groups who no longer should be without certain living members?!

Lol

Wall of Voodoo post-Stan Ridgway seems very weird to me, I'm sure the other members contributed a lot but his vocals seem like such a defining part of the band. Plus apparently their drummer left at the same time.

I'm reminded of the Best Show gag about the reunited Ramones (three drummers and a bassist).

Reminds me that La Düsseldorf literally was a band of three drummers.

I'm pretty sure that ZZ Top is touring with lynyrd Skynyrd this summer. that is wrong on so many levels.

Skynyrd seems to have been slowly taken over by the replacement members, like an ant being consumed by invasive fungus.

Dusty Hill's sub for the forthcoming dates is a guy called Elwood. Works for me!

now that rock & roll is largely a nostalgia business, I'd expect this to become the norm over the next couple of decades, if it isn't the norm already. I mean the good news is that you'll still be able to see the stones in 2040, and they'll only play the hits.

Elwood Francis was Billy Gibbons' guitar tech, and it was Dusty Hill's wish that ZZ continue with Elwood on bass. I feel like that's a whole different situation than Skynyrd.

No, I generally agree. But they certainly water down their brand by touring with zombie Skynyrd.

So many deaths in Skynyrd. Crazy that Johnny has been the lead vocalist since 1987, way longer than Ronnie ever was. I only ever saw them once, back in the 70s, but I imagine they still put on a capable show, zombies and all.

Are there any rock bands with no living members left?

oh Jimi Hendrix Experience I guess

I would say Viola Beach but there seem to have been some early members who'd left before the unfortunate and fatal accident.

Ramones

Original members, yeah, but not replacement members

I think we had a thread on this

Cream are only a Clapton away from this

I think all the members of Buddy Holly and the Crickets are dead, but probably not all who played under the Crickets name.

this thread title makes me think that it's suggesting the government should intervene to force these bands to accept these ex members back

Floyd were not w/o Syd, except Wish You Were Here, which was about and for Syd, not Waters' usual beefs.
RIP Gary Rossington kept Skynyrd going as a tribute band to its former self, with at least one younger Van Zant brother filling in for Ronnie, and other classic line-up members as long as they survived the plane crash and could play, then pulling in previous members, the last of whom might have been Ricky Medlocke, singer-guitarist (also led Blackfoot, who did a cool cover of Spirit's "I Got A Line On You," but otherwise were maybe too much of a Southern Rock start-up for late 70s). Van Zant talked Medlocke into drumming for Skynyrd, because they needed a drummer and VZ liked to talk people into shit("C'mon, get back on the plane"). Have read that current LS, whoever they may consist of, were "kickass" on whatever recent country awards show (not the most recent, but pretty recent). I don't think Top would take them along if not.

Of course if you really want to get into various line-ups all at once, there's this. as I blog-mentioned a few years ago:

Richard Thompson is an ever-riveting, never-showboating
featured team player ("Sloth" gets really dead-to-zombstring
strange: is it about wages of sloth, of a sloth? Both?) on
Fairport Convention's roiling, autumn-leaves-shanking
What We Did On Our Saturday(headlined yet another Cropedy Festival), documenting a sometimes
alarmingly energetic hive of all surviving Conventioneers
who came to play
--- which is most, incl. the entire founding line-up, I think
---their 50th Anniversary Concert
(taking things a little easier on Disc 2, but understandably
so, given the earlier waves).

Tangerine Dream is touring, but probably shouldn't be.

I guess Edgar's wife has blessed it?

what's amusing to me rn is how many metal bands are doing the "one original and 4 hired guns" thing, where the original is the vocalist.

Exhorder right now have Kyle on vocals, and everybody else in the band are relative newbies (nobody going back further than 2017). Atheist is the same, with Kelly Schaefer on vox, the band mostly full of people hired in the last year or two. Suicidal Tendencies has been doing that for years, with Mike Muir basically getting older and his band staying the same age. Possessed are the same, with just Jeff Becerra and an overhauled band, though they've all been together as a unit a wee bit longer (closer to a decade).

In all cases listed above, the only original/classic member is the frontman - sometimes, not even someone who had anything to do with the songwriting. And in almost all cases, it goes off without controversy, because I feel like to be blessed, the following has to be true:

The original member has to be distinctive. If they're the vocalist, that helps - particularly if they're well known in the scene like the examples I gave above.

If they're a guitarist, they need to be one of the chief songwriters from their classic period, known for their riffs or solos.

If they're the bass player, unless they're a Steve DiGiorgio, LOL, it will not work sorry. Nobody will show up to see the original bass player and a buncha other people.

If they're the drummer, it works if they're a legendary drummer like Pete Sandoval and not someone who is technically competent but faceless.

ALSO, releasing an album with said lineup helps - especially if the album sounds like the band and people liked it. That helped legitimize the current Possessed lineup.

nothing will ever beat the fake Frankie Goes to Hollywood that toured though once

they came to my town!!!!

LOL - did you go?

A friend of mine once saw Herman's Hermits, without Herman.

Fake FGTH came to my town, too. Without any info on who was actually in the band, the tip-off that they were frauds was the t-shirts, which all said, “FRANKIE SAYS.” It was Frankie SAY, dammit! (And I still have my shirt from when I saw the realsville FGTH in 1984.)

I'd probably pay to see From the Jam if they ever toured the U.S.

Me too. I’d even go see Ex-TC.

A friend of mine once saw Herman's Hermits, without Herman.

That's still a thing, IIRC. One of the guys from the old band owns some rights to the name, and sticks to touring the UK under the name. Peter Noone plays every weekend in the States as 'Peter Noone's Herman's Hermits' or something like that.

yeah, my mom saw that act a few decades ago and got Peter's autograph and she was so excited that dad for a moment worried he was about to get dumped.

lmao so apparently Herman's Hermits now is the original drummer, some singer who joined them in the 80s, and two relatively recent hired guns. who the fuck would wanna see that

NARRATOR: Apparently, lots of people.

Currently, Iron Butterfly's earliest member first joined the group in 1995.

The only remaining original member of Foreigner is Mick Jones.

The Beach Boys are a veritable ship of Theseus.

Has any group managed to successfully become dynastic with children of original members assuming parent duties? I feel like logistically this is more likely with duos.

Neando, no I did not go to the fake FGTH, but the local paper did an article about them in the weekend section, where the band claimed to have been studio players on the original records. This was before the Spin (or Rolling Stone?) expose.

xxxxpost AND Mick doesn't perform at all of the shows anymore, so they're often a full Ship of Theseus

xpost lol that is the kind of amazing thing of the pre-internet era, fakery like this could go unexposed long enough to make people a quick buck.

if a fake Flock of Seagulls somehow managed to get to the tour booking undetected (which probably wouldn't happen given the twittersphere), they'd be shut down 30 minutes into their first show anyway.

Tangerine Dream is touring, but probably shouldn't be.

I wrote a big TD story in The Wire a couple of years ago, when the first post-Froese music was released, and interviewed his widow Bianca, who told me that "he left a complex testament to me...he prepared everything, he gave me the whole legacy and the power to continue with the band. And it was me who asked the band if they would like to continue. He left me the choice of what to do with TD, but said, ‘When you go on, make it right.’ So I asked the band spontaneously, ‘Do you want to go on, do you want to continue?’ I could not accept or could not believe that Tangerine Dream would never be heard in concerts [again], so I asked Ulrich and Thorsten if they would like to go on, and they continued.” So she's the legal owner of the name and everyone who's currently in the band works for her, basically.

to respond to the thread bump I think this new version of Tangerine Dream is probably better than they were during the last 30 years of Froese's life unfortunately

Mick Jones is probably the band member who should have hung it up first. I saw him in 99, his voice was completely shot back then.

Gong are still touring with absolutely no-one whose name I recognize in the current line-up, though one of them is rather splendidly named Cheb Nettles. Two of the current members have apparently been playing with them since 2012 and Daevid Allen did give his blessing to Gong continuing without him just before he died.

Kavus Torabi is the main guy in Gong now it seems, they're in good hands

Are there any instances of this where the new very-non classic lineup keeps recording and then gravitates towards their new material rather the hits live?

Has any group managed to successfully become dynastic with children of original members assuming parent duties? I feel like logistically this is more likely with duos.

― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, July 18, 2023 11:55 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Feel like Cheap Trick is getting there with Daxx on drums and Robin Zander's son on guitar & backing (sometimes lead) vocals

Can't wait for Cheap Trick XI in 2143

Of course nobody will be able to go outside anymore