10 Bands That Destroyed Their Careers

When you finally reach the big time, you tend not to focus on where things can go wrong. As much as you might want to cover your tracks, too many artists have stars in their eyes to actually consider anything bringing them down. Then again, stardom can be taken away just as quickly as it was given to you.

Through rock history, plenty of bands have destroyed their legacy by going down roads that no one else would even thought to. Although they may have claimed to be innovating at the time, this was a sign of horrible things to come, with most of these artists becoming either a shell of themselves or collapsing altogether. While breaking up the band is the easiest way to bring everything to a stop, there's a bit more to it than just not playing together anymore.

These are the flameouts that were so drastic that you can't help but marvel at how far they sunk in such a short amount of time. Though some of them may have been able to recover pretty nicely, they're never going to be able to live down their troubled past. You only get your bout with fame for so long, so be sure that you don't cough it up like this.

With grunge and nu metal starting to fade from memory as the early '00s started, rock fans didn't really know where to go after that. Even with the pop punk bands storming across the charts, there was a hole in the scene in terms of heaviness. We needed something much more bold than what had come before, and At the Drive In were just the ticket with Relationship of Command.

Taking the best pieces of prog, punk, and even metal in places, this became the benchmark for post hardcore, with Omar Rodriguez Lopez becoming the next guitar legend for fans to be paying attention to. So with the world as their oyster, At the Drive In did what any band would do and...broke up without any forewarning.

The fallout ended up being pretty hard as well, with everyone not on the same page and choosing to cut ties rather than make something that sounded half finished. Even when they reunited for Interalia a while back, there's something that seems to be missing with the exclusion of Jim Ward and the mind melting insanity of The Mars Volta trying to take their place. Still, it's better to have a flame that burned out way too quickly than to not have had them at all.