So I was thinking about people that move bands, not so much the ones that go solo, but actually turn up in another band. Is it ever as good? Is the issue that we think and associate them with one sound and when they do something completely different that we don't like as much we pre-judge them? Well probably, to be honest. That actually doesn't mean it is bad though, and it can work.
There are actually a huge amount of instances of this, even if you ignore bands with effectively rolling line ups like Thin Lizzy, by the way, did you know that Midge Ure was in Thin Lizzy at one stage. He was actually the replacement for Gary Moore's role on harmonic guitar. Weird or what.
I thought I would talk about two recent and two older band shifters.
Perhaps one of the most prevalent recently is Velvet Revolver and Guns and Roses/ Stone temple Pilots. As stated before I was a huge fan of the Gunners, and a pretty big fan of STP (I am actually wearing an STP top as I write this) So you had the lead singer of STP , Scott Weiland, and the Guitar Bass and Drummer from Gunners, Slash, Duff and Matt. The Gunners need no second name as we know who they are, right.
So Velvet released a good first album, opening with this song. Slither
As always with these things it sounds more like STP than Gunners. here is Vasoline off Purple by STP
Personal opinion but neither are as good as My Michelle by Gunners
I will admit to being a little bit biased there though. i liked Velvet Revolver. It all fell to pieces pretty quickly though. That is a recurrent theme here. It does seem to be that once they have left one band then they can do it again and again. Like a serial killer. Perhaps it has a lot more to do with making it big the first time around and so it becomes less necessary to put up with the (apparent) associated rubbish that goes with being in a band.
Another recent example, is Audioslave. This was effectively Rage Against the machine with a new singer Chris Cornell from Soundgarden. Even writing this it sounds like a somewhat unusual mix of styles.
Ah the gentle joy of a Christmas number 1. I still think it is probably my favourite RATM song. There is so much anger in it. So RATM released four albums and then split, well Zack de la Rocha left. Their music is great, the lyrics are politically charged and the rhythm and beat of their songs is original. hard to give them a bigger compliment.
That is also a pretty early song from Soundgarden. Rusty Cage from the album Badmotorfinger (that is how it is spelt) . Not their most famous album which is Superunknown. Soundgarden were very much a grunge era band. they were a little more heavy than the punky Nirvana or the rock of Pearl Jam. None the less a very good band and i do like their music a lot.
So these two somewhat different sounding styles came together and formed Audioslave
They can all still play, Chris Cornell can definitely sing still. But it is not quite the same is it. That song is Be Yourself, is it a great song? perhaps not, but it is a very good song.
I want to talk about one of my favourite bands. Janes Addicition. I have spoken about my favourite song, their best in this post. They were one of those bands that had a huge influence on a number of the bands after them and as such if you come to them after you have heard everything everyone copied from them it can sound like they are derivative. Well, I am happy to slap you around to put you straight on that one. The originators , not the followers.
Please stick with the video, it takes a while to warm up, but that is the point. Apparently shirts were frowned on in the band. Anyway , that is Flea from the Red Hot Chili peppers on bass. I am not going to go on a rant about how i think that RHCP have completely lost any interest and how much I wish Janes had held it together to become as big as RHCP became.
So the lead singer of Janes is Perry Farrel. As Janes were falling apart he thought he would put together a music festival. So he put together, Loolapoolza. Which if you remember was pretty big.
He then went on to form Pornos for Pyros. Who were interesting. I love this song
That is Tahitian Moon from their second album. As a massive Janes fan I obviously got these albums, they are good. Not as good as Janes though. They have a different and more hippy type feel to them. By which I mean there is a more gentle and mellow feel to them. Much more a warm summer evening on the beach, than Janes which had a much more big city feel to them.
The last band is a bit out of kilter for what i normally write about in this blog. But well, I will reserve that right frankly.
There was a band when I was growing up, called Split Endz. They were a Kiwi band, well lets be honest here, this is the very early 80s, so they were probably the only Kiwi band. There was a TV show in Australia called Countdown. And this band were always on it. Always. Possibly because they were about the best 'local' product at the time.
Which is a very good song as you can see. Actually I think it holds up pretty well. Very very pop though. Apologies to the metal heads.
Anyway, two members of that band went on to form Crowded House. Who pretty much everyone has ever heard of. I quite like some of the imagery in Crowded House songs. i will admit that i am not a huge fan. but i use this example to show that sometimes a band which is formed from an already successful one goes on to become much much bigger than the one it came from.
There is no real conclusion to this as such. People move on a go on to produce different music. Sometimes we like it , most of the time we think it is probably not as good. It is obviously all down to how much we liked the original.
As a footnote, I add a song by the once mighty Thin Lizzy, who are still going, but with no original members - how does that work? How can they still use the name?
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