Hewitt2
Senior Member
Can anyone think of massive bands that lost their original drummer but soldiered on, never recapturing their past glory?
Some bands that come top of mind for me:
1 - REM. Probably my best example. Bill Berry is criminally unheralded in these here parts but was such an integral part to the band’s sound. Their last great album New Adventures in H-Fi was not coincidentally also the last album he played on. After he left they never really released anything nearly as compelling and seemingly disappeared although they somehow hung around for another 15 years. After Berry left they went from perhaps the world’s best rock band to nobodies.
2 - Genesis. Seems obvious but that brief experiment in the 1990s without their iconic frontman and studio drummer on the Calling All Stations album and lackluster tour demonstrated there really isn’t a Genesis without our drumming main man “Fill” Collins.
3 - Guns n Roses. Although the wheels certainly didn’t come off from a commercial perspective, the departure of Steven Adler was a harbinger of additional departures (Izzy and ultimately Slash a few years later) that diluted the music and the credibility of it even being anything resembling Guns n Roses. And although I really like Sorum’s playing on the Illusion albums ( Pat Boone Betty Boone fill notwithstanding), the albums lacked the swagger and aggression of Appetite.
4 - The Who. ‘Nuff said…
5 - AC/DC. Another controversial pick as Chris Slade is arguably a better drummer than Phil Rudd and the group enjoyed a very successful tenure with them, but their 1990s output paled in comparison to what they were doing in the 1970s to mid 1980s. In my mind, Phil Rudd was an indispensable ingredient to that AC/DC sound and without him it was a different band. Very good perhaps, but the band was never great again and never released anything approaching the Back In Black era.
Some bands that come top of mind for me:
1 - REM. Probably my best example. Bill Berry is criminally unheralded in these here parts but was such an integral part to the band’s sound. Their last great album New Adventures in H-Fi was not coincidentally also the last album he played on. After he left they never really released anything nearly as compelling and seemingly disappeared although they somehow hung around for another 15 years. After Berry left they went from perhaps the world’s best rock band to nobodies.
2 - Genesis. Seems obvious but that brief experiment in the 1990s without their iconic frontman and studio drummer on the Calling All Stations album and lackluster tour demonstrated there really isn’t a Genesis without our drumming main man “Fill” Collins.
3 - Guns n Roses. Although the wheels certainly didn’t come off from a commercial perspective, the departure of Steven Adler was a harbinger of additional departures (Izzy and ultimately Slash a few years later) that diluted the music and the credibility of it even being anything resembling Guns n Roses. And although I really like Sorum’s playing on the Illusion albums ( Pat Boone Betty Boone fill notwithstanding), the albums lacked the swagger and aggression of Appetite.
4 - The Who. ‘Nuff said…
5 - AC/DC. Another controversial pick as Chris Slade is arguably a better drummer than Phil Rudd and the group enjoyed a very successful tenure with them, but their 1990s output paled in comparison to what they were doing in the 1970s to mid 1980s. In my mind, Phil Rudd was an indispensable ingredient to that AC/DC sound and without him it was a different band. Very good perhaps, but the band was never great again and never released anything approaching the Back In Black era.
