No matter the genre or level of fame, musicians have a tendency to beef with each other. It’s the inevitable result of having to mix your professional and creative life together while part of a band. And none of the big names in rock, country, folk, and beyond are exempt. The following four bands suffered under the weight of their members’ dislike for each other, and most of them broke up over it. Let’s take a look at four legendary bands whose members pretty much hated each other.
1. Hall & Oates
In late 2023, Daryl Hall of the infamous rock duo Hall & Oates revealed that he had received a temporary restraining order against his former bandmate John Oates. The whole situation involved a lawsuit, though it isn’t abundantly clear what has caused so much animosity between the two rock legends. Hall even said in the past that Oates wasn’t his creative partner, but rather was his “business partner.” Ouch.
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2. The Kinks
Mixing family and business can yield positive results. Willie Nelson and his kids are a great example. Unfortunately, sometimes, the results are disastrous. The Kinks were made up of brothers Dave and Ray Davies, who collaborated on some of the best English rock songs of the 1960s. They also fought heavily until the band finally split up in the 1990s. Dave even told an interviewer that Ray sucked him dry of “ideas, emotions, and creativity. He’s a control freak.”
3. Pink Floyd
Bringing up Pink Floyd on this list of legendary bands whose members hated each other was inevitable. Roger Waters left the band in 1985 and tried to force the band to stop performing under the name “Pink Floyd”. He also hasn’t had a lot of good to say about David Gilmour, and vice-versa.
4. Simon & Garfunkel
If you were ever a fan of folk music, you were probably a fan of Simon & Garfunkel. Unfortunately, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel are not fans of each other. Simon quit the band in 1970 to launch his very successful solo career, and they’ve had a contentious relationship since. The beef has been rumored to have stemmed from creative differences and Simon releasing solo music while the duo was still together. However, their former manager Mort Lewis has provided some insight into their tense relationship that seems to point to jealousy as the cause.
“They both envied the other’s place in the team,” he said. “Paul often thought the audience saw Artie as the star because he was the featured singer, and some people probably thought Artie even wrote the songs. But Artie knew Paul wrote the songs and thus controlled the future of the pair.”
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