Random Bands Whose Whole Thing Is Hating Each Oth (15 items)

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  (#9) The Police

  • New Wave, 2 Tone, Ska punk, Ska, Rock music, Reggae, Pop rock, Punk rock, Reggae fusion, Post-punk

  The Police may seem like a chill new wave band, but while they were playing together during the 1970s and 1980s, they were anything but laid back. More interested in jazz and classical than poppy post-punk, the band brought a mercenary style to the English punk scene that they soon left behind. 

  Although they had a string of hit singles that are still oldies radio mainstays, the band was almost always in some sort of row. Sting and drummer Stewart Copeland got into such a bad physical altercation one day that Sting broke a rib, and there's a story about Sting screaming at guitarist Andy Summers so much that everyone in the room went "white-faced."

  The band has gotten back together for one-off reunion shows and even a tour that went well despite the trio's reverberating egos. However, Sting told Rolling Stone that he was never happy while he was in The Police: 

  The Police wasn’t a particularly happy experience for me. Getting what I had desired for so long - success - and finding it didn’t equate with actual happiness made me even more unhappy. What is happiness? Where is it? It’s not in selling millions of records. It’s not in being hugely famous or desired by all these people. It must be somewhere else. I needed to get out of the Police to find it. It wasn’t my intention to punish Stewart and Andy in any way. I was following my instincts.
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  (#10) Guns N' Roses

  • Glam metal, Blues-rock, Rock music, Heavy metal, Rock and roll, Hard rock

  For a band that definied the late '80s and early '90s hard rock scene, Guns N' Roses really didn't get along. Aside from the heavy substance use, there were four very big personalities in the band, which can be a recipe for disaster. 

  Guitarist Izzy Stradlin drank so much that he couldn't play songs in key, and in order for the band to get through a set, the roadies allegedly had to turn down his onstage volume. However that's not the thing at the heart of the fight between Axl Rose and lead guitarist Slash. According to their ex-manager, the breaking point was Slash working with Michael Jackson. 

  The band's ex-manager Doug Goldstein explained that Slash playing guitar with Jackson at a tribute concert pushed Rose over the edge. He said:

  I told him not to do it because Axl was [harmed] by his father when he was two and he believed the charges against Michael Jackson. So I asked Slash, "How much are you receiving?" and he said, "I’ll just receive a big screen television." When Axl found out Slash was going to play with Michael Jackson and that the payment was a big screen TV, he was devastated. He thought Slash would support him and be against all [wrongdoing]. From Axl’s point of view, that was the only problem. He could ignore the [controlled substances] and the alcohol, but never the child [harm]. 
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  (#7) The Kinks

  • Music hall, Pop music, Rock music, Garage rock, Folk rock, Protopunk, Country rock, Pop rock, Hard rock

  In spite of their lengthy and wonderful discography, it's easy to feel like history has overlooked the Kinks in favor of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. While those bands may have captured the hearts of America, the one thing they didn't have was a pair of feuding brothers. Ray and Dave Davies were born a couple years apart and they were fighting before they were in a band. 

  According to Dave, one of their first fights was as children when he pummeled Ray. When he went to check on his younger brother, Ray played opossum so he could beat up his older brother. When they actually formed a band, they made amazing music, but they even fought with the members of the band that they weren't related to. 

  The famous bit of infighting occurred in May 1965 when Kinks drummer Mick Avory smashed one of his cymbals over the head of Dave Davies while on stage, knocking him unconscious. Avory fled the venue, thinking he'd offed his bandmate, but Davies only needed 16 stitches. The band's infighting is one of the things that helped get them banned from America for four years in the '60s, when Beatlemania was riding high and they could have taken off. 
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  (#1) The Beatles

  • Pop music, Rock music, Pop rock

  They may have been at the top of the world in the 1960s, but the Beatles would have rather been anywhere else. Even though people blame Yoko Ono for the band’s demise, she’s hardly the culprit behind the dissolution. Following the group’s sojourn to India to mediate with the Maharishi, the band was more fractured than ever. As ludicrous as that sounds, it resulted in The White Album, one of their most daring efforts. 

  While recording the album, the group constantly exchanged nasty barbs. Starr quit the band for a short while after being teased by other band members, and the introduction of Yoko Ono to the studio did not sit well with anyone other than Lennon.

  The band soldiered on and even booked a date at London’s Roundhouse, where they were meant to play their first show since Candlestick Park in 1966. However, the band was in low spirits during the rehearsal period for what would become Let It Be and Abbey Road, with McCartney pushing the band to write as much as possible. Producer George Martin said, "Paul would be rather overbossy, which the other boys would dislike. But it was the only way of getting together... It was just a general disintegration."

  George Harrison quit the band for real during these sessions, telling the group, "Put an ad in [the papers] and get a few people in." He returned shortly afterwards, but the damage was done and the band unraveled completely before their final two albums were released. 
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  (#6) The Beach Boys

  • Pop music, Rock music, Psychedelic pop, Traditional pop music, Country rock, Pop rock, Surf rock, Art rock, Baroque pop, Psychedelic rock, Surf music

  There’s always been something magical about the Beach Boys. However, no matter how entrancing their vocal melodies may be, a family band is always going to fall apart. The rivalry at the center of the band was between Brian Wilson and Mike Love. If Wilson was the soul of the group then Love was its mesolimbic pathway, keeping the group motivated and never letting them slow down. 

  After Wilson’s first memoir, Love sued the songwriter for defamation, and that wouldn't be the end of the Love's lawsuits against Wilson. However, Love also harbors anger towards Dennis Wilson, the band's drummer. Not only did Dennis impregnate Love's 17-year-old daughter, but he also slept with Love’s then-wife Suzanne. Most of all, Love blames Brian Wilson for not standing up for him when his conservator kept Love’s name off the publishing rights of their early, most popular songs. He told Rolling Stone: 

  I wrote every last syllable of the words to "California Girls," and when the record came out, it said, "Brian Wilson" - there was no "Mike Love." The only thing I didn’t write was "I wish they all could be California girls." "Surfin’ USA," too, the big shaftola. Same thing with "I Get Around." I came up with "Round, round, round, get around, I get around" and redid Brian’s lyrics. And nowhere was my name mentioned on the record. Thank you, Brian. Thank you, Murry. And, OK, so then what do I say? My only recourse was legal. But if I stick up for myself, Mike’s an a**hole. I mean, Brian wanted to settle, but he was in a conservatorship that wouldn’t let him. I give him credit for that. But I was cheated... by my uncle and my cousin, and I don’t think it’s ever going to be resolved. I mean, how you gonna resolve it?
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  (#8) Van Halen

  • Glam metal, Rock music, Heavy metal, Hard rock

  Van Halen's in-fighting began during their inital period with David Lee Roth. Singer David Lee Roth thought the group's performances should be exciting and more image-based, while other members were less comfortable with Roth's flashy sensibility.

  Roth's desire for an exciting image led to a photo shoot that signaled the beginning of the end for this version of the group. Before releasing the album Women and Children First in 1980, Roth hired photographer Helmut Newton to take a bondage-inspired photo of him for the cover - and the rest of the band was not having it.

  Only two photos from the session have ever surfaced, one of Roth chained to a fence in tight leather pants, and another of Eddie Van Halen sneering into the camera. The band was resentful of Roth's showboating, but it took another few years for the singer to leave in order to start a solo career while trying to become a movie star. Since 2007, Roth has resumed touring and recording with the group.

  In 2013, Roth told the Opie and Anthony show: 

  There is always conflict. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. In our band, there is constant back and forth, and at the same time, I think everybody's more than old enough now to really respect what we've been allowed to do. We've been allowed to do this job for how many summers in a row? It's like we've never been kicked out of summer camp!

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