Band breakups can be quite ugly, especially if the members have been friends for a long time, as something more than just a professional partnership has been broken. Sometimes egos just clash too much, which leads to everyone going solo, while other times, tragedy strikes and the band decides to go their separate ways amicably. In the case of one British band, they broke up because they thought they weren't successful, only to find out that they had hits all over the world. Some of them managed to get back together years later. Let's take a look at the real reason these bands broke up.
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00:00It takes a lot of hard work, talent, and good old-fashioned luck to go from a garage to
00:05a sold-out stadium tour.
00:06But all too frequently, those successful bands of brothers and sisters end up walking away
00:10from it all and splitting up forever.
00:13Thanks to creative disagreements, personality clashes, or the siren song of the solo career,
00:18here are the bands whose reasons for breaking up are as singular as their music.
00:22Eagles
00:23For a bunch of laid-back California hippies who sang smooth hits like Peaceful Easy Feeling,
00:28certain Eagles weren't feeling it.
00:30In July 1980, the band wrapped up its tour with a fundraiser for Senator Alan Cranston.
00:35Pre-show, Cranston personally thanked the band, and guitarist Don Felder replied, quote,
00:39"'You're welcome, Senator.
00:40I guess.'"
00:41According to bandmate Glenn Frey, Frey confronted Felder, later remembering,
00:45"'Felder looks back at me and says, only three more songs till I kick your a----, pal.
00:49And I'm saying, great.
00:50I can't wait.'"
00:51However, in his memoir, Heaven and Hell, My Life in the Eagles, Felder claimed that Frey
00:56came over while we were playing The Best of My Love and said,
00:59"'F---- you.
01:00I'm gonna kick your ass when we get off stage.'"
01:01The next day, Eagles bassist Timothy B. Schmidt called Frey to see what was up, and Frey told
01:06him the band was done.
01:07But while you can check out of the Eagles, you can never leave.
01:11The band reunited for a massively successful tour and live album in 1994, and they continue
01:16to tour, albeit with a changing lineup, today.
01:19Blondie
01:20A devastating illness shut down Blondie in its prime, snuffing out one of the most popular
01:24bands of the late 70s and early 80s.
01:26Singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein, who together wrote Heart of Glass, Dreaming,
01:31and Rapture, were also romantic partners.
01:33And when Stein got sick, it consumed Harry's life, too.
01:37According to the New York Post, around the time of the band's official breakup in 1982,
01:41Stein was diagnosed with a rare disease which caused painful blistering on his skin, mouth,
01:46throat, and lungs.
01:48For several years, Stein was out of commission and Harry stayed by his side.
01:52Harry told Saga in 2014,
01:53"'People say that I nursed him, but I was his mate, you know, and went to the hospital
01:57and stayed with him.'"
01:58Blondie reformed with a different lineup in the 90s, for better or worse.
02:02The Clash
02:04Once christened the only band that matters, The Clash sputtered out in 1986.
02:08In 1999, frontman Joe Strummer claimed that the band members were exhausted, saying,
02:13"'I felt we'd run out of idea gasoline.'"
02:16But Strummer gave another reason.
02:17The band didn't want to turn into their dads, or at least rock and roll dinosaurs.
02:22Strummer said,
02:23"'We saw what the Who were like at the end of their tether.
02:25It's a bad scene.
02:26You quickly turn into nothing.'"
02:28Uncle Tupelo
02:30In the late 80s and early 90s, Uncle Tupelo was pioneering the roots rock Americana sound,
02:35and the band's most prominent members, Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy, then went on to mainstream
02:39success with new bands Sunvolt and Wilco, respectively.
02:42So what happened to Uncle Tupelo?
02:44There were negative differences between Tweedy and Farrar, which led them to stop talking.
02:48Then drummer Mike Heidorn left.
02:50But Farrar told Relics in 2005 there was one more issue, the creep factor.
02:55When Farrar's then-girlfriend Monica Groth was sleeping, Tweedy had stroked her hair,
02:59and Farrar caught him.
03:01Farrar said,
03:02"'I found out later that he was telling her stuff like he loves her.'"
03:05Farrar hung on, but eventually quit the band for good, blowing up Uncle Tupelo in 1994.
03:10Queensryche
03:12It was the end of a prog metal era.
03:14Queensryche singer Jeff Tate told Rolling Stone in 2012,
03:17"'We've all known each other for 30 years.
03:19For it to end in such a hostile way, it's just mind-boggling.'"
03:22Tate said the trouble started early that year, when he and the band's management objected
03:26to the rest of the band's decision to turn over its merch management to an outside company.
03:31But the catalyst for the split was a pre-show altercation.
03:34While backstage at a gig in Brazil, Tate confronted the band about the rumors that he was about
03:38to get replaced, as various members of management and crew had just been fired, all of whom
03:43were Tate's relatives.
03:44Just before the band hit the stage, Tate says drummer Scott Rockenfield said,
03:48"'We just fired your whole family, and you're next.'"
03:50The show went on as planned, but that was it for the founding vocalist of Queensryche.
03:54The Zombies
03:55Sure, the Zombies' 1968 track, Time of the Season, frequently pops up in movies now,
04:01but when their album Odyssey and Oracle first came out, it was a flop.
04:05Or so they thought.
04:06Keyboardist Rod Argent told Express that the band's income cratered because,
04:10"...our fees for playing live had gone down a lot, and we had no money.
04:13The Zombies split because they couldn't afford to stay together."
04:16Argent explained,
04:17"...we later found out after we'd broken up that we had hits at some place in the world
04:20at almost any time.
04:22It was just in the UK we had less success than anywhere else."
04:25Lead singer Colin Blundstone remembered,
04:27"...by the time the album was released, there was no band.
04:33And then it was actually, Time of the Season was actually a hit about two years later."
04:38The Everly Brothers
04:40Don and Phil Everly were really brothers, were really successful musicians, and they
04:44fought and bickered like both.
04:46The story goes that Don informed Phil that their July 1973 show at L.A.'s Knott's Berry
04:51Farm would be their last as a duo because he was, quote, "...tired of being an Everly
04:55brother."
04:56Then Don showed up drunk to perform, Phil left the stage, smashing his guitar on the
05:00way out, and the Everly Brothers were over, except for an occasional reunion.
05:05Jane's addiction
05:06They may have been there at the rise of alternative rock, but recording their 1990 breakthrough
05:10album Ritual De Lo Habitual was so tension-fraught that Jane's Addiction agreed to do the first
05:15Lollapalooza tour in 1991, organized by Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell, and then break
05:21up.
05:22That was probably for the best.
05:23Jane's Addiction's set on the first Lollapalooza ended early because Farrell and guitarist
05:27Dave Navarro got into a fight in front of thousands of fans.
05:31By 1992, Jane's Addiction was done, for at least a little while.
05:35Adam and the Ants
05:37For the first iteration of Adam Ant's punky new wave band, the substance matched the style.
05:42The band's debut record, Dirk Wears White Socks, sold well, and besides, they had to
05:46be good if somebody tried to poach most of their musicians.
05:49Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren also handled Adam and the Ants, but when he quit in 1980,
05:54he convinced everyone in the band except Adam to join him.
05:57McLaren used them to create a new band called Bow Wow Wow, best known for its cover of I
06:01Want Candy, and then found some more guys who like crazy costumes to be his new ants.