Rock's most bitter break-ups as The Who axe drummer Zak Starkey again

Metro

19-05-2025

The Who have sacked long-standing drummer Zak Starkey for the second time in a matter of weeks, and we've taken a look at the most dramatic rock band breakups.
The legendary group fired Starkey after decades last month following a 'huge fall out' over a Royal Albert Hall gig before bringing him back into the fold, but now they've parted ways yet again.
'After many years of great work on drums from Zak the time has come for a change,' Pete Townshend wrote on Instagram. 'A poignant time. Zak has lots of new projects in hand and I wish him the best.'
However, the drummer has fired back and insisted he was'fired two weeks after reinstatement and asked to make a statement saying I had quit to follow my other musical endeavours'.
He continued in his own post: 'This would be a lie. I love the who and would never had quit. So I didn't make the statement ….quitting the who would also have let down the countless amazing people who stood up for me (thank you all a million times over and more) thru the weeks of mayhem of me going in an out an in an out an in an out like a bleedin squeezebox x (sic)'
While he does 'have other projects', Zayn noted that's 'always' been the case but claimed: 'None of this has ever interfered with The Who and was never a problem for them'.
In a previous statement last month, The Who announced last month that they had 'made a collective decision to part ways with Zak after this round of shows at the Royal Albert Hall'.
'They have nothing but admiration for him and wish him the very best for his future,' they added.
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Zak, 59, has played with the Baba O'Riley hitmakers for 29 years and is the son of Beatles drummer Sir Ringo Starr.
Just two days before the announcement, Zak hinted that the lead singer, Roger Daltrey, was 'unhappy' with his recent performances at the Royal Albert Hall.
He suggested in the post they were going to, 'Zak [or sack] the drummer' after accusing him of 'overplaying' at the Teenage Cancer Trust shows.
Metro attended the charity performance on March 30 where, mid-performance, Daltrey complained he was unable to hear over the drums and halted the show multiple times.
After a few frustrated arm gestures and comments throughout the evening,the final track was cut off as Roger explained he could not hear.
'To sing that song, I do need to hear the key, and I can't. All I've got is drums going boom, boom, boom. I can't sing to that. I'm sorry guys,' he told the audience.
Lead vocalist Roger and guitarist Pete formed The Who in 1964 alongside the late John Entwistle. Zak joined the band in 1996 and has continued to play with the band for 29 years – until now.
He returned shortly after the initial statement, as the band said: 'There have been some communication issues, personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with, and these have been aired happily.'
However, things have since gone south once more.
The Who isn't the only rock band to split and leave things on a sour note. Here are some of the most dramatic band breakups in music history.
Guns N' Roses announced in March that drummer Frank Ferrer has left the band after 19 years.
Ferrer, 58, joined frontman Axl Rose, lead guitarist Slash, and bassist Duff McKagan in June 2006.
The rock band posted a statement on X, saying: 'Guns N' Roses announce the amicable exit of Frank Ferrer, the longest-serving drummer in their storied run.
'Frank first joined (the band) during a show in June 2006 helping anchor the rhythm section during subsequent tours, including their recent outings featuring the reunited trio of Axl Rose, Slash, and Duff McKagan.
'His last show with the band took place November 5, 2023 in Mexico.'
The post also said: 'The band thanks Frank for his friendship, creativity, and sturdy presence over the past 19 years, and they wish him success in the next chapter of his musical journey.'
This is only the latest chapter in the band's long history of lineup changes and drama.
While the history of rock and roll is littered with urban legends and true stories of guitar-smashing, dressing-room showdowns, drug-fueled brawls, and lots of hurt feelings, Guns N' Roses may just be the most contentious band to ever take the stage.
The band's notoriously volatile frontman Axl Rose, has usually been at the centre of the drama.
While the band – which was one of the biggest of the 80s – broke up in 1996 when guitarist Slash left the band, followed quickly by bassist Duff McKagan, the beginning of the end came in 1990 when founding drummer Steve Adler was fired.
Rose and Adler locked horns countless times in their decade of stardom, with one famous incident coming when the band lived together in the 80s.
As the story goes, Rose was asleep on a couch in the evening, shortly before the band were set to play an LA show. Adler started passively-aggressively cleaning up, making a racket.
Things escalated, and Rose threw a coffee table at his drummer, and soon the pair were locked in a fistfight.
Even more shockingly, Rose recorded himself having sex with Adriana Smith in 1987, who had previously been dating Adler. He then used the audio in the background of the song Rocket Queen as a dig at Adler, further making the battle lines clear.
In 1990, Adler was fired from the band as he struggled with a heroin addiction.
Rose told MTV in 1990: 'Steven didn't leave the band. Steven was fired. We gave him every ultimatum, we tried working with other drummers. We had Steven sign a contract saying if he went back to drugs, he was out. He couldn't leave his drugs. And other things have happened involved with Steven that Steven is basically someone I used to know.'
But the conflict didn't end there, and Rose became harder and harder to work with as the years passed.
'After a while, I could barely show up because the animosity was so crippling,' Slash later wrote in his autobiography of the band's eventual breakdown. 'It was so negative.'
Axl Rose continued performing under the Guns N' Roses name with a rotating cast of musicians in the years that followed, but the band's iconic lineup never truly reunited for the long term.
A true oldies rock act, the Everly Brothers – Phil and Don – had a string of hits including Bye Bye Love, Wake Up Little Susie, and Cathy's Clown in the 50s and 60s.
But the biological brothers never truly managed to get along, and things finally came to an explosive end in 1973.
Already certain the show was their last, a California gig saw Don taking the stage obviously inebriated, infuriating his brother.
'I was half in the bag that evening — the only time I've ever been drunk onstage in my life,' Don later told Rolling Stone.
'I knew it was the last night, and on the way out I drank some tequila, drank some champagne – started celebrating the demise. It was really a funeral.'
Don – whose addiction to Ritalin made things even more tense with his brother – was slurring the words and struggling to keep up as the show progressed. Soon, his enraged brother smashed his guitar on the stage, shocking the audience as he stormed off stage, leaving his brother in the lurch.
While the brothers eventually buried the hatchet, performing together again a decade later, they truly set the tone for dramatic rock band breakups.
As Phil Everly said in 1970: 'We only ever had one argument. It's been lasting for 25 years.'
Of course, no list of band breakups would be complete without mention of Noel and Liam Gallagher.
Their dramatic breakup in 2009 was preceded by countless instances of the brothers taking aim at each other both on stage and off, with Noel eventually leaving the band and declaring he simply couldn't work with his brother anymore.
In a statement released at the time, Noel wrote: 'It's with some sadness and great relief to tell you that I quit Oasis tonight. People will write and say what they like, but I simply could not go on working with Liam a day longer.'
He continued by aiming one more creative insult at his brother: 'He's like a man with a fork in a world of soup.'
Reportedly, an altercation at Paris' Rock en Seine Festival was the final nail in the coffin for Oasis.
Liam reportedly smashed one of Noel's guitars in the midst of the fight, and soon after, Noel left for good. Subsequently, Liam sued Noel for statements he made about the breakup.
Liam resented his brother for leaving him behind, later telling The Guardian that Noel's claims that Liam's behaviour led to the end of the band were absurd because 'that was my behaviour since day one.'
He continued: 'That's what made Oasis what it was. I wasn't any different, but all of a sudden, he's turned into Ronan Keating or some soft c***, going: 'We can't have that behaviour.''
He continued: 'I was sitting at home with no management, no office, and no one to really speak to, while Noel was still walking into his big management office, having everyone running around after him, getting smart and dissing people.
'Looking back with hindsight, you can go: 'You're a big boy' and all that, but when you've had all that stuff for 20 years… I could barely tie my shoelace, let alone run my business or my life. All that support was taken away, but little Noely G had it all still there.'
Mick Fleetwood, co-founder of legendary rock band Fleetwood Mac, has shared his hopes for reconciliation between ex-bandmates Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham in recent months after the band's infamous decades of drama.
Former guitarist Lindsey, 74, and frontwoman Stevie, 76, have had a turbulent relationship over the past five decades and beyond.
This included a love affair throughout the 1970s that ended around the creation of the band's renowned 1977 album, Rumours (which featured Lindsey's iconic break-up song Go Your Own Way).
But as Lindsey and Stevie's personal and professional relationship deteriorated over the years, everything came to a head in 2018 when Lindsey suddenly ruptured from the band.
The former flames have not toured together since, with Mike Campbell and Neil Finn taking Lindsey's place.
'It's no secret, it's no title-tattle that there is a brick wall there emotionally,' Mick, 77, said in a recent interview about the feuding duo.
'Stevie's able to speak clearly about how she feels and doesn't feel, as does Lindsey. But I'll say, personally, I would love to see a healing between them – and that doesn't have to take the shape of a tour, necessarily,' he added to Mojo magazine.
Whether they will bury the hatchet remains to be seen but in 2021 Lindsey opened up about his perspective on why he was dumped from the band to the LA Times.
'It would be like a scenario where Mick Jagger says, 'Either Keith [Richards] goes or I go.'
'No, neither one of you can go. But I guess the singer has to stay. The figurehead has to stay.'
'I think she saw the possibility of remaking the band more in the Stevie Nicks vein. More mellow and kind of down, giving her more chances to do the kind of talking she does onstage.'
Stevie, however, fiercely hit back against Lindsey's retelling, calling it 'factually inaccurate'.
She continued: 'To be exceedingly clear, I did not have him fired, I did not ask for him to be fired, I did not demand he be fired.
'Frankly, I fired myself. I proactively removed myself from the band and a situation I considered to be toxic to my well-being. I was done. If the band went on without me, so be it.'
The original lineup of Van Halen, featuring brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen, bassist Michael Anthony, and frontman David Lee Roth, burst onto the music scene in the late 1970s with their self-titled debut album, quickly becoming a bona fide cultural movement and some of the biggest icons of the decade.
But they were quickly plagued by conflict, with Eddie infamously throwing a bowl of guacamole at David backstage in 1978. He missed the singer entirely and instead hit Steve Perry, who cried, according to Runnin' With the Devil, a 2017 memoir by Van Halen's former manager, Noel Monk.
In another instance in the same year, the band destroyed the entire seventh floor of a hotel in Wisconsin. The chaos began when Eddie came back to his room to discover that David had thrown the table and chairs from the room outside into the snow.
The tension between David and Eddie came to a head in 1985, following the release of the hugely successful album 1984, which featured hits like Jump and Panama.
Although the album was a commercial triumph, behind the scenes, David and Eddie were barely speaking, with their communication mostly limited to musical disagreements that would turn to shouting matches and even more property destruction.
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David decided to leave the band, citing creative differences and a desire to pursue his own music as a solo artist.
He told Billboard in 1985 that he never truly felt welcome in the band that he helped make famous, saying: 'Since my very first days in with the band 11 years ago, I have always had the feeling that one day I would wake up in a cold hotel, all the rooms would be empty and I would be stuck by a phone with a busy signal. From the first day. Nothing has changed.'
But Eddie later claimed it was David's ego that broke the band up, telling Rolling Stone in 1986 that David said: 'I can't work with you guys anymore. I want to do my movie. Maybe when I'm done, we'll get back together.'
Unlike other groups on this list, the conflict at the heart of Sonic Youth was between a husband and wife.
Formed in New York City in 1981, the iconic rock band was originally comprised of Kim Gordon (bass, vocals, guitar), Thurston Moore (guitar, vocals), and Lee Ranaldo (guitar, vocals).
Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore were happily married for decades, successfully working together within the band as they churned out hits.
But in 2010, Gordon was left blindsided and heartbroken as she discovered text messages on Moore's phone from another woman, leading to their divorce after 27 years of marriage.
She detailed the traumatic incident in her memoir Girl in a Band, writing: 'One morning I got up to do yoga. Thurston was still asleep, and I looked down at his cell[phone]. It was then that I saw her texts about their wonderful weekend together, about how much she loved him, and his writing back the same things.' More Trending
Obviously distraught, she eventually went onto his laptop and found more evidence of the affair including a 'porno-like' video.
Soon after, the pair divorced, and the band called it quits.
This article was originally published on March 17.
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