10 Rock Bands That Continued Without Major Members
1. Syd Barrett - Pink Floyd
If you decide to cut ties with the main songwriter of your group, you're not going to be the same band you were starting out. Here was the person who ended up creating the foundation for your musical identity, so having them no longer in the band is going to twist your sound considerably going forward. And though Pink Floyd knew of the shakeup bound to happen with leaving Syd Barrett behind, it was always going to affect them for the rest of their days.
From day one, it's not like Syd wasn't pulling his weight either, being one of the main players behind the album Piper at the Gates of Dawn. When he started to party a little too hard though, the band slowly saw him losing his grip on sanity, oftentimes even struggling to hold hid guitar pick properly. Instead of having him sort out his issues, the band knew the consequences and brought in David Gilmour to fill out the Floyd sound, with Roger Waters taking the reigns for songwriting.
As the band grew bigger though, Syd always lingered in the back of their minds, with some of the group's most classic material being informed by his absence, whether it be the lunatic character in Dark Side of the Moon or the heartbreaking goodbye on Wish You Were Here. In the case of some bitter breakups in rock and roll, this is one of the biggest examples of a band member that's gone but not forgotten.