Rock music is littered with any number of bands where relationships within them have turned sour. Along with the music, emotions are amplified and friendships fracture. Personality clashes are common, there’s often not enough room in the back of the tour van or the recording studio for too many supersized egos.
Similarly, when it comes to the channelling creativity, where there is no right or wrong answer just interpretation, musical differences can open up personal rifts. Then there are girls, and then there’s money – no wonder the rock band tinderbox goes up in flames so frequently. Some bands, however, do manage to bury the hatchet, and a number on our list have managed to continue to function.
We also made the conscious decision to keep sibling relationships out of this list, because that’s a whole different ball game.
11 rock bands whose stars who hated each other
11. The Ramones
The New York punk pioneers weren’t really brothers, but that didn’t stop them bickering like siblings. Push came to shove when guitarist Johnny Ramone married Linda Daniele, who just happened to be Joey Ramone’s ex-girlfriend.
A line in the Coney Island sand had been crossed, and the band member’s relationship was irrevocably over. The messy love triangle wasn’t the end of the band, who continue to tour for the next 15 years or so, but the two operated a strict wall of silence, and never swapped a word with each other again.
10. Talking Heads
David Byrne’s relationship with the husband-and-wife rhythm section of Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth has always been fractious. Much of the tension stemmed not only from Byrne’s social awkwardness, but also his punishing control-freakery when it came to the group’s creative output.
Byrne was accused of treating the Heads’ other members as his backing band. Things came to a head when – contrary to pre-agreed proposals – the songwriting on initial pressings of Remain In Light was credited to David Byrne, Brian Eno, and Talking Heads. It was a callous slight and a hard one to come back from.
9. Cream
Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce admired each other as musicians. But as people? Not so much. The irascible Baker and the volatile Bruce were forever banging heads.
The two had history before Cream was even formed with their beef going back to the days when they were in a blues-rock group called The Graham Bond Organisation. The story goes that during a live set the two had a shouting match with Bruce accusing Baker of playing too loud.
This was the catalyst for a nasty 50-year feud that included the two of them sabotaging each other’s equipment and, on at least one instance, the flame-haired drummer pulling a knife on the bass player. Why Eric Clapton ever agreed to play with both of them is one of rock’s great imponderables.
8. Pink Floyd
David Gilmour and Roger Waters have been at loggerheads for years with clashing egos and constant disputes over musical direction the main source of antagonism. Waters took on the responsibility for the bulk of the songwriting after Syd Barrett’s departure, delivering an enormous amount of success for the band.
In 1985 Waters quit the band and presumed the Floyd would dissolve after his exit. Gilmour and Nick Mason decided to continue and a spiteful legal battle and enduring feud ensued. A high profile round of name-calling on social media did little to ease the tension.
7. The Monkees
One of the considerations of being in a manufactured band is that you don’t have a deep, shared history with the other members. Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith lived together briefly when the band first got together, but their relationship became increasingly strained over time.
Tork resented Nesmith’s bossiness and the way he put himself forward as the leader of the band. The rift deepened when the two quarrelled over the choice of producer on their 1967 album, Headquarters. After the band dissolved Nesmith stated bluntly, “I never liked Peter, he never liked me.”
6. Van Halen
The relationship between David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen was never an easy one. Singer Roth, himself the owner of a super-sized ego, described it bluntly as a mutual hatred.
When Roth finally left the band in 1985 Eddie remarked, “12 years of my life putting up with his b*******.” Roth’s replacement in the band was Sammy Hagar, who also felt the tension:
“There’s just no chemistry up there. They don’t like each other. It’s like a backup band with a guy out there in front. I bet they don’t say five words to each other offstage.”
5. Guns N' Roses
The LA rockers two main players Slash and Axl Rose hated each other with such a passion during the mid-1990s that it prompted a falling out that lasted for 20 years. The animosity was stirred up by Rose’s ambitions to take ownership of the band name, something Slash was never going to sign up for.
During the feud it was rumoured that Rose had attempted to ban fans from wearing Slash t-shirts to his gigs. The two have subsequently repaired their differences.
4. Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young
During the recording sessions for Déjà Vu the four main protagonists were very rarely in the studio together and recorded their parts in individual slots rather than play as a live unit. This was due, for the most, to the sheer size of the fractious quartet’s egos.
Too many alpha males in one band created an unhealthy creative atmosphere. The summer of love this was not.
Even in not so distant times Crosby was still lashing out, and publicly dissed Neil Young’s girlfriend, Daryll Hannah. He was unrepentant, saying: “Nash seems to think that I’m responsible for every wrong since the Vietnam War…” Crosby’s death in 2023 came before any proper reconciliation was possible.
3. New Order
Peter Hook and Bernard Sumner were childhood mates who played out their dreams by forming two hugely successful bands, Joy Division and New Order. Over time the friendship fractured and turned into something altogether less positive and more tempestuous.
Creative and personal tensions boiled over in 2007 and Hook, unbeknown to his band mates, announced publicly that New Order had split. Any indication that this didn’t go down to well were confirmed four years later when the band announced they were reforming, but it slipped their minds to inform Hook, who was no longer in the line-up. Needless to say, the usual rounds of legal disputes and mudslinging followed.
2. The Eagles
During the recording of Hotel California guitarist Don Felder was keen to contribute vocals to ‘Victim Of Love’. While Felder was out of the studio the band surreptitiously re-recorded the track with Henley on lead. It was a sneaky betrayal that festered and never properly healed.
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Fast forward to July 1989 and Felder and Frey were trading whispered insults while playing ‘Best Of My Love’ live, culminating with Felder saying to his band mate, “Only three more songs till I kick your ass, pal.” The band disbanded shortly after, the band reunited in 1994 for the tellingly titled ‘Hell Freezes Over’ tour.
1. The Beach Boys
Brian Wilson and Mike Love rarely saw eye to eye with constant feuding over songwriting credits and publishing rights often leading to court battles. Wilson was always keen to push the band into new musical territory, while Love was comfortable singing about sun, sea and surf.
Naturally this led to a certain amount of tension between the two of them, but that was nothing compared to the animosity between Love and younger brother Dennis Wilson. Their relationship was often hostile, once leading to an onstage fist fight.
The toxicity levels went off the scale when Wilson began dating Love’s daughter. In the 1980s the two were presented with mutual restraining orders to prevent them attacking each other on sight.
All photos Getty Images
Top image Axl Rose and Slash performing with Guns n' Roses at Radio City on October 31, 1985
