Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: The Stories Behind The Splits
It looks like Ian Brown has announced that The Stone Roses have called it a day... again. Which other bands have packed it in under more trying circumstances?
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1. The Stone Roses
At The Stone Roses’ show at Glasgow’s Hampden Park on 24 June, Ian Brown told the crowd: "Don't be sad it's over, be happy that it happened." Does that mean it’s all over for the Roses? Again? Time will tell. Photo: PA
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2. The Maccabees
The Maccabees have called it a day after 14 years and play their final shows this weekend. Can you believe it? Luckily, they're leaving on friendly terms and they are happy to go out on a career high...
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3. Tony McCarroll and Oasis
Forget about the "did Liam walk or didn't he" drama, the original Oasis bust up was drummer Tony McCarroll (second from right). In 1995, the tub-thumper was "ousted" from the group, with Noel saying : "I like Tony as a geezer but he wouldn't have been able to drum the new songs". McCarroll took the Gallaghers to court claiming unpaid royalties, and was later awarded half a million for his trouble. He had to pay £200k costs, so it wasn't as generous as it may first seem.
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4. Peter Hook and New Order
Bassist Peter Hook was in the original line-up of post-punk legends Joy Division, alongside guitarist Bernard Sumner and drummer Steve Morris. When JD singer Ian Curtis committed suicide in 1980, the remaining three members carried on as New Order, employing Gillian Gilbert on keyboards. In 2007, Hook claimed New Order was over, but Sumner and Morris hit back, claiming it wasn't up to him to split the group. New Order reconvened without the bassist, while Hook has toured the band's old material.
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5. Roger Waters and the rest of Pink Floyd
Floyd schism #1 came in 1968 when original frontman Syd Barrett left the band after his erratic behaviour made him a liability. But the big split came following the release of Floyd's The Final Cut in 1983, which was a Roger Waters solo album in all but name. A squabble over management and royalties led to Waters claiming that the others - ie, David Gilmour, Rick Wright and Nick Mason - could no longer use the Pink Floyd name, but the Gilmour-led Floyd went on to release two albums.
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6. Johnny Marr and The Smiths
Following the release of their fourth album, Strangeways Here We Come, in 1987, an exhausted Johnny Marr took a break from the band, only to be confronted by an NME story claiming they'd split. Erroneously convinced that Morrissey had planted the story, Marr confronted the tensions within the group and confirmed he'd jumped ship. The rest of the 'Miffs then declared they'd be auditioning other guitarists, although they ultimately threw in the towel. Picture: Clare Muller/Getty
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7. Tom DeLonge and Blink 182
Things weren't well in camp Blink-182 for a long time. It all came to a head when Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker issued a statement saying Tom DeLonge had quit the band "indefinitely", but the man himself claimed he "Never planned on quitting, [I] just find it hard as hell to commit." The remaining pair have enlisted Alkaline Trio's Matt Skiba to perform live.
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8. Noah and the Whale
They announced it on 1 April 2015, but it was no prank. The Twickenham-based band called it a day after four albums, saying: "We have had an incredible eight years together and are immensely grateful to everyone who has helped us along the way." They were probably best known for their hit Five Years Time.
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9. John Lydon and the Sex Pistols
Smart alec manager Malcolm McLaren decided to launch the Pistols on the American public by sending them off on tour around the Southern states of the country. The resulting set of shows were horrible and singer Johnny Rotten's resentment of McLaren only intensified after he was told the band were due to travel to Rio to make a record with "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs. He jumped ship and formed the more experimental Public Image Ltd. Punk was dead, man! Until 1996, when Lydon joined the surviving members for a reunion.
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10. The Mars Volta
Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodríguez-López fell out over the direction of the US jazz metal combo, bringing the curtain down on one of the most ambitious bands of the last decade. "I can't sit here and pretend any more," tweeted Cedric. Maybe getting their old band At The Drive-In together at the same time was a step too far?
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11. Brian Harvey and East 17
Back in the early 90s, Harvey (and his curiously placed hat) was the singer with Take That rivals East 17. That was, however, until a radio interview in which he claimed to have taken "12 ecstasy tablets in one night". With this taking place at the height of the "E" scare when ecstasy deaths were in the news, numerous radio stations banned the group and questions were asked in the House Of Commons. Harvey was immediately sacked by the band. Chief songwriter Tony Mortimer quit shortly afterwards, leaving the "other two" to reinstate Harvey and carry on as E-17. Then Harvey ran himself over. But that's another story...
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12. Billy Corgan and the rest of Smashing Pumpkins
Enjoying success with the mammoth Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness album in 1996, Smashing Pumpkins hit New York midway through their world tour. On 11 July, keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin died of a heroin overdose and drummer Billy Chamberlin was arrested for drug possession and subsequently sacked. They carried on as a trio until bassist D'Arcy Wretzky left in 1999 and the band imploded the following year. According to frontman Billy Corgan, D'Arcy was fired for being "a mean spirited drug addict" and anyway, it was all guitarist James Iha's fault for quitting. Corgan came back with the Pumpkins in 2011 with a completely new line-up.
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13. David Lee Roth and Van Halen
David Lee Roth had been Van Halen's vocalist since 1972, seeing them through the glory years of poodle rock megastardom in the early 1980s. However, Roth's ludicrous solo career got in the way of band harmony and Eddie Van Halen replaced the tousled-haired singer with the equally luxurious locks of Sammy Hagar.
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14. Brian Jones and The Rolling Stones
The minute Mick Jagger and Keith Richards began composing together, non-songwriting Brian Jones quickly found himself sidelined in The Rolling Stones. His diva behaviour didn't endear him to the rest of the band and when Keef fell for Brian's "old lady" Anita Pallenberg during a trip to Marrakech in 1967, the scene was set for a humongous split. Poor Brian became estranged from the Stones and was officially sacked in June 1969 - with drugs charges hanging over him, a forthcoming US tour looked like a no-no. He was dead a month later, having drowned in circumstances that still haven't been fully explained.
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15. Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath
In late 1977, original singer Ozzy Osbourne quite heavy metal pioneers Black Sabbath. The band regrouped with another singer Dave Walker, only for Ozzy to decide that he wanted to come back two months later. The booze and drugs-sodden band then spent a year working on a new album, before guitarist Tony Iommi decided to sack the unreliable Osbourne. He was replaced by Ronnie James Dio in June 1979, but Ozzy went on to become a metal solo superstar and the original Sabbath line-up reunited in 1997.
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16. Pete Best and The Beatles
Perhaps the most famous booting-out in rock history. Pete Best had it all - he was drummer in Liverpool's most popular band, the girls loved him and the Fabs were about to go stellar. Best played on the Beatles' audition at Abbey Road, but producer George Martin thought he wasn't good enough and employed a session musician instead. The rest of the band used this as an excuse to oust Best and bring in Ringo Starr, who had the same humour, the same musical style and, more importantly, had the same haircut. Pete Best left the band in August 1962, two months before the release of The Beatles' first single, Love Me Do. The rest is showbiz history, while Pete later became a baker.
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17. Michael Pedicone and My Chemical Romance
MCR's touring drummer Michael Pedicone only joined the band at the end of 2010, but in September of the following year he was unceremoniously sacked... for stealing from the band. Pedicone later told Kerrang! that it all came about following a feud with a crew member attached to the band and that he wanted to "make this person look incompetent". Apparently, it didn't work. "I had no intention of profiting whatsoever," he told Kerrang! "Again, I cannot overstate how poor my judgment was in this situation." Indeed.
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18. Siouxsie and the missing Banshees
There's jumping ship and there's jumping ship. The best ship-jumping we can recall is that of Banshees drummer Kenny Morris and guitarist John McKay, who played on the post-punk classics The Scream and Join Hands. However midway through a UK tour, Morris and McKay had a row with Siouxsie and bassist Steve Severin during an in-store appearance in Aberdeen and jumped on the first train back to London. Panicking, the remaining pair quickly recruited Robert Smith of support band The Cure and Slits drummer Budgie (picture far right). It all ended happily, though - Budgie later became Mr Siouxsie.
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19. Stuart Cable and Stereophonics
In 2003, hard drinking, hard living Stuart Cable found his position as drummer with the Welsh band untenable as his burgeoning TV career and party lifestyle meant the rest of the band felt he lacked commitment. He was replaced in the band by Javier Weyler. However, Cable died at the tragically young age of 40 in June 2010 after a night of partying that saw him choke on his own vomit.
