3 Famous Bands With Members That Famously Hated Being in Bands

Being a band is never 100% easy all the time. Ask literally anyone who has ever been in a band. But when it comes to some of the more famous outfits in music history, quite a few musicians absolutely hated being in their undeniably successful bands. And their reasonings make perfect sense in retrospect. Let’s look at a few examples, shall we?

Videos by American Songwriter

The Everly Brothers

Sometimes, starting a band with your sibling might not be a good idea. Either Oasis or The Everly Brothers could have made it to this list of bands with members who hated being in their bands. But, considering Oasis has since reunited and the Gallaghers have put their beef to bed, I went with this much older example of familial outfits that just didn’t work out. Don and Phil Everly had a good run, but when drug addiction got involved, the group duo quickly crumbled. They disbanded in 1973 in the most dramatic way possible. They quietly broke up again following a reunion in later years.

The Beatles

This one was inevitable. By the end of their decade-long run, The Beatles had gotten to a point where each member was sick of it. There was a massive negative cloud hanging over the band in the wake of the sudden death of their manager, Brian Epstein. There was also John Lennon’s drug use and marriage to Yoko Ono. While drama can certainly result in some good music (just look at Fleetwood Mac), The Beatles just couldn’t operate with an oppressive atmosphere. It was time for things to come to an end. The Fab Four called it quits in 1970.

“I just got so fed up with the bad vibes,” said guitarist George Harrison in a print interview with Musician Magazine. “I didn’t care if it was The Beatles, I was getting out.”

The Mamas & The Papas

Technically, this legendary sunshine pop outfit was only together for a handful of years from 1965 to 1968. And during that time, apparently, most of the members of The Mamas & The Papas hated being in the band. There were tons of internal conflicts that got in the way of writing an album that needed to be released in order for their contract to give them full creative control over subsequent albums. The remaining months of the band were awful, according to Michelle Phillips, because “everybody wanted out.”

“But we owed albums to Dunhill, and then Dunhill was sold to ABC, and then we owed albums to ABC,” said Phillips in an interview with Goldmine. “It was horrible because all we wanted was to get away from each other.”

Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images