Bands with just three members.

Cafe Society
1

In This thread, Post # 301 by nearwildheaven presented this statement in talking about the band The Police.

Got me thinking. How many notable bands had three main members? That is to say, those named in the band name and presented down front? Many bands use side-people when performing live but those people aren’t recognized as full-fledged band members.

And of them, how many got on well for any period of time? I know, two’s company and three’s a crowd. But hell, when you’re superstars I’d think that the power and adulation coming from hundreds of thousands of adoring fans might remove some of that Threesome friction.

Off the top of my head, I’ve got:

Cream

The Police

Emerson, Lake and Palmer

Crosby, Stills & Nash

None fared well in terms of longevity.

Thoughts? Are three-member bands more troubled/ frictioned than 4 or 5 member bands?

2

West, Bruce, and Lang.

3

ZZ Top

Rush

Triumph

There was a German prog-rock band called Triumvirat that started out with 3 but later expanded to 4.

4

Off the top of my head, Rush and King’s X lasted a long time with the same three members, FWIW.

5

Nirvana
The Jimi Hendrix Experience

6

And then there were three…

Genesis started attaining its greatest success after Peter Gabriel left, leaving the band with three members (Rutherford, Banks and Collins).

7

You mentioned Cream, Police, EL&P, CSN(and sometimes Y)…

They may not be together now, but many of them had long runs for a rock band (and plenty of albums, concerts, fans, and airplay).
Oh, great, thanks to reading that list out loud I have an earworm: “The Cream Police/they live inside of my head…”

8

SRV & Double Trouble

Motorhead

Genesis

Jawbreaker

Primus

Green Day

Husker Du

Blink-182

Morphine

Sublime

Violent Femmes

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Agent Orange

Dinosaur, Jr.

Seether

Chevelle

Sleater-Kinney

Goo-goo Dolls

Meat Puppets

The Stray Cats

Bananarama

Concrete Blonde

John Spencer Blues Explosion

Better than Ezra

9

Despite the name, Ben Folds Five only has three members.

Wolfmother began as a trio, went through some lineup changes, and are now once again a trio.

10

Sleater-Kinney
The Jam
Primus
Husker Du
Green Day
Morphine
Dinosaur Jr
Emerson, Lake, and Palmer
Galaxie 500

(Damn, ninja’d on almost all of these, if not all of these!)

11

Stray Cats. It was pretty obvious that they were going to stay together as long as Brian Setzer wanted to be in the band.

12

The Bee Gees – Barry, Maurice, and Robin Gibb.

13

The Nat Cole Trio?

14

The Chad Mitchell Trio was together for 55 years, thought not with the same people.

15

REM became a three member band for their final 13 years after Bill Eyebrow left.

16

I haven’t seen Dragline mentioned.

Hard, driving, old-school metal.

17

Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.

18

Grand Funk Railroad started as a trio before hiring Craig Frost on keyboards three years later.

19

The James Gang, through most of 1968-1971.

20

Not well known in North America, but they’re one of my favourites, so I’ma mention them, so there. >_>

The Japanese band the brilliant green had 3 members - Tomoko Kawase (vocals), Shunsuke Okuda (rhythm guitar), and Ryo Matsui (lead guitar) - from 1997 until 2010 (partway through recording their 5th album), when Matsui left the band for undisclosed reasons.