Another story about The Pink Floyd is that they were on a way to a gig (having secured the services of Gilmore already to cover for Syd) and they just kind of said to one another, “Should we pick up Syd?” and they just didn’t and that was kind of the end of the Barret era Floyd.
Yeah, they had this idea that maybe Syd could be a Brian Wilson type character and write the songs and just play live occasionally, but in the end they realised they could just move on without him.
For years, I’ve been trying to figure out the strategy Cheap Trick used to get rid of Bun E. Carlos. They replaced him with a new drummer but never actually fired him. He still gets paid and has an ineffectual 1/4 stake in the band’s decision making, but he doesn’t tour or record with them. It’s like they fired him, but forgot to tell Bun or the management.
One of my favorite Floyd stories there, him making money after the firing & them losing it, at least on the tour [my recollection is that he had some personal problems & did later take responsibility for barely showing up].
Along the same lines, Waters left the group and then sued them for keeping the Pink Floyd name, which resulted in some sort of settlement that let them carry on [and eventually Wright did rejoin as a lesser legal member]
The Beach Boys also had a bunch of name-usage lawsuits.
It’s definitely a weird situation. It sounds like the rest of the band just tried to freeze him out (which included not paying him or not consulting him on business decisions), but as he’s still a part-owner of the band, he sued them. The settlement that came about meant ensured that Bun would keep getting paid, and be involved in decisions (even if he probably always gets outvoted), but it’s also clear that he’s still “in the band” in name only.
I saw them about the time this was going on. Someone asked where Carlos was, and they said he was in the hospital and couldn’t make it.
I think Dave Grohl runs the Foo Fighters the same way.
It wouldn’t surprise me; the first Foo Fighters album was a Grohl solo project (and he did everything on the album but one guitar track and some backing vocals). He brought in musicians for touring, and wound up building an actual band for the later albums and tours.
Another part of the settlement was Waters got full rights to The Wall. I found this out when my son’s high school marching band performed “music from Roger Waters’ The Wall”
Swedish black metal band Mayhem had an novel way of firing members. The bassist murdered the guitar player. This was after the original bassist quit in disgust over the guitarist taking photos of the singer’s body after the singer’s suicide.
Wow, well that’s some rights there. Not that any of them are hurting. I did read a Rolling Stone interview recently with Nick Mason, who is still friends with both Gilmour & Waters, where he said…well, I was about to paraphrase, but
…the problem is Roger doesn’t really respect David. He feels that writing is everything, and that guitar playing and the singing are something that, I won’t say anyone can do, but that everything should be judged on the writing rather than the playing.
Which would explain a lot of the tension.
I’m guessing that gives them pretty good street cred in the black metal scene.
They are the anti-Tap. Only the drummer survives!
I remember watching one of those “Inside the Music” episodes on VH1 on Blondie… This was 20 years ago, but even then, when I heard Deborah say “He was smoking too much pot” I thought “How mild”, especially compared to all the other substances people get addicted to.
Was this the guy?
Probably not - I think it was her boyfriend Chris Stein who was the pothead back then 
. That was at least a little bit of the problem apparently. I’ve honestly never heard an interview or read a piece where Stein has come off as an asshole. I own his book of New Wave era photography and he was even friendly with Johnny Ramone of all people (apparently he was the one other Ramones would go too to get Johnny’s phone number which Johnny apparently wasn’t in the habit of giving out to mere bandmates 
).
However, he seems to have had a chip on his shoulder about Infante, who was originally brought in as a bassist, then switched to 2nd guitar when Harrison came on board. Stein had been the sole guitarist, but in the studio producers were pushing him aside because Infante was a pro in-studio. He could lay down quality tracks quickly and accurately. Stein apparently was always muffing his parts during recording and the pot-smoking didn’t help. So even though Stein was cast (or regarded himself) as the “lead” guitarist, Infante actually recorded most or all of the solo and lead lines on at least Parallel Lines and Eat to the Beat. Also Harry at least implied Infante was a little more of an old school rocker than he was a New Wave hipster and didn’t quite mesh culturally.
Beyond that it was apparently just a somewhat dysfunctional group period. Aside from Harry and Stein who were a couple and called the shots, at the time it seemed everyone else at least mildly disliked to hated everyone else in the band.
He let’s current co-guitarist Tommy Kessler do most of the heavy lifting, but Stein is no slouch we he decides to play lead. His recent concert solos on “Rapture” are breathtaking.
Blood, Sweat and Tears is a famous example here. Al Kooper was one of the founding members, the best known, the lead songwriter, keyboardist, lead singer, and general uncredited producer. After the band’s first album, other members decided they wanted a stronger lead singer. In essence, the band fired Kooper, although he did help arrange some of the songs on BST’s second album.
IIRC John Kay owns Steppenwolf and dissolved the band in the early 70s to go solo…that didn’t pan out so he reformed the band and then disbanded it again after a few years. He ended up leasing the name to some of the former members and they toured as “New Steppenwolf” but were apparently so bad he thought they were tarnishing the name and sued them.
Alabama was considered a 4 person band. Randy Owen insists they were a trio. Alabama spent many years as a struggling house band. They hired a road drummer, Mark Herndon. Alabama became famous and had many hits and awards. Herndon appeared with them on TV appearances. He’s on the album covers.
But, he never played on the studio recordings. He was just a hired road drummer. He kept his job by being affordable.
Owen admits including Herndon on the album cover was a costly mistake. Road musicians are much different from band members.
Herndon’s side of the story…
But, it works both ways. I remember Marilyn McCoo discussed the early years of the 5th Dimension. There were 4 band members. They wanted a big sound and hired musicians for the band. They had a horn section, strings, drums etc.
Marilyn said the contracts stipulated the hired players got paid a salary first. The band members split whatever was left. Sometimes the band members had to makeup any shortfall.
That’s a financial decision musicians have to make. Do you want a guaranteed salary with no risk? You play for whoever hires you.
Or roll the dice knowing there’s a chance the band you join may never get any hits? You may be splitting payments from small gigs and helping to pay road expenses.