Least amicable band split stories...

[SimonK]

In another thread a forum member mentioned a band finishing with "everyone remaining chums". While I applaud this band for its maturity, I don't think I've ever had a band finish without never talking to at least someone again (which I fear says something about me...).

 

My least amicable split was when we accidentally dropped a flight case on our singers tambourine that she referred to as her "instrument". In pennance the guitarist and I went to a music shop to buy her a new one but she didn't like the sound. Thus followed an argument along the lines of "but they all sound the same"... "no they don't"... "well you don't have to play it because it annoys everyone anyway"... etc. and the nickname "Jingle Bells" being coined. I think we only lasted one or two more gigs!

 

I'm sure others can better this!

[Supernaut]

This has to be BS. You could be an influencer with a story like that. 😁

[lozkerr]

39 minutes ago, SimonK said:

 and the nickname "Jingle Bells" being coined.

I'm nicking that for the next time a colleague thinks it's funny to ask if they can play tambourine in my band!

[Lozz196]

I`ve stayed on friendly terms with everyone I`ve been in bands with, might not see them for years but when bump into them still get on fine. A couple of times individuals have really annoyed me to the point of wanting to leave but I`ve stayed, more out of loyalty to the rest who weren`t being donkeybacksides, and it`s always been the right decision, act with haste, repent at leisure not really being my thing. Similarly I`ve never been in a band where someone has left and had the raging hump with any of the rest of the band. 

[Cat Burrito]

I too have mostly stayed on very good terms with all my ex-band mates. However, I was in a duo in the early 2000s when I first got back into playing again, after a break. The duo quickly became a trio and ran for a few years with the three of us being thick as thieves. The singer used to get a lot of female attention but was always really humble. Then in the last few months, something changed. It was silly comedy things like him taking his shirt off onstage and posing with fans for photos. I probably overthought the whole thing but one possible turning point was us showing up to do an open mic and he was raving about some 19yr old who was playing. He really rated her and I remember saying privately when asked that I didn’t think she was anything special as a performer. He seemed really put out. I then noticed that having had a rock solid friendship that he was barely speaking to me or even looking at me.

 

He was turning 40yrs old that summer and had a wife and two young teenage boys. His wife was always really intense and a little hard work. One day she phoned me whilst I was on holiday to say that the singer had left her and run off with a 19yr old. The band kind of broke up as a result.

 

I saw him about a year or two later and was really pleased to see him. He was cool but a little distant. He then added me on his social media and was messaging me but as the messages started to dry up, I suddenly just started getting invites to like his new band. I wound up deleting him as I obviously wanted more from him than he did from me. I’m still on good terms with the other guy but it was not so much bitter, just bizarre. It had an impact on me for a couple of years but I just put it down to experience. I saw he was selling our albums as digital downloads on Bandcamp but I can’t imagine 20yr old recordings of a band that never made it do too well so wasn’t bothered. He tried to get the other guy to do a reunion without me about 10-15yrs ago but the other guy was classy enough to say all of us or not at all. Oh, and he’s now married to the aforementioned 19yr old, who is nearly 40 and they have kids together. Good luck to them. No malice on my part. A weird ending to what was a great run of music.

[Steve Browning]

To counter the maturity mentioned in the thread referred to. 

 

I played bass in a version of the Brian Setzer Orchestra. It was run by the drummer, a supposedly fearsome bloke. His wife seemed pleasant enough. 

 

Things were fine, and he accepted an invitation to be the drummer at the after show jam that happened at a Blues Weekend. I had put the band together. 

 

The Tuesday night beforehand there is a band meeting called. We turn up at the pub and the drummer turns to me and informs me that I'm a great bloke and brilliant bass player, but he can't play with me anymore. 

 

It seems my (then, and now late) wife had said something to upset his. 

 

I said that I presumed he was honouring the weekend commitment, to which he said 'no'.

 

More bizarre than bad tempered but the best I can offer this thread. 

[Russ]

I was in a band in the late 90s, and we had a "battle of the bands"-type gig lined up. We'd have some trouble getting hold of our guitarist for the previous week or so, and he'd been a bit off at our last rehearal. He showed up at the gig about 10 minutes before showtime, and basically told us this was the last gig, and that he'd decided he didn't like rock music any more. We got up, we did the gig, the guitarist played most of the show with his back to the audience, and then he left immediately afterwards and nobody saw him again for years. It wasn't dramatic or anything, there were no punches or pint glasses thrown, but it felt like a very selfish act on his behalf. He wasn't lying either - a few weeks later I saw his two guitars and his Marshall up for sale in Loot. 

 

For what it's worth, we won that heat of the battle of the bands thing, but, of course, we couldn't progress to the next one. 

 

I guess time heals though, our old drummer and him recently reconnected and started a new band. He obviously rediscovered his love of rock music sometime in the intervening 20-odd years! Our former singer now curates an art gallery in Germany, and I'm stuck out here in the States, but it might be a nice idea to get the band back together for some kind of one-off thing one day. 

[chris_b]

58 minutes ago, Steve Browning said:

. . . . We turn up at the pub and the drummer turns to me and informs me that I'm a great bloke and brilliant bass player, but he can't play with me anymore. . . .

 

 

A few years ago, I was fired by a drummer and it wasn't even his band. I complained to the band leader but she was so intimidated by this guy that she wouldn't talk to him about it!

 

Even more years ago I was being screwed around by a band leader. He started cancelling gigs, then started cancelling gigs and not bothering to tell me!! I told him to shove it and I'd never play with him again, and haven't. It was a shame because that was a very good band!

[Jackroadkill]

I've mentioned this before on BC, but  I once left a band by going to the toilet during a rehearsal and escaping through the toilet window.  There's more to the story, but the crux of it is that I ran away in the least dignified way.

[snorkie635]

In my teenage incarnation, Our band had a disagreement over the tempo of a Santana song we were going to cover. After much heated disagreement, I rolled the drummer's snare down a four-flight, stone staircase. The end.

Probably the best tempo it had kept for a few months.

Edited 1 hour ago by snorkie635

[Burns-bass]

I was once in a band where the singer and drummer were in a relationship. Drummer decided to dump the singer before a gig. As we approached the last song (and therefore the denouement of their relationship) she turned to him in tears and threw her guitar on the floor. I picked it up and played the last song.

[PaulWarning]

27 minutes ago, Burns-bass said:

I was once in a band where the singer and drummer were in a relationship. Drummer decided to dump the singer before a gig. As we approached the last song (and therefore the denouement of their relationship) she turned to him in tears and threw her guitar on the floor. I picked it up and played the last song.

how thoughtless, he could've waited till after the gig

[tauzero]

A band I was the co-founder of somewhere in the early 90s played a few gigs. The guitarist/vocalist got rather sweary between numbers at the last one, and the drummer (who could well have been given an offer by another band so there could have been an ulterior motive) said he was leaving because Steve was too sweary. Our viola player was leaving anyway. Steve then rang me and asked me if he was too sweary, and I was rather non-committal. I went to the rehearsal studio soon afterwards and saw a notice from him saying he was looking for a drummer and bassist who had to realise that there was ONLY ONE BAND LEADER and it was him (we both wrote songs for the band, it was about 2:1 him to me).

 

He did get another set of personnel together and they're still going. Their website has biographies of each member, and in his it says he did the folk clubs as a solo act. Rather a lie, as he and I did them as a duo. At least it was the inspiration for a song I wrote called "Revisionist"...