Question inspired by Tom Petty, but I didn’t want to hijack the other thread.
The article I read about Petty’s passing described him as gaining fame with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, followed by a solo career.
That led me to wonder: When your band is called “Your Name and the Bunchaguys”, what is the distinction between “going solo” and “firing your band”?
One of them makes you sound like an asshole.
Petty never “fired” his band. He had members of the Heartbreakers play on his solo albums and continued to record with the Heartbreakers in between his solo projects and after his last solo album in 2006. They were never disbanded.
Sort of like Bruce Springsteen. He’s done side projects without the E Street Band, but still continues with the band today, although there was a period of time where they did disband before reforming in 1999.
I would think the expectation that you’re going to get back with the band for your next album. It’s one thing to say “I want to try a different direction for this specific album so I’m going to do it solo” and “See y’all never, suckers”.
In the case of The Pretenders, it’s Chrissie Hynde and whoever she has backing her up. (Although the drummer eventually came back.)
“If it’s me and your granny on bongos, it’s The Fall.”
--Mark E. Smith.The band may be a legal entity with shared ownership rights, employment agreements, and obligations to the record label. The named guy might be the big dog, but he still might not be able to just fire the others unilaterally.
That, and the band might have expectations to contribute to and have input into the songwriting, recording styles, producers, recording locations, etc…
SOME solo albums make perfect sense. Like…
If a musician wants to do a project that sounds nothing like the band he normally performs with. If James Hetfield wanted to make a country music album, it would be understandable that he’d leave Metallica for a while and do that as a solo artist.
If a band has ONE dominant member who writes most of the music and makes most of the big decisions. Mick Jones was the boss in Foreigner and Bryan Ferry was in Roxy Music. So, if Lou Gramm or Phil Manzanera wanted to record any songs HE’D written, he had to do it as a solo act.
But I was always baffled when, say, Ric Ocasek made a solo album that sounded pretty much like the Cars. Why do that?
Money. You don’t have to split the performance royalties, for one.
That’s actually very common. One reason that I’ve heard in interviews by singers who have made albums outside their main band that sound very similar to their main band is that for whatever reason, songs they reallly liked, the band didn’t like, so that was their outlet for those songs. The songs sound similar because they were often written for the band but for whatever reason the band didn’t want to play them.
Another reason is, the singer wants to just establish his name as a solo artist and doing something familiar is the best way to do that. Don Dokken comes to mind, although really Dokken broke up. Eventually he just figured that since his name was Dokken he could make Dokken whatever he wanted, but he did try to make it solo first.
A further reason is the singer wants to work and the band doesn’t. Geddy Lee’s solo album is a good example. Neal Peart had suffered great personal tragedy so Rush was on hold, so why not? And yes, I know Rush fans will say that the Geddy Lee album is NOTHING like a Rush album but to a casual fan it’s pretty close. And Lee had no ambitions whatsoever to establish a solo career, and so there was no real attempt to differentiate his brand from Rush’s.
It’s always money.
Well the Heartbreakers and the E Street Band are more glorified backing bands than anything else; neither of them has released any material or toured without their frontman. (Both bands have done backup work on other musician’s studio albums, but they’ve AFAIK never billed on the album cover with or toured with other musicians.)
One weird mix of solo and backing band was Rockpile, with Nick Lowe on bass and Dave Edmunds on guitar. They played on records billed with Lowe, Edmunds, and under their own name. They toured under their own name and Lowe’s (don’t know if they played under Edmunds’ name.
I was going to mention Rockpile; due to Lowe and Edmunds being on different record labels, and, IIRC, there were legal issues about the band as a whole recording under that name. It sounds like they did one album as Rockpile, two that were under Edmunds’ name (Tracks on Wax 4 and Repeat When Necessary), and one under Lowe’s name (Labor of Lust).
(bolding mine)
That’s the factor I was thinking of - I’d never heard of them doing anything without Petty.
As bands, they don’t seem to, though members of both the Heartbreakers and the E Street Band have been involved in solo projects, and working with other musicians.
The Heartbreakers/Mudcrutch (Campbell, Blair, Tench and Marsh) put out one of the best Surf albums you’ve probably never heard of, Surf-n-Burn.
As a band, they HAVEN’T done anything without Petty. But individually, each musician has done some good work with other artists, just as the E Street band has.
Mike Campbell has done some awesome guitar work with Don Henley, for example. And Benmont Tench has worked with… well, almiost EVERYBODY at one time or another.
And Springsteen’s keyboard man Roy Bittan has done some beautiful piano work for Dire Straits, among others.