue on, and even made some suggestions on his potential replacement. But despite that the other guys in the band have not done it and I saw some of them speculate in an interview that the fans would not accept it.

Same deal with Rush. Rush fans are pretty fanatical. I know some fans have said that they want to see the band tour again with Dave Grohl replacing Neal Peart. But to some fans without the classic lineup, it would not be the same and nobody wants to see the legacy of Rush tarnished.

 

[Epic Springs]

I wonder how fans felt when Axl Rose briefly replaced Brian Johnson in AC/DC. Getting that high level a replacement is rare but it's still Axl singing someone else's songs.

 

[The Thread Killer]

I wonder how fans felt when Axl Rose briefly replaced Brian Johnson in AC/DC. Getting that high level a replacement is rare but it's still Axl singing someone else's songs.

As a lifelong AC/DC fan who actually was planning on going to see a concert on the Rock or Bust tour, let me tell you.

It sucked.

First Malcolm dies. Then Phil Rudd goes nuts and gets fired. (His drumming is essential to the AC/DC sound. Chris Slade is a great drummer, but you can’t replace Phil Rudd. Simon Wright tried. It can’t be done.) But the icing on the shit cake was Brian Johnson going deaf and not being able to sing anymore.

Angus Young has admitted that the only reason they kept the tour going is because they had already booked it and it would’ve cost them millions of dollars to cancel. So they got W. Axl, and yes…he’s a huge name. But I decided not to go when I heard it was him singing. Granted I was never a Guns n Roses fan to begin with, but still. I had no interest in seeing that. I saw the band twice during their glory years and that was the way I preferred to remember them.

And then on top of all of that, Axl hurts himself and ends up doing all of the tour dates sitting in a giant chair. That whole tour was nothing but a fiasco. Cliff Williams was so upset about the whole thing that he retired from the band as soon as that tour ended.

I ended up watching a few videos from that tour on YouTube and it ended up being a lot better than I ever could’ve expected but I still would not have gone.

 

[Valeyard]

Yeah if it's a critically important member of a band, I'm out. Some bands can get away with it and modify to make it work (there is no reason why the Zack Starkey era of the Who should still be a great show, for instance), but otherwise there is no point.

Related: the New Cars was such a horrific embarrassment that it took me a few years to get back into proper Cars.

 

[King Kamala]

The New Cars brings up another aspect I should point out. How it's marketed. If you have one or fewer original members but it's marketed as essentially an authorized souped up tribute band (that happens to have lineage with the band it's paying tribute to), awesome. The New Cars or No Talking, Just Heads were presented as new, improved versions of the band...eh not so much.

 

[Valeyard]

Any Queen revival is just as bad, if not worse. Not only is it not possible without Freddie, but John Deacon is a top five bassist and without him there's no backbone to the band. The Paul Rodgers era of Queen might be the saddest thing this side of Creedance Clearwater Revisited.

 

[King Kamala]

I saw Queen & Paul Rodgers live at the Worcester Centrum (and maybe more embarrassingly own their live CD so I could relive it). At the peak of my classic rock fandom, I friggin loved it. I haven't relistened to it since the late '00s but it's probably somewhat a miscasting. Which is probably why they went with the closest thing they could get to Freddie with their next singer.

 

[Valeyard]

Is this a good thread to mention Mike Love in again?

 

[King Kamala]

Yes.

Probably my guiltiest admission as a classic rock fan is I enjoyed seeing Mike Love's Beach Boys live more than Brian Wilson & Al Jardine. In my mild defense, it was an unusually deep cut heavy set for the BBs. I was definitely the only one at the Maine State Pier freaking out when they busted out "All This is That".

 

[Lazgistics Supervisor]

Then again, look at Motorhead. Their classic lineup was Lemmy, Fast Eddie and Philthy Phil. They ended up having a complete lineup turnover of everybody except Lemmy and they still ended up being great right up until the end. I guess the key there was the fact that Lemmy was writing the lyrics and was the lead singer.

The best stuff was with Phil Campbell on guitar anyway.

 

[Gary]

Thought of including Devo 2.0 (Devo performed by kids), but I then remembered it was Mark Mothersbaugh pulling a prank on Disney, so it doesn't really count.

 

[Lazgistics Supervisor]

To answer the original question, as long as one key member of the "original" lineup is still a driving force in the band? I'll listen. Otherwise, bands like Exodus, Morbid Angel, and Broken Hope would be persona non grata to me, and those are some of my favorites.

And the caveat: key members with longevity in the band should be present. Like with Gwar and Suffocation. Because there aren't any original members left of either.

Spoiler

-The only original member of Exodus left is Tom Hunting, but the driving force since Kirk Hammett left for Metallica in 1982 has been Gary Holt.
-Trey Azagthoth is the only original member left of Morbid Angel...to admittedly mixed results.
-Broken Hope may as well be "the Jeremy Wagner Band," which isn't a shame because he writes some absolutely killer stuff.

 

[Incandenza]

I mostly don't care about this but "Thin Lizzy" going around some years back with the singer from The Cult in place of Phil Lynott was some goddamn shit. Phil Lynott was the fucking heart and soul of the band. You aren't fucking Thin Lizzy without him! You're just a cover band. Call yourselves the Vagabonds of the Western World or something.

 

[Incandenza]

Dead & Company I don't mind* because the original members of the Dead involved treat it as more a tribute act than anything else, even going so far as to say they want it to keep going even after the original Grateful Dead members involved are no longer involved.

*Well, I don't mind it in the sense I do not care it exists. I can't fucking stand the sound of John Mayer's voice, so I've shut it off every time I actually tried to listen to Dead & Company and he opens his fucking mouth.

 

[King Kamala]

I mostly don't care about this but "Thin Lizzy" going around some years back with the singer from The Cult in place of Phil Lynott was some goddamn shit. Phil Lynott was the fucking heart and soul of the band. You aren't fucking Thin Lizzy without him! You're just a cover band. Call yourselves the Vagabonds of the Western World or something.

You're confusing Thin Lizzy with The Doors, my man.

The Phil Lynott-less Thin Lizzy was blasphemous but at least, eventually they had the decency to change their name to Black Star Riders. But I think it was mostly cause they wanted to release new music.

Politics of it are all just dumb. I just don't know why Daltrey and Townsend can't just tour as that. Jimmy Page & Robert Plant didn't insist on touring as Led Zeppelin when John Paul Jones didn't want to work with them. Roger Waters seems to just draw fine on his own. Yeah, I'm sure there's some complete numbskulls that wouldn't see Roger Daltrey & Pete Townsend but would see the current iteration of The Who but it's not very many.

But again, I kind of wonder how much of it is the band's choice cause I know Donald Fagen didn't want to tour as Steely Dan after Walter Becker died but Live Nation said they wouldn't book them as Donald Fagen & The Steely Dan Review, they had to call it Steely Dan.

Alternately, I find it super interesting how many tribute bands these days are advertising themselves as "authorized tributes". If I'm a classic rock star, the absolute LAST thing I'd want to do is listen to tribute bands. I suppose maybe some of them are vain enough to want to listen to that stuff. Or maybe it's just some money marks slipping some cheddar to the management to get the seal of approval.

 

[Lazgistics Supervisor]

Blasphemy? Maybe, but what remains of Thin Lizzy could do far, far worse than grabbing Art Alexakis to front them. The Everclear cover of "The Boys Are Back in Town" from the Detroit Rock City soundtrack was pretty damn great.

 

[The Thread Killer]

You're confusing Thin Lizzy with The Doors, my man.

The Phil Lynott-less Thin Lizzy was blasphemous but at least, eventually they had the decency to change their name to Black Star Riders. But I think it was mostly cause they wanted to release new music.

Interesting point. Thin Lizzy is one of those bands where it was kind of stupid to try and tour without Phil Lynott. The guy was the lead singer, main songwriter and honestly the face of the band. Thin Lizzy without him is quite honestly just not Thin Lizzy...with all due respect to the other guys in the band. Interesting side notes...the lead guitarist on what is probably Thin Lizzy's best album "Jailbreak" was Brian "Robbo" Robertson. After Fast Eddie Clark quit Motorhead, they recorded a highly underrated album ("Another Perfect Day") with Robertson as his replacement. It is a very unique sounding album which is a bit of a departure from the "classic" Motorhead sound. I understand the album got shat on by fans and critics at the time of it's release, and it's the only album Robertson did with Motorhead, but now it is considered by a lot of hardcore Motorhead fans (like myself) as an underrated classic.

Another interesting note...my aforementioned favorite band Deep Purple tended to refresh their lineup periodically by replacing their Lead Singer and Bass Player. The original lineup (most famous for the hit "Hush" in the 60's) ended up dumping the original Lead Singer and Bass Player, and stealing Ian Gillan and Roger Glover from Episode 6. The other guys in the band (most notably Richie Blackmore) wanted to get away from 60's hippie music, and follow the blueprint established by Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath with a more hard rock sound. The new lineup went on to become the most famous "classic" lineup of Deep Purple. But by the mid 70's, they switched direction again and dumped Gillan and Glover. Guess who they tried to get to replace them? Phil Lynott from Thin Lizzy and Paul Rogers from Free. There have been rumours for years that those guys wrote and rehearsed together and even recorded some demos (called "The Babyface Sessions") but the recordings have been lost to time. However, Paul Rogers apparently didn't like how bossy Richie was, and he also wanted to keep playing with Simon Kirke from Free, so they went on to form Bad Company instead. Phil Lynott didn't end up taking the job with with Deep Purple, so he stayed with Thin Lizzy and Purple ended up discovering David Coverdale and making him their new Lead Singer, and stealing Glenn Hughes (who went on to Black Sabbath) from Trapeze.

 

[The Thread Killer]

Politics of it are all just dumb. I just don't know why Daltrey and Townsend can't just tour as that. Jimmy Page & Robert Plant didn't insist on touring as Led Zeppelin when John Paul Jones didn't want to work with them. Roger Waters seems to just draw fine on his own. Yeah, I'm sure there's some complete numbskulls that wouldn't see Roger Daltrey & Pete Townsend but would see the current iteration of The Who but it's not very many.

I disagree with you a bit there. I can see why Daltrey and Townsend still call themselves The Who. Townsend wrote most (if not all) of their biggest hits and the two of them sang them. As a former Bass Player, I admit that the front men are always seen as more essential to the lineup over the rhythm section. Granted, in the case of The Who...Keith Moon was an iconic drummer and a massive part of their look and sound, but they had already been forced to replace him with Kenney Jones anyhow after Moon died...so that horse was already out of the barn, so to speak. John Entwistle might have been the greatest Bass Player of all time (although my dark horse pick for that particular title goes to Steve Harris of Iron Maiden) but I am not sure how much of a force he was in the band creatively. But in the case of The Who, I can see the argument for Townsend and Daltrey keeping the name, even if I see the validity of the arguments against it.

 

[The Thread Killer]

But again, I kind of wonder how much of it is the band's choice cause I know Donald Fagen didn't want to tour as Steely Dan after Walter Becker died but Live Nation said they wouldn't book them as Donald Fagen & The Steely Dan Review, they had to call it Steely Dan.

Another interesting point.

As one of my favorite bands of all time, Steely Dan were on my bucket list of bands I really wanted to see while I still could. Last time they came through Toronto, I was going to go but the tickets were insanely and prohibitively expensive. So I had to pass, although I wish I hadn't. (Same thing happened when Eric Clapton was touring with Jeff Beck. I should have found the money and just gone.) I didn't go, but then Walter Becker died suddenly and I lost my chance to see Steely Dan forever. The funny this is, Donald Fagen had toured through Toronto on his own and he played some small clubs for a very reasonable ticket price, but I didn't go because to me it wasn't the same without Becker. But now...he tours under the name Steely Dan and the tickets are still insanely priced. And you are right...it's pretty much all based on the name. If Donald Fagen toured under his own name, I doubt he could move a lot of tickets or play a large venue, but under the name Steely Dan he can still demand a high price and draw a crowd.

Steely Dan are an interesting case in general when having the discussion about the importance of individual artists to the bands they play for. The original lineup of Steely Dan had some great musicians early on (including Michael McDonald and especially Skunk Baxter) but it was clear that Fagen and Becker were the heart of the band, and when they decided to fire everybody else in the band and become just a studio band who recorded and released albums but never toured, they kept the name and kept producing great music all by themselves. Becker and McDonald had to go become Doobie Brothers. Donald Fagen and Walter Becker wrote and produced all the music and proved that it was pretty much just them who were Steely Dan.

But without the both of them, I really don't want to see just Donald Fagen, especially at those prices.

 

[Valeyard]

Entwistle wrote a bunch of songs, many live staples. Also had an incredible voice.

With the Who, the name is what matters. I would much prefer if it was just Daltrey and Townshend touring as themselves, but I get it. They're the most recognizable. It's like how, as much as I would fucking hate it, I couldn't fault the logic in Jagger and Richards touring as the Rolling Stones. As for the current lineup, Zak Starkey is legit and fits better than Kenny Jones which is all I want. The rotating members are just fine. The Who are smart enough as well to have totally shifted their style to make the drums and bass less important (even if the majority is really not good).

Now if they wanted to make bank they just hit up Ringo and McCartney to be the drummer and bassist and tour as Who Are The Beatles for a couple months. That's more my kinda gimmick.

 

[King Kamala]

Van Halen should reform with Wolfgang Van Halen assuming the guitar duties - Sleaze Roxx

Van Halen should reform with Wolfgang Van Halen assuming the guitar duties Now, first and foremost, I have to put it out there that the following is simply the view from Sleaze Roxx's editor-in-chief after seeing a video of Wolfgang Van Halen absolutely tear up two Van Halen classics ("On Fire"...

sleazeroxx.com

Bad classic rock fan takes.

 

[909]

Van Halen should reform with Wolfgang Van Halen assuming the guitar duties - Sleaze Roxx

Van Halen should reform with Wolfgang Van Halen assuming the guitar duties Now, first and foremost, I have to put it out there that the following is simply the view from Sleaze Roxx's editor-in-chief after seeing a video of Wolfgang Van Halen absolutely tear up two Van Halen classics ("On Fire"...

sleazeroxx.com

Bad classic rock fan takes.

I cracked a joke once saying they would do that. I'm not automatically against them doing a tribute tour tbh. Like what if they got Sammy, Michael Anthony, and DLR to go on that tour? There's a scenario that would work for me. But if it was Alex and DLR and some other people then nah man.

 

[King Kamala]

Ian Brown fans criticise 'disrespectful' solo gig - BBC News

Footage goes viral online after the Stone Roses star performs to a backing track in Leeds.

www.bbc.com

Should amend the answer to “You only need one member but they shouldn’t be performing by themselves.”

 

[King Kamala]

For me, it depends on not just the members but the band itself. I have no qualms with Foreigner continuing on with zero original members because to me, they've been definitive faceless, arena rock. As long as it sounds good, what the hell?

I mean I'm sure there are people who feel a deep personal connection to the music of Foreigner

After seeing the comments section for a sponsored Facebook post advertising Foreigner doing a residency in Vegas this fall, I have discovered the people who have a deep personal connection with the original lineup of Foreigner.