bands whose members' solo projects did not precipitate a break-up or split

^ already mentioned

There's been another side project since the last mention

people have been saying that Father of The Bride sounds like an Ezra Koening solo album, but I wonder how inclined I'd have been to listen to it had it been marketed and released as such. I think there's often an expectation with a solo album that it will either be a stripped back acoustic thing, a self-indulgent thing, an MOR pop thing, or simply a 'sounds like the band but not as good thing'

it doesn't particularly sound like one to me but the impression i've gotten is that the other two members of the band didn't have that much to do with the recording or songwriting this time so i understand people calling it an ezra solo album

both sam prekop and archer prewitt have done solo records while also doing sea and cake stuff. and then there's all of john mcentire's various endeavors.

I shall steal the obvious answer of Tom Tom Club

As well as David Byrne's The Catherine Wheel and Jerry Harrison's The Red and the Black, all of which came out in 1981.

On their 2nd post-Remain in Light (and pre-Speaking in Tongues) tour in 1982, they had 4 Byrne and 1 Harrison solo songs in the set:

Psycho Killer
Love -> Building on Fire
Cities
Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open) (David Byrne)
Once in a Lifetime
Mind
My Big Hands (Fall Through the Cracks) (David Byrne)
Slink (Jerry Harrison)
Big Business (David Byrne) / I Zimbra
Swamp
Houses in Motion
What a Day That Was (David Byrne)
Life During Wartime
Take Me to the River
Crosseyed and Painless

"Genius of Love" didn't get added to the set until the Speaking in Tongues tour.

^ surely Gold Class level of this phenomenon, when the 'main' band performs side-project material.

Fleetwood Mac has done that a couple of times--Buckingham doing a solo acoustic "Go Insane" or the Buckinghamless '90s band doing "Stand Back."

The Church have released a lot of albums but I think there's even more Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes, & Marty Willson-Piper solo albums out there.

oh yeah, great example. Kilbey's really blown this out with actual dozens of demos album and whatnot on Bandcamp, but I bet you're right just going on physical releases too.

struggling to see how Pop Will Eat Itself fit this tbh

one of them did a solo album and nobody split the band up over it

I dunno if it counts because all 3 were solo artists before the band started but Yellow Magic Orchestra had quite a lot going on through their run

Sakamoto released B-2 Unit & Left Handed Dream, plus the score to Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. I think he toured LHD too but I'm not sure about that.

Takahashi had three pretty successful solo albums and toured a couple times.

Hosono only had one solo album during this period (Philharmony) but he was plenty busy as a producer and songwriter, getting involved with Miharu Koshi, Jun Togawa, and a dozen others

Of course there's also all the YEN Records stuff, most of which HH and/or YT would appear on in some capacity.

xp

one of them did a solo album, quit the band less than a year later then the band split up completely the year after that!

I mean one of the criteria is the solo album member remains in the band, for a start. plus the band put out its final studio album 2 months after the solo album, and the only thing they released after that was a remix album

He recorded it about two years earlier though AIUI, in the wake of the bloopy ambient Part Man Part Machine remix he did on the Get The Girl CD. Then he stayed in the band, wrote so much of the next album that for the first time in their history he requested a tiny note saying who'd written the lyrics for how many songs, recorded and released the album, toured it around the world for a year, then - again AIUI - suddenly left because he had unexpectedly become a single or shared-custody dad and had to get a day job that enabled him to work during school hours only.

He wasn't kicked out bcz anyone was jealous of his massive success with a barely-distributed album of bloops and splashes, and he didn't make another record himself for over a decade (when he put out some moderately terrible laptop nu-metal MP3s).


think there's even more Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes, & Marty Willson-Piper solo albums out there

I figured this out btw and it's bonkers

fair enough I guess the band didn't split up directly because of his solo album (although Wikipedia says he left to focus on his solo project, but that's Wikipedia, and there is no citation), but they split up anyway so not exactly a continuing success

yeah, they split up because the remaining other singer had writer's block and threw tantrums when the drummer kept bringing in fully-written instrumentals. so they might have stuck it out if Gra hadn't irresponsibly chosen to go and feed and clothe and raise a child - and with a US label now putting loads of support behind them bcz Reznor asked, they prob would have been a continuing success - but it all worked out pretty well for the dude with writer's block in the end.

I thought it was more normal to have solo albums that don't cause a split?

doesn't the My Morning Jacket guy have a bunch of solo albums?

the Parquet Courts guys too

Animal Collective

Big Thief. (I read that sometimes Adrianne will do a solo set at a Big Thief show, and the other guys will set down their instruments and watch.)

course if it's true there was a racist showing their ass in the front row, pretty weak if nobody defended the dude from it

(xp - wtf)

Guitarist Buck Meek also released a solo album in 2018; and somehow has time to fit in a touring side thing, despite belonging to a constantly touring "main band"(!)