Classic Rock resignations: the band members that quit

6 August 2024, 18:33 | Updated: 6 August 2024, 18:46

Rock music is a turbulent business - Radio X Classic Rock takes a look at the times when a key member has walked... and often gone onto even greater success!

By Radio X

@RadioX

1. Fleetwood Mac - Lindsey Buckingham

   Fleetwood Mac had many comings and goings during the pre-Rumours years - most notably the band's founder, Peter Green, who quite for good in May 1970. But it was the departure of Lindsey Buckingham in 1987 that split the line-up that had seen the group's biggest success. The Tango In The Night album had started life as a Buckingham solo project, but morphed into a band project, resulting in the biggest selling Fleetwood Mac album since Rumours.

   However, Buckingham had claimed he'd always intended to return to his solo work and at a band meeting on 7th August that year, on the eve of a major tour in support of the record, Mick Fleetwood pressed the issue, resulting in “what seemed to be an inevitable outcome.”

   Two new guitarists - Billy Burnette and Rick Vito - were parachuted in and the tour was saved, but Buckingham would not play again with the band until 1997. However, that was not the end of the story...

   When and why was Lindsey Buckingham fired from Fleetwood Mac?

   

   Fleetwood Mac - Big Love (Official Music Video)

2. KISS - Ace Frehley

   Despite all four members of the glam metal pioneers issuing solo albums on the same day in September 1978, the dawn of the 80s was not a good time for the band. Drummer Peter Criss was "let go" from the group in May 1980, with a number of erratic performances during the band's tour in late '79 earning him the wrath of frontmen Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.

   This left bassist Ace Frehley in a difficult situation - the band's next album, Music From "The Elder" was a conceptual affair with orchestral sections... something Frehley wasn't into, but without Criss in the band, he found himself outvoted by Stanley and Simmons. Poor sales of the album didn't help, and Frehley quit KISS - although his face would appear on the covers of both the Killers and Creatures Of The Night albums in 1982. He rejoined the band for a successful reunion tour in 1996.

   

3. Red Hot Chili Peppers - John Frusciante

   Guitarist Frusciante is unusual in that he's actually quit the Chili Peppers on more than one occasion. The first time was in May 1992, after the band's sudden rise to fame with Blood Sugar Sex Magick. The fame - and increasing drug use within the group - led him to admit to NY Rock in 1999: "Everything seemed to be happening at once and I just couldn't cope with it." In 1998, after a spell in rehab and kicking his habit, Frusciante rejoined the Chilis for their Californication album. Exhaustion through overwork got the better of him and he left the band for the second time in 2009 to be replaced by Josh Klinghoffer. In 2021, Frusciante is back with the Chili Peppers and is working on their forthcoming twelfth album.

   

   Red Hot Chili Peppers - Under The Bridge [Official Music Video]

4. Genesis - Peter Gabriel

   Gabriel was the main focus of Genesis in the band's prog years, with his remarkable stage outfits and theatrical manner. However, in 1975 he sensationally announced he was quitting, following a string of acclaimed albums. In an open letter to the music press, he admitted that he was disillusioned with his band's success: "I had begun to think in business terms; treating records and audiences as money was taking me away from them. When performing, there were less shivers up and down the spine." Ironically, his solo career threatened to overshadow that of Genesis in commercial terms - his first solo single was the evergreen Solsbury Hill in March 1977.

   

   Peter Gabriel - Solsbury Hill

5. Electric Light Orchestra - Roy Wood

   The roots of ELO are in The Move, a Birmingham band, best known for their late 60s hits Flowers In The Rain and Blackberry Way under founding member Roy Wood. When singer Carl Wayne left the band, he was replaced by former Idle Race man Jeff Lynne, who began to cook up an idea with Wood and fellow member Bev Bevan - symphonic rock.

   This was to become the Electric Light Orchestra, and two albums under that name were recorded with Wood. However, by the time their single 10538 Overture broke the UK Top 10 in August 1972, Wood had quit the band to form his own group, Wizzard.

   Wood later told the Telegraph that his main beef was with manager Don Arden: "The bloke ruined my career. He enjoyed the image of being some sort of mafioso, but all he was was a crooked manager who couldn't keep his fingers out of the till. I had as much chance of becoming Lord Mayor of London as of getting my money back from Don Arden." This didn't, however, stop Wood from having Arden manage Wizzard, and ELO enjoyed huge fame on Arden's label Jet.

   

   Electric Light Orchestra - 10538 Overture (HQ)

6. The Rolling Stones - Bill Wyman

   Bassist Wyman was older than his colleagues Mick Jagger and Keith Richards by six years, so when the Stones' Urban Jungle tour came to a close in August 1990, he decided to retire from the band aged 54. It took the band nearly three years to make the news public, however. Jagger told MTV in December 1992: “Bill has decided he doesn’t want to carry on. For whatever reasons — you’d have to ask him why." Keith added: "It’s totally up to Bill. If he doesn’t want to do it, it’s his decision. I don’t want a reluctant guy on the road.” Wyman was replaced by Darryl Jones, who's still with the to this day.

   

7. Aerosmith - Joe Perry

   Perry and 'Smith frontman Steven Tyler were known as "The Toxic Twins" for good reason - but the group's substance intake had become too much for many to handle by the time the 70s came to a close. At a show in July 1979, an almighty ruck kicked off between Perry and Tyler and the guitarist quit the band on the spot, despite them being midway through recording their album Night In The Ruts.

   "There was all this fighting and bad energy going on," Perry said in the Aerosmith biography, Walk This Way. "I said, 'F**k this,' and went back to Boston." The musician created The Joe Perry Project and released three albums under that name until he reconciled with Aerosmith in 1984.

   

8. Guns N' Roses - Izzy Stradlin

   The Indiana-born guitarist was a founding member of GN'R, co-writing songs like Paradise City, Sweet Child O'Mine and Patience. After an incident in August 1989 when he was arrested for weeing in a bit on an aeroplane, Stradlin quit drugs and alcohol, but a return to the GN'R lifestyle for the mammoth Use Your Illusion sessions made him re-evaluate his life.

   Stradlin told Rolling Stones: "Once I quit drugs, I couldn't help looking around and asking myself, 'Is this all there is?' I was just tired of it. I needed to get out." His last show with Guns N'Roses was at Wembley Stadium on 31st August 1991, and his departure was announced in November.

   

   Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine (Official Music Video)

9. Deep Purple - Ian Gillan

   In the summer of 1969, Ritchie Blackmore, Jon Lord and Ian Paice saw a young Ian Gillan fronting the band Episode Six. The trio had been wanting to move into a harder rock sound with their music and felt that original Purple vocalist Rod Evans wasn't up to scratch - they offered Gillan the job of singer. He contributed to the albums Deep Purple In Rock, Fireball, Machine Head and Who Do We Think We Are and the band's greatest moment Smoke On The Water has a Gillan vocal. However, the singer claimed that the band's workload was running him into the ground and he left the band on 30th June 1973, after a show in Japan.

   Jon Lord later called Gillan's departure "the biggest shame in rock and roll" and his place was taken by David Coverdale. The vocalist formed his own band, Gillan, before briefly joining Black Sabbath following the sacking of Ozzy Osbourne and has rejoined Deep Purple for a number of reunion tours.

   

10. Van Halen - David Lee Roth

    In 1974, Roth joined a Los Angeles band called Mammoth, which included the brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen on guitar and drums respectively. After the band changed their name to Van Halen, they enjoyed a ten year run of success, culminating in the hugely-popular 1984 album, which, of course, spawned Jump.

    However, there was creative tension between the ambitious Eddie Van Halen, and the more populist Roth, who labelled the guitarist's music as "morose". In 1985, Roth released a well-received solo EP, Crazy From The Heat, which paved the way for his own career, which effectively began that summer.

    

    Van Halen - Jump (Official Music Video)

11. The Velvet Underground - Lou Reed

    The whole Velvet Underground saga is something of a soap opera, but here's the short version: the original line-up of Lou Reed, John Cale, Moe Tucker and Sterling Morrison collaborated with the singer Nico and artist Andy Warhol, producing two hugely influential albums in the late 1960s. By 1968, Reed had fired Cale, and the band were now more of a showcase for Reed's songwriting chops rather than the experimental art collective they had been. Despite drafting in a new member, Doug Yule, Reed quit the band in August 1970 to go solo, leaving The Velvet Underground to struggle on for a couple more years.

    

    I'm Waiting For The Man

12. R.E.M. - Bill Berry

    One of the most famous rock departures in history saw drummer Bill Berry leaving R.E.M. at the height of their powers in 1995... to become a hay farmer. This was after a serious health scare where he collapsed on stage because of a life-threatening brain aneurysm. Thankfully, all the band members are still pals, despite the group calling it a day in 2011.

    

    R.E.M. - Turn You Inside-Out (Official Music Video)