11 Times Bands Replaced One of Their Own: Notable & Notorious Departures

Pete Best was not the Beatles’ first drummer; he was preceded by Tommy Moore and Norman Chapman before successfully auditioning during August of 1960 and heading off to Hamburg for band’s famed first residency there. But producer George Martin was unhappy with Best’s playing during the Beatles’ first recording sessions for EMI in June of 1962; as it happened the other three members were already considering a change, so they deputized manager Brian Epstein to deliver the bad news and two months later brought in Ringo Starr from Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. Despite some initial consternation fans embraced the change. The Fab Four was finalized while Best continued playing music with his own bands and on the Beatles fan convention circuit.

This one is less notable for the drama at the time, more so for that “what if” historical element. John, Paul, George and Pete just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

It was Jones who formed the Rolling Stones during 1962 in London and chose the band name from Muddy Waters’ “Rollin’ Stone.” While Mick Jagger and Keith Richards became the group’s primary songwriting team, Jones was its musical adventurer, bringing in unexpected instrumentation (the sitar on “Paint It, Black,” for instance). He also scored the 1967 film A Degree of Murder and produced Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka, recorded in Morocco during 1968 and released three years later.

He gradually became estranged from his bandmates over drug use, erratic behavior and creative and personal issues (girlfriend Anita Pallenberg left him to take up with Richards during the spring of 1967). When Jones’ record of drug arrests made it unlikely he’d be able to get a work visa for the Stones’ planned U.S. tour in 1969, the group fired him — though allowed Jones to announce it as a resignation — and added Mick Taylor from John Mayall’s Blues Brothers. Jones died less than a month after his departure, at the age of 27, after being discovered in the swimming pool at his Crotchford Farm estate. The drowning was ruled a “death by misadventure,” though theories that Jones was murdered persisted for decades. Taylor remained with the Stones through 1974 and a golden era that included albums such as Sticky Fingers and  Exile On Main St. He was replaced by the Faces’ Ronnie Wood, who’s been with the band ever since.

By the end of the ‘60s the Temptations were the Fab Five, with a string of hit singles such as “The Way You Do the Things You Do,” “My Girl,” “Get Ready,” “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg,” “(I Know) I’m Losing You),” “Cloud Nine” and more. But David Ruffin’s attitude as a first among equals, and his drug use, led to his firing in June of 1968 after he missed a performance in Cleveland. The Tempts brought in Dennis Edwards, previously with the Contours, to take Ruffin’s place, though Ruffin took to appearing at and disrupting occasional concerts afterward. It would be the first of many key lineup changes in short order for the group, with Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams both leaving in 1971 and Edwards moving on in 1977. The group continued to score hits into the early ‘80s, however, and Rick James helped engineer a short-lived reunion with an album of that title in 1982. The Tempts continue today, led by co-founder Otis Williams, whose memoir The Temptations was adapted into a 1998 NBC miniseries of the same name and a 2017 stage musical, Ain’t Too Proud: The Life and Times of the Temptations.

Another Fab 5, also out of the Motown roster, went through an existential change when the band decided to leave Berry Gordy Jr. for a more lucrative offer from Epic Records. Problem was that Gordy owned the Jackson 5 name, while his daughter had married Jermaine Jackson, the No. 2 behind younger brother Michael in terms of profile and popularity. Jermaine stayed behind at Motown to start a solo career while youngest brother Randy joined the rechristened Jacksons. Both experienced success — the group more so by the time of 1978’s Destiny album — and Jermaine himself moved on to Arista in 1984, rejoining his brothers for the Victory Tour that same year. He’s remained with his brothers on and off, most recently in 2020.

A rare instance where a split led to better things for both parties. Peter Gabriel had fronted Genesis for nearly nine years and the group was at a peak thanks to its concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, but he was tired and disillusioned with the music industry. He told his bandmates he was leaving during the tour. They chose to soldier on and, amidst auditions for “a singer for a Genesis-type group,” began making its next album, A Trick of the Tail. Eventually drummer Phil Collins, who sang backup and had one previous lead vocal, stepped up to the mic, and the rest became history. Both Genesis and Gabriel went on to greater heights, peaking with the band’s Invisible Touch in 1986 and Gabriel’s So in 1986. A two-time Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee – with Genesis and on his own – Gabriel remains active while Genesis finished a farewell tour in 2022, partly owing to Collins’ health.

The madcap drummer’s death in September of 1978, at age 32, was heartbreaking for fans and his bandmates. The decision to go on brought the Faces’ Kenney Jones into the band for five years and two studio albums. It was not an easy transition, however, and frontman Roger Daltrey acknowledged to Billboard that, “I could never forgive Kenney for not being Keith Moon, which wasn’t fair at all.” The Who called it quits, for a first time, in 1982; when it regrouped in 1989, Simon Phillips assumed the drum chair, but since 1996, it’s been Zak Starkey, who received his first drum kit at eight years old from Moon.

The Clash had been through a few member changes, mostly drummers, but none was more impactful than singer-guitarist Mick Jones’ ouster in September of 1983. Bandmates Joe Strummer and Paul Simonon became fed up with Jones’ punctuality issues, and while they wanted to ride the success of 1982’s Combat Rock and its hits “Should I Stay or Should I Go” and “Rock the Casbah,” Jones was reticent to tour. In the documentary Westway to the World, Strummer said that, “Mick was intolerable to work with by this time. He wouldn’t show up. When he did show up, it was like Elizabeth Taylor in a filthy mood.” He added in The Rise and Fall of the Clash that, “We had to change the team because the atmosphere was too terrible. We got so much work to do that we can’t waste time begging people to play the damn guitar.” The group replaced Jones with a pair of guitarists — Nick Sheppard and Vince White — but its next album, Cut the Crap, bombed and the group broke up in 1986. Jones, who later acknowledged his counter-productive behavior, went on to have success with Big Audio Dynamite. The Clash never reunited; there were hopes it would happen at the band’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2003, but Strummer passed away three months before it took place.

An advanced case of what guitarist Eddie Van Halen called “LSD — Lead Singers Disease” led to a gulf between David Lee Roth and the rest of Van Halen during the mid ‘80s that led to an upheaval that had fans, named Jamie and otherwise, cryin’. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time; Van Halen had reached new heights with its hit album 1984 (No. 2 on the Billboard 200) and its Billboard Hot 100-topping single “Jump,” making VH one of the top-drawing bands in the concert world. But Roth, buoyed by his stature and the success of his solo EP Crazy From the Heat (along with a purported movie deal), began to have creative differences with his bandmates, and left to pursue a solo career. Sammy Hagar came in, giving Van Halen its first No. 1 album with 5150 in 1986, followed by three other chart-toppers. Roth had success with his first two solo albums before being outdistanced by his former band. The Van Halen round-robin would bring him back for Best of Volume 1 in 1996 and full-time in 2007, while Hagar returned for a tour and new tracks for another compilation, The Best of Both Worlds, in 2004. There’s still plenty of verbal sparring, particularly between Roth and Hagar, the latter of whom was proffering a plan to tour with two frontmen prior to Eddie Van Halen’s death in October of 2020.

The Metal God’s split from the band he’d been in for two decades was, by his account, something of an accident. He’d formed a thrashy side project called Fight but had every intention to remain with Judas Priest. In his memoir Confess, Halford revealed that matters became confused when he sent management a note saying, “I think the band and I need to take a break from each other. I am going to step away and do a solo musical project.” “They took that to mean I was quitting and… didn’t react,” Halford told Billboard while promoting the book, adding that his own aversion to conflict and confrontation at the time prevented him from correcting the course. He went on to continue Fight (and, subsequently, the industrial Two) while Priest soldiered on with Tim “Ripper” Owens, an Ohioan whose membership in a Priest tribute band inspired the film Rock Star. Halford and Priest reconciled in 2003, and the Metal God has maintained his throne ever since — including a 2022 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Hot off the six-times-platinum success of 1989’s Dr. Feelgood and the subsequent Decade of Decadence 81-91, frontman Vince Neil decided his Crüe days were over. Or was fired. The stories have continued to differ over the years, and Neil told Billboard in 2023 that, “We just weren’t getting along. Maybe I said, ‘I quit!’ Maybe they said, ‘You’re fired!’ We were kind of out of our minds and there wasn’t management or anybody around to say, ‘Hold on a minute.’”

John Corabi stepped in for a self-titled album whose reputation has improved over time, while Neil was back in the ranks by 1997 and has remained ever since.

In 2023, the band and original guitarist Mick Mars became publicly embroiled in a lawsuit, with Mars alleging his bandmates terminated him when he disclosed a chronic illness and announced his intention to retire from touring. In a statement provided to Billboard, his bandmates called the claims “unfortunate and completely off-base.”

You’d need a scorecard — a long one — to keep track of Fleetwood Mac’s departures, firings, resignations and hissy-fit exits during its half-century history. No fewer than 18 musicians have been part of the band, including the likes of Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan, Bob Welch, Billy Burnette, Rick Vito and, for a brief time, Dave Mason and Bekka Bramlett. “Change is not an unfamiliar thing in Fleetwood Mac,” drummer Mick Fleetwood told Billboard in 2018. But few members left with the drama that accompanied Lindsey Buckingham’s ouster during the spring of that year — his second time leaving the band, after previously opting out of a tour to promote 1987’s Tango in the Night album. Reasons for the schism varied; one version said he frustrated his bandmates by asking to delay an upcoming tour, while another report indicated that Stevie Nicks would not work with him after she felt he disrespected her during Fleetwood Mac’s MusiCares Person of the Year honor in January 2018.

Regardless of what went down behind the scenes, he was out. Buckingham was replaced by two musicians: Neil Finn (of Crowded House and Split Enz fame) and the Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell (his first gig after Tom Petty’s death the previous year). The tour was a success, though Buckingham filed a lawsuit during October of 2018 alleging breach of fiduciary duty, breach of oral contract and other claims; it was settled out of court. By 2021, Fleetwood said he was once again on friendly terms with Buckingham and even talking about working together again (“You’re talking to Mr. Never Say Never” he told Billboard). Christine McVie’s death in 2022, however, may have brought an actual end to the band.