It's the ultimate rock and roll tragedy: the moment when creative genius gives way to corporate litigation.
This list dives into the dark, often hilarious history of bands who swapped the stage for the courtroom, trading guitar riffs for legal briefs. While we love the magic of shared musical chemistry, the reality is that major success inevitably breeds toxic financial disputes, bitter wrangles over trademark rights (did Pink Floyd really 'belong' to Roger Waters?), and acrimonious splits over royalty percentages.
These 15 lawsuits – from the messy financial collapse of The Smiths to Journey’s internal coups d'état – prove that sometimes, the only thing more volatile than a rock band at their creative peak… is a poorly written contract.
1. Pink Floyd
When Roger Waters dramatically announced his departure from Pink Floyd in 1985, he intended to dissolve the group entirely, claiming the band was a ‘spent force’ and that the name, given his creative dominance since The Wall, belonged to him. David Gilmour and Nick Mason fiercely countered this claim, leading to a bitter, highly public legal battle in 1986.
The courts disagreed with Waters, ruling that the band name was a shared commercial entity. Waters was forced to settle, allowing Gilmour and Mason to continue recording and touring as Pink Floyd (they got the rights to The Wall and, famously, to the iconic inflatable pig from 1977’s Animals album). This acrimonious rift was profound, lasting decades and defining both Waters's solo career and the band’s later, commercially successful phase without him.
2. Creedence Clearwater Revival
The legal battles fought by Creedence Clearwater Revival's singer John Fogerty are as deeply strange as they are legendary. Following CCR’s acrimonious breakup in 1972, Fogerty distanced himself from his old material. In the 1980s, his former bandmates sued him, alleging that his solo song ‘The Old Man Down the Road’ plagiarized his own CCR song ‘Run Through the Jungle’ and claiming that the publishing rights (which Fogerty had lost control of) were being infringed.
Fogerty famously won the case, proving you cannot copyright a simple musical style or your own vocal sound. This bizarre incident confirmed the depth of the mutual resentment stemming from the CCR years, making the idea of a reunion nearly impossible for decades.
3. The Smiths
The core dispute here was over the band's royalty split. For years, the Smiths’ key creative axis of singer Morrissey and lead guitarist Johnny Marr each took 40% of the band’s earnings, leaving bassist Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce with a meagre 10% each. In 1989, Joyce and Rourke sued for an equal share of all recording and performance royalties, claiming they were essential, equal partners.
While Rourke settled out of court, Joyce pursued the case and won a landmark verdict in 1996, being awarded a large sum and future percentage points. This legal victory financially vindicated the rhythm section but utterly destroyed any hope of a reunion, with a famously bitter Morrissey continuing to complain about the verdict ever since.
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4. Guns N’ Roses (Axl vs. Slash & Duff)
Following the band’s dramatic mid-90s implosion, control over the Guns N’ Roses name, trademarks, and publishing became a legal quagmire. A pivotal moment was a private settlement reached around 1997, in which Axl Rose gained control over the majority of the band's name usage, effectively making him the sole legal owner.
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This massive legal leverage allowed Rose to continue touring as GN’R with hired guns. Crucially, the clarity of this agreement – and the subsequent cooling of years of intense personal warfare – paved the way for the core members (Axl, Slash, and Duff) to finally reconcile and launch their highly lucrative reunion tour in 2016, putting aside their legal history for the sake of the massive payday.
5. The Beach Boys
The legal battles between The Beach Boys’ creative engine Brian Wilson and his cousin Mike Love are a tragic example of familial and creative dissonance. In 1992, along with bandmate Al Jardine and several Wilson family members, Love took out a defamation lawsuit against Brian, objecting to excerpts from the latter’s 1991 memoir Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story. The case was settled out of court by publisher HarperCollins, who awarded Love $1.5 million.
Two years later, Love successfully sued Wilson again, claiming he was unjustly denied co-writing credits and royalties for dozens of songs, including classics like ‘California Girls’, ‘Good Vibrations’, 'Wouldn't It Be Nice' and 'Help Me, Rhonda'. Love argued that his input on lyrics and titles was essential.
He won the majority of his claims, securing lucrative financial retroactive credit and future royalties. The legal process exposed the fragility of the Wilson family dynamic – and the long-simmering resentment over creative control beneath the Beach Boys’ legendarily upbeat, sunny public face.
6. The Doors
Following Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger’s decision to tour as The Doors of the 21st Century with a new singer (The Cult’s Ian Astbury), drummer John Densmore vehemently opposed the usage of the band’s name. Densmore, along with the Jim Morrison estate, argued that the sacred nature of The Doors' music meant the name should not be used without unanimous consent of the surviving members.
The case went to court, and the judge ultimately ruled in favour of Densmore and the Morrison estate, affirming that the original name could not be used without his permission, effectively blocking the touring unit. Seems like The Doors were only open for a few brief, intense years.
But just how good a Jim Morrison replacement was Ian Astbury? Judge for yourself:
7. Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 album Rumours is one of rock music’s most defining albums. It’s also a living portrait of a band in emotional turmoil: guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and lead singer Stevie Nicks had just broken up; John (bass) and Christine McVie (co-lead vocals) were divorcing; and drummer Mick Fleetwood was going through his own painful divorce.
Amazingly, given all this turbulence, the band not only completed the confessional masterpiece that is Rumours, but somehow contrived to stay more or less together for another 40 years. In 2018, however, Buckingham was abruptly fired over the phone by Fleetwood after refusing to tour. The guitarist sued the remaining members, claiming breach of fiduciary duty and seeking tens of millions of dollars in lost income from the massive, two-year touring schedule. The lawsuit was settled privately out of court for an undisclosed sum.
While they briefly reunited for a single appearance, the breach confirmed what we’d known about Fleetwood Mac for decades – that this incredible band was built on febrile emotional and professional foundations.
8. The Police
For a little under seven years from 1977 to 1984, The Police burned as brightly as they did briefly. Few bands in rock enjoyed such instinctive musical chemistry – or struggled to balance such big, distinct personalities. Things got legal early in the band's career when drummer Stewart Copeland sued Sting over songwriting credits and royalty percentages, reflecting the early tension in their creative collaboration.
Although the two settled privately and the juggernaut that was The Police rolled on, the legal friction was an early indicator of the massive ego clashes and financial animosity that would dog the band. Things came to a head on their final album, 1983’s Synchronicity, for which Sting, Copeland and guitarist Andy Summers all recorded their parts in isolation.
The famous 2007 rehearsal footage (shot by Andy Summers) captured the exact level of explosive, barely contained physical and verbal tension that had defined their relationship for decades.
9. Yes
Appropriately enough for a band who purveyed music of incredible intricacy and complexity, Yes holds the record for the most byzantine legal wrangles in rock history. The core issue revolved around the constant rotation of members, resulting in multiple, simultaneous claims over the ‘Yes’ name. In the 1980s and 90s, there were times when singer Jon Anderson, bassist Chris Squire and others were battling in court over who had the right to tour.
The disputes grew so complex that at one point, two entirely different touring bands featuring different combinations of classic members – the so-called ‘Yes-West’, based in Los Angeles rather than in London, and Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe, featuring four members from the band’s early-’70s heyday. The two outfits co-existed and fought for dominance as the ‘real’ Yes – a case of peak prog rock bureaucracy and ego.
10. Sonic Youth
The dissolution of Sonic Youth was unique because it wasn't sparked by a financial dispute but by the collapse of the romantic relationship between co-founders Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore. After their marriage ended in 2011, the couple entered legal arrangements regarding their shared assets and the band's financial entity.
This deeply personal and necessary legal fallout immediately made the collaborative creative process – which relied fundamentally on their close musical and emotional partnership – untenable. The legal division of their personal lives effectively dissolved the band just as surely as any royalty suit would have.
11. KISS
Appropriately enough for one of rock’s most instantly recognisable and exhaustively merchandised bands, this one comes down not to lyrics and music but to merch and media. The long-running conflict between founding guitarist Ace Frehley and band leaders Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley centred on intellectual property.
Frehley sued multiple times, challenging the ownership and use of his iconic ‘Spaceman’ makeup design and likeness in band merchandising and media. The courts consistently ruled that Simmons and Stanley's entity legally owned the KISS characters and the associated imagery, reinforcing the contract that stipulated the characters were assets of the corporation, not the individual members.
12. Talking Heads
One of rock’s most captivating, restlessly inventive acts, Talking Heads seemed to break up far too soon in 1988. Doubtless sensing that there was much more magic to come from them, three quarters of the band (Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison) began touring Talking Heads material in the early 1990s as Shrunken Heads (geddit?).
A little later, in 1996, they put out an album (with guest vocalists including Debbie Harry and Michael Hutchence) under the moniker The Heads. Singer and chief lyricist David Byrne took legal action to prevent the band from using the label, which he saw as ‘a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name’. The suit was settled out of court and, while the album was released and the band continued to tour, the legal action effectively put paid to any future Talking Heads reunion.
13. New Order
Bassist Peter Hook initiated a major lawsuit against former bandmates Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris over the usage of the New Order name and royalties when they formed a company (named after their first single) that essentially excluded Hook from control. The legal dispute centred on the fairness of the royalties distribution and the use of the Joy Division/New Order music catalogue. Hook remains highly vocal about the bitterness of the ongoing legal entanglements.
14. Pixies
Black Francis famously broke up the Pixies on live radio. In early 1993, without forewarning his bandmates, the singer announced the band’s demise in an interview with BBC Radio 5. He later called guitarist Joey Santiago with the news, while choosing to notify bassist Kim Deal and drummer David Lovering via fax.
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That breakup was largely due to Francis’s creative exhaustion – but disputes over songwriting credit and financial compensation definitely played a part. Kim Deal felt marginalized regarding writing credits, leading to friction with chief songwriter Black Francis. During the breakup and subsequent reunion, virtually all band communication was managed through lawyers, rather than direct contact. This emphasis on legal negotiation over artistic collaboration confirms the underlying financial and creative disputes were terminal.
15. Journey
The legal strife that’s dogged arena rockers Journey is one of the most persistent and complex feuds in classic rock. The primary conflict in recent decades has been between the two long-standing core members – guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain.
The main fight has been over the Journey trademark, specifically the power to use the name for touring and merchandise. This issue has often pitted Schon and Cain against various former members who try to use derivations of the name or claim ownership rights. But that’s not all.
In 2020, Schon and Cain put their differences aside to file a suit against former bassist Ross Valory and former drummer Steve Smith (who were fired in 2020). Schon and Cain alleged that Valory and Smith were attempting a ‘coup d'état’by trying to secretly seize control of Nightmare Productions – the corporate entity that held the band's trademark – in order to guarantee themselves long-term income. This lawsuit was later settled out of court.
Beyond external threats, Schon and Cain have occasionally sued each other (or related entities) over the band's finances and operational control, underscoring the perpetually fragile business structure. This constant litigation ensures that, while the band is hugely successful financially (largely due to touring), the relationships between the original members are constantly strained, reinforcing the idea that Journey often exists more in court filings than rehearsal rooms.
All pics Getty Images
