When is a band no longer a band?
 

When is a band no longer a band? How many members have to leave or die before the band is no longer the band?
Part of the answer is – It depends which members.
The Who – When Keith Moon died it was a major loss but when they played in the 80’s it was still The Who. Now they will tour without Entwistle. Is it still The Who? I would hesitate to see them because I don’t want to overshadow my memories.
Another issue is age. In this case specifically Roger’s voice. I have see other older acts lately and they have been very enjoyable.

The New York Dolls are touring with 2 original members. Is it the New York Dolls?
Further is running around playing Dead music with two key members and a Garcia clone. Fans seem to be happy.
If Guns N’ Roses came to town with one original member (obviously the most key member) would you say to yourself you saw Guns N’ Roses.

I imagine when they aren't making anymore music and they split up.

I also want to add that a band will more than likely switch their name if they don't want to be noticed under their previous name. Nightwish is a good example, they have a new vocalist, but they still call themselves Nightwish. If they were to have changed their name, Nightwish would no longer be a band even though they are still a band under a different name.

I hope that makes sense.

Interesting question.

I think it ultimately boils down to how substantial the band became before it started falling apart. If it was never more than a few friends rocking out on the weekend and entertaining the locals downtown then the band lasts as long as the most dominant personality in the group wants to make it last for.

On the other hand if the band has achieved a viable level of commercial success they almost become a brand at which point it's all about who controls the legalities tied with the name of the group. Kind of like how the guys in Metallica say the band owns them just as much if not more than they own it.

I'll get into this further later but to answer this question if those two members were David Johansen & Johnny Thunders then yes because they were the main songwriters and the focal point of the band.

I don't have a problem with Johansen and Sylvain touring & playing those songs again but I'm not really interested in hearing new material without Thunders.

While I think you can still say you "saw a band" regardless of the members, I'm sure big fans will ask you to clarify which "version" you saw.

For me personally, I managed to see the Pumpkins when Jimmy was still in the band. Since I consider Billy and Jimmy to be the guys mainly responsible for that Pumpkins sound, I feel like I can say I saw the Pumpkins live. I don't feel comfortable doing that now.

I saw The Who on their 'first' farewell tour after Keith died, in the early 80's. Kenny Jones did a good job but it just wasn't the same. Some band members are interchangeable or even downright disposable and some are not.

i think only Led Zeppelin and Nirvana got it right - integral member dies, break up

otherwise - Pink Floyd, lost Syd, already different but Gilmour made up for it, then Waters left, you still call that Floyd? (i like The Division Bell, though)

The Who? - in it for the money - i don't think Moon was that good a drummer, but Entwhistle wrote a lot of songs

the only proper Manics was the one with Richie

That's crazy talk, Howard. Keith Moon was an AMAZING drummer. There has never been a drummer like him. He played the skins like a freakin' lead guitarist. You may not like The Who, and that's fine, but respect must be paid. Rent 'The Kids are Alright' movie and watch that little bugger play. Listen to 'Who's Next' and focus on the drum/bass interplay. John Entwistle and Keith Moon are one of the most unique and powerful drum/bass combo's in the history of rock.

Moon is just banging on the bongos like a chimpanzee

Bill Bruford is where it's at

It wasn't just Waters who was gone at that point. Rick Wright wasn't a band member anymore either by that time and he only made some minor guest appearances on A Momentary Lapse of Reason. The only original member at that time was Nick Mason, and even he didn't contribute all that much.

If a band stops being the same band after a change in lineup, then what about bands like King Crimson, P-Funk, Jethro Tull, Deep Purple and Fairport Convention who have changed their lineups an absurd amount of times throughout their existence?

they have managed to evolve and be interesting and most of the different rests on one man

Crims - Robert Fripp, P-Funk - Clinton, Jethro Tull - Anderson, Deep Purple - Glover, I guess and Fairport - Thompson

not when the band is mostly a collective like Floyd or Who or Manics

I agree with Howard. Robert Fripp is the keeper of the Crimson flame and he alone determines whether the band he is currently working with has embodied the spirit of Crimson, regardless of personnel. It's kind of a unique concept, but then, Robert Fripp is kind of a unique guy.

I'm not sure the same is true of bands like Tull. Ian Anderson is the guiding light, but really, once they made their initial change, they've stayed pretty constant as a band over the years. And Deep Purple, well, like most metal bands, they just don't seem to trouble themselves about personnel changes that much.

Zepplin could have gone on if they really wanted to.
No band could go on with the loss of their lead guy like Nirvana.
I say that knowing that Little Feat is touring (never seen them etherway).
There are lots of older bands touring with one or two original members.
The main thing is the singer (though there are exceptions). But good bands have a sound and at some point replacements make too much of a difference.

I would say that a band is nolong a band when the there is only one original member of the band in it i.e. (Jethro Tull).

Some cases, it will be a band adding on a "Featuring" credit to the name. This happened quite a few times when one takes a major nosedive in popularity, or when it seriously loses focus.

A recent listen to Metamorphosis by Iron Butterfly featuring Pinera and Rhino (yes, that was how they were billed as) is clearly a case of the later. While the Butterfly were still a big name band by 1970, Doug Ingle changed the membership to include guitarists Mike Pinera and Al Rhino, with Pinera sharing some of the lead vocals. An attempt at getting a more Hard Rock sound, steering things away from the days of "In a Gadda Da Vida," it worked in some places ("Stone Believer," "Easy Rider") while not in many others. The final epic, "Butterfly Blue" was more of a showcase for Pinera and his talking guitar box, possibly one of the first albums to feature it. I'm sure some 60's Butterfly fans were gettihg worried that they were losiong touch. Ingle, Drummer Ron Bushey, and Bassist Lee Dorman were all there, plus some good production by Richard Podolor (who's Psychedelic mark was made on the effective "Slower Than Guns"), and it was a change, but it felt forced. Dorman, I thnk, was the one who kept the band running through The Mid 70's on, but after a couple of attempts to bring it back to life with fresh material, it still was not really the same.

Ingle, the main focus of the Butterfly sound, would leave the band shortly after the 1970 album.

Usually, this trait hits when there was nothing left to lose, but this was when a band was still running good until the album was released.

(Trivia: Oddly enough, a film featuring the In a Gadda line up, Musical Mutiny, was playing Drive Ins and Grindhouses by the time of the album's release)

Actually, it is a very complicated question and I don't think that it has a correct answer. A band can continue being great even if it looks impossible (like when Kurt Cobain died, if a guy like Eddie Vedder or I don't know who joined the band and started writing great stuff, the band could continue recording and calling itself Nirvana), and a band can be destroyed even if everything looks perfect (Guns N' Roses are a good example of that, because for them everything happened just because of themselves). On the other hand, I don't think that age is a factor, because as long as the guys have the attitude, they are a rock band (everybody knows what The Rolling Stones are all about)

What about bands with no original members left i.e. Napalm Death and Opeth?

Well, I don't know about Opeth, but Napalm Death today have absolutely nothing to do with the original Napalm Death. They WERE a hardcore punk band with metal influences, now they are a pretty straight up death metal band, so I think that what was originally Napalm Death is "no longer a band", and now you've just got a group that happens to share the same name and history.

current Opeth is heavier Porcupine Tree

early Opeth was prog-black metal

so the same reasoning applies

I'd say when it's down to one original member alongside a group of hired hands ca$hing in on the name. That's simply DISGRACEFUL ( :nono:...:rolleyes:), no matter how "important" that person is to a band's history.

The Velvet Underground
 

I like to believe The Velvet Underground wasn't VU after John Cale left (though I do enjoy their discography up to "Loaded.") However, they remained the title until "Squeeze" (1972) WHICH HAS NO ORIGINAL MEMBERS

Yes is currently touring without Jon Anderson and Chris Squire (RIP).

http://i.imgur.com/Rd8xu.gif

This is my reaction to the thought of going to a Yes show as well.

Yes have often been without Jon Anderson over the years and as long as Steve Howe is in the band they'll always feel like Yes.

Hallo Unknown Soldier - nice to catch up with you again!

I was curious about your remark; are you talking about touring because surely Jon Anderson is on all the major Yes albums?

When I listened to the Doors´Other Voices , with no Jim Morrison , I thought, "This isn't doing much for me; I´m just listening for old time´s sake" and I suspect my reaction to Yes without JA would be the same because his voice was such a key element of their sound.

Hi,

Yes I'm referring to touring as they've done a number of tours without him over the years.

Those Doors albums without Jim are pretty poor albums.

^ Yes, considering how great their combined playing can be on those classic albums, a lot of Manzarek´s and Krieger´s later/solo material is pretty run-of-the-mill.

On the thread topic: I read once that Soft Machine have a good claim to Most LineUp Changes Ever for a band; something like 13 different line ups, during which time all the original members were replaced. So in a way they come close to being what Roger Waters accused later Pink Floyd of being - a franchise.
For some reason, that doesn´t worry me much though. Perhaps because SM is not built around some dominant vocalist and has not been prey to such ego squabbles as Floyd. These days, I think of Soft Machine the way I think of that guitar consortium, G3; a shifting bunch of musicians who come with some guarantees about quality and style. Sorry, Roger, but a franchise is not always bad.

Embryo and Savoy Brown have Soft Machine beat by a mile when it comes to lineup changes. In Embryo's case, they claim to have had 400+ different members since the band's founding in 1969! :yikes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savoy_Brown

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo_%28band%29

^ lol. Both those bands certainly beat Soft Machine, Psy-Fi! Mentioning Savoy Brown reminded me immediately of John Mayall and Alexis Korner, whose bands were like way stations for every aspiring blues-rocker of the time...