Tense Partnerships In Classic Bands That Were Anything But Harmonious
When you think of popular bands, a few names spring to mind: The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones… and probably some other notable bands without a definite article as a prefix! To become legendary groups like these, you’ve got to have it all together, right? Well, surprise! Even the world’s most famous musicians are humans just like us, and at times they don’t always get along. As with any family, they have disagreements, and they make up, but you’d never know it from seeing them perform — for the most part, anyway!
1. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
As music aficionados will know, Stephen Stills and Neil Young were together for two famous bands — Buffalo Springfield in 1966 and again in 1970 when Young joined Crosby, Stills & Nash.
Stills and Young seemingly never saw eye-to-eye, but this was magnified when they reunited, and apparently no band member got along with any of the others! The band has separated and reconciled multiple times. Yet when the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asked Nash about reunion plans in 2019 he simply said, “No, there’s none at all, and there won’t be.”
Strained relationships
Nash went on to say that the source of all the issues was Crosby. In 2014 he voiced his reservations over Young’s then-girlfriend Daryl Hannah, though he did apologize for it a fortnight later on The Howard Stern Show.
“I’m sorry,” Crosby said. “I’ve apologized for [it] a couple of times publicly …and I said, ‘I’m really sorry I shot my mouth off about your girlfriend. I really am. But we’ve all been horrible to each other over the years.’” With the group’s past records with reunions though, who can really say for sure that future CSNY tours are off the table?
2. The Beach Boys
Although their lineup has changed over the years, when The Beach Boys first got together in 1961 the band was made up of four family members. Carl, Dennis and Brian Wilson were the bulk of it with their cousin Mike Love and family friend Al Jardine completing the set.
They rose to fame with their chilled rock sounds made famous in songs such as “Surfin’ U.S.A.” and “Good Vibrations.” They’ve stood the test of time, too: they’re set to tour again in 2023!
Troubled waves
After being together for so long though, it can’t have all been smooth surfing. Mike Love and Wilson often disagreed on what direction the band’s sound should take.
They also disagreed on who should take credit for writing the songs, as Love wrote in his 2016 autobiography, Good Vibrations: My Life as a Beach Boy. “There was always the perception that my cousin Brian did all the writing as well as the producing and stuff like that,” he wrote. “That was not true. I was the co-author of so many big hits.”