Musicians Who Became Huge Stars After They Switched Genres

Creative people can seem kind of magically talented. Since fans only see the end product of their work, it can appear that they just put pen to paper, or brush to canvas, or pick up a guitar and within minutes they've created the thing that made them famous. We rarely experience all the failed attempts that end up on the scrap heap of history — the novels that never make it out of drawers or the paintings that get covered over.

When it comes to musicians, not only does that mean thousands of hours of practice to get anywhere near decent at singing and playing instruments, but sometimes it means they have to mess around a bit before settling on their perfect sound. There are plenty of huge musicians who only got to where they are after wallowing in obscurity in another genre of music. Remember that next time you're exasperated at your creative attempts that just don't seem good enough.

Ah, Smash Mouth. These days they're probably most famous for their epic Twitter wars with everyone from the Oakland A's to anyone who dares to question their chart success. But once upon a time they were producing music that lead singer Steve Harwell called "California in a can. Fun in the sun. West Coast party pop." Their hits included "Walkin' On the Sun" and "All Star," the latter forever seared into public consciousness thanks to Shrek. But the band walked a long and winding road to get there.

Harwell started out making completely different music, in a rap group called Freedom of Speech (F.O.S.). He told Stereogum the band members were really into Chuck D and he just decided "I want to be a rapper." They recorded the song "Big Black Boots" and managed to get some airplay on a local station. This, in turn, led to getting signed with a record company, and they prepared to put out a single. Then everything changed, according to Harwell. Snoop Dogg came out and completely mixed up the rap scene! Harwell says he was watching MC Hammer in Las Vegas when he turned to his manager and said, "I'm tired of all this hip-hop sh*t."

Smash Mouth itself actually began as a ska band. Their first album is mostly ska/punk in sound. But they stumbled on "Walkin' On the Sun," realized they had a hit on their hands, and decided to change up their beat.

By all accounts, the Beastie Boys shouldn't have worked. They were three Jewish white boys who somehow managed to dominate hip-hop and rap. Their oeuvre includes classics like "Sabotage," "(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)," and "No Sleep Till Brooklyn." The group sold 50 million records and was the third rap act inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But they started out as a hardcore punk band.

They called themselves The Young Aboriginals, according to NME, and formed as a foursome in 1979 when Mike D was only 15. (Their founding bassist, Shatan, often couldn't come to rehearsals because they got in the way of his schoolwork.) They were straight-up punk and were inspired by bands like Black Flag, Misfits, and Dead Kennedys. The guitarist John Berry described them as a jam band that was "scrappy" and "whacking off." But they put the effort in, sometimes playing two shows a night in small, dirty venues. They recorded bootleg tapes and would hand them out to friends.

Their songs included "A**hole!" which "mainly consisted of shouting the name of the song and insulting each band member in turn," a far cry from their later lyrical masterpieces. The group eventually changed their name to the Beastie Boys and released one punk EP in 1982, Polly Wog Stew, but soon switched direction. They had discovered acts like Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash and were inspired. They started rapping, and the Beastie Boys (as we know them) were born.

Journey is known as one of the ultimate power ballad bands. You're probably already singing "Don't Stop Believin'" in your head, and they had plenty of other hits like "Open Arms" and "Faithfully." They produced an amazing eight multi-platinum albums and two diamond albums, and sold over 75 million records worldwide. In the beginning, though, their sound was a far cry from 1980s rock.

Journey started out with a distinctive jazz-fusion sound that was compared to Santana. This makes sense, since two of the founding members had once belonged to that band. According to Don't Stop Believin': The Untold Story Of Journey, keyboardist Gregg Rolie thought the comparison "screw[ed] up the whole concept" of the band and it started to grate. He especially hated that the fans who showed up to concerts would "expect conga drums."

The group released three albums but failed to light up the charts. Guitarist Neal Schon told AZ Central that the change in sound wasn't really their choice. Instead, their record company gave them an ultimatum: Switch it up and start writing some radio-friendly songs or else. They also had to get a new front man. Well, their manager got a tape of Steve Perry singing, and the rest was history.

For a few years in the 1990s, you could not escape Sugar Ray. They dominated pop radio with hits like "Every Morning" and "Someday." Their album 14:59 went triple platinum, so if you were a '90s kid there's a good chance you owned it. But their mainstream success only came by accident — originally they were a metal band.

It makes sense when you hear who influenced their first sound. In an interview with Hip, lead guitarist Rodney Sheppard said the group loved bands like the Sex Pistols, Rage Against the Machine, Ted Nugent, and Korn. In fact, they once opened for the Sex Pistols, as well as KISS. According to Noisecreep, lead singer Mark McGrath describes himself as "an unapologetic metalhead."

Their music from this time is shocking if you were unaware of it. In the song "Mean Machine," McGrath screams out lyrics in a gravelly voice while the rest of the band shreds and head bangs. The video even features a mosh pit.

They might have continued languishing in relative indie obscurity if not for an epic fight. One day a rehearsal didn't go well, and McGrath stormed off. So their bassist just started messing around on his instrument and the DJ added a drum loop, and within five minutes they had written the song "Fly." It was their only pop song on the metal-heavy album Floored, which came with a "Parental Advisory" label. The song hit No. 1, and they ditched the hard sound completely to fully embrace pop.

Fleetwood Mac is one of the biggest bands of all time. They've sold more than 100 million records worldwide, 40 million of which came from their smash Rumors, the eighth best-selling album of all time. They have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and are known for hits like "Don't Stop" and "Rhiannon." But the original version of the band, sans most of the more famous members, was much more interested in blues than rock.

Mick Fleetwood, told U.S. News and World Report he was absolutely hopeless in school, probably because he had a learning disability. So amazingly his parents were cool when he said, at the young age of 16, that he was dropping out and becoming a musician. He left for London with his drum kit. The San Diego Tribune says he spent some time in the band Bluesbreakers before he and the bassist decided to go start their own group. Fleetwood Mac was born.

Influenced by their talented guitarist, the early version of the band was all blues all the time. And they did manage to find some success. They actually had a No. 1 hit in Britain with "Albatross" but were virtually unknown in the United States. Still, they came to Chicago to play blues with some of the greats. But in 1970 their guitarist left, and they slowly added new musicians like Christine McVie, Stevie Nicks, and Lindsey Buckingham. This changed their sound to the pop-rock they're most famous for.