10 Musicians That Walked Away From HUGE Bands

If you ever find yourself having to jump off of the rock and roll hype train, you're bound to have a few days where you can't stop thinking about what could have been. As much as it might have been best for your health to leave that lifestyle behind, you're still leaving a lot of great opportunities that very few others can get. If that's not bad enough, just ask Jack Irons who had to step off after playing in two legendary bands.

During the '80s, Irons was originally scouted as the drummer behind the original incarnation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, where he played on their first handful of releases prior to Hillel Slovak's death. There was no hard feelings about stepping off though, and Irons kept his ear to the ground in the scene, especially when a guitarist named Stone Gossard from Seattle was looking for a singer. After handing that tape over to Eddie Vedder, Irons watched as Pearl Jam lit up the charts in the '90s until he was eventually asked to join the band.

Though you can definitely hear Irons' attention to tribal drumming on the records he played on like No Code and Yield, his mental health was more important and caused him to walk away from grunge as well, becoming just one more in a long line of drummers that Pearl Jam have had. Then again, there are precious few people who can claim to have been in two legendary bands of the '90s, and Irons is probably proud enough of that.