10 Musicians That Got Fired From Huge Bands
Just Shy Of Iconic Territory.
Every musician is going to do everything they can to reach the top of the world. This is a cutthroat business, so you're going to need to go the extra mile so that you're a cut above the rest of the acts that have come both before and after you. If you want to reach that point though, you might have to lose a bit of dead weight from the band in the process.
In the beginning of each of these band's careers, there was always that one person that didn't seem to be pulling as much of the workload as the rest of the band. That's not to say that all of these people on this list are terrible musicians. In fact, these people help set up the building blocks for most of these bands in the very early stages.
When it was called into question though, it didn't take these bands long to see what they had to do, letting them go in lieu of someone more capable for the job. Then again, it probably stings just a bit seeing your former friends find someone new and end up being one of the biggest bands in the world while you're left to look on the sidelines. You may have that Three Musketeers mentality in the very beginning, but things change as you grow older, and you're going to need to pull your weight if you're thinking of being there for the long haul.
10. Steven Adler - Guns N Roses
In the early days of Guns N Roses, the whole appeal of the Appetite for Destruction era felt like more than just another LA band from the Sunset Strip. These guys carried themselves like a gang, with everyone contributing a piece to the puzzle, from Slash's fiery lead work to Duff McKagan's punk edge on his bass. The pulse of everything was always the swing of Steven Adler, which ended up coming to a dead halt once Use Your Illusion got underway.
Because with a lot of success comes a lot of drugs in rock and roll, and Steven went down a rabbit hole that he was never able to bring himself out of, always trying to get clean and continuing to struggle with his demons. While you couldn't necessarily call anyone in the rest of the band squeaky clean in terms of substance abuse, the rest of the guys started to notice Adler's drumming suffering for it, leading to multiple ultimatums where the band would go to his house and investigate for any drugs that he had.
By the time that they had to cut the tracks, Axl had put his foot down, choosing to leave him behind and drafting in Matt Sorum from the Cult to play on the record instead. Even though this was the first time that the core family of Guns N Roses would be pulled apart, this was only the beginning of the next few years of insanity that led to their breakup in the '90s.