Bandmates Who Hate Each Other

Currently, two original members of KISS — Ace Frehley and Peter Criss — are on the outs with the group, with their makeup being occupied by two hired guns. Frehley and Criss left in the early '80s and, apart from a brief nostalgia-fueled reunion in the late '90s, have stayed away ever since. In response, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley have disparaged both their estranged bandmates, with Simmons claiming (according to a CBS interview with Stanley) that the two aren't "fit to wear the makeup anymore." Stanley agreed, saying they don't deserve to be in the band and that he didn't want to perform with them during their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. Stanley went one step further in his 2014 autobiography, claiming that Frehley and Criss are anti-Semitic (Stanley and Simmons are Jewish), that Frehley collected Nazi memorabilia, and that Criss was racist against Asians. He also called Simmons an egomaniac who wasn't actually a marketing genius, but that pales in comparison to "you are basically Nazis."

Frehley fired back in a 2014 Vice interview, saying the anti-Semitic claims are bogus, that Paul and Gene hate him because he was a drug addict, that he's been clean for years but they still won't forgive him, and that they tried to severely low-ball him to appear in a KISS documentary. Although they got along real well when entering the Hall of Fame, it's clear that was as much an act as wearing face paint and calling yourself "Starchild."

Kings of Leon hasn't been around as long as some of the other bands that can't stop fighting, but they still manage to fight quite a bit. The main culprit appears to be an old enemy of humanity: alcohol.

As reported by The Telegraph, Kings frontman Caleb Followill had quite the alcohol issue — he was already drinking when the band broke big with "Sex on Fire," and by 2010 he claimed to be sober "for the first 30 minutes of every day" and nothing more. That kind of nonsense can't last, and it came to a head in July 2011. According to Rolling Stone, Followill was drunk and angry during a show. He blurted out to the crowd a plan to go backstage, vomit, drink another beer, then return and play a few more songs. He managed everything except the songs — Kings canceled the rest of the tour, but not before band member and brother Jared Followill implored the crowd to "f**king hate Caleb, not us." Apparently, that line set Caleb off even more, and he flew off to New York, considering leaving the band entirely.

A few days of non-speaking later, his brothers met up with him and, depending on who you talk to, either forced Caleb to rehab or didn't. Either way, he stopped overdrinking. After a brief hiatus, the band was back with a new album in 2013. They sold the reunion with interviews like the one with The Telegraph, insisting they don't fight anymore. It's never a good sign when the selling point of a tour is "hey, we probably don't want to kill each other now!"

Joe Perry and Steven Tyler of Aerosmith rock best when they're together, except they're almost certainly happier apart. In his autobiography, Rocks: My Life In and Out of Aerosmith, Perry details several incidents where Tyler's antics have driven him up a wall.

The basic issue, according to Perry, is that he and the band are in it for the music, while Tyler's in it for fame and women. That kind of creative tension often proved too much, judging by how Perry outright quit the band in the early '80s. In addition, Perry cringes at Tyler's attempts to go into business for himself, like attempting to get more money for himself from licensing Aerosmith songs for Guitar Hero or judging on American Idol (without telling the band first) or doing fewer collaborations with Perry and more with other, less-rocking songwriters. (Diane Warren, anyone?) That said, the New York Daily News' review of the book does mention Perry still respects and, sometimes, even gets along with Tyler. It's a start.

Tyler, meanwhile, isn't a huge fan of Perry either. In his autobiography, Does the Music In My Head Bother You? Tyler claims Perry is aloof and almost completely lacking in sweet emotion. As he claims Perry once told him, "Just because we're in a band together doesn't mean we have to be friends." So basically, Perry and Tyler are two Employees of the Month who keep the company thriving, even though they all but choke one another in the break room every day.

Few bands are defined by their squabbling more than Oasis. Brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher were seemingly always spatting at each other — as Noel told ABC in 2000, "It was just drunken, f**king nonsense. ... It's just two brothers in a band who have strong opinions about how things within that band should be."

Well, those drunken opinions got stronger and stronger, until the band — and the brothers' relationship — combusted entirely in 2009. As Noel described it during a 2011 press conference, arguments arose over whether Liam missed a gig because of laryngitis, or because he was hungover. Fruit was thrown, guitars were swung like axes, and Noel finally decided he had had enough of the band, and his brother.

According to the tabloid Metro, the Oasis implosion was always inevitable. As early as 1994, their so-called "Wibbling Rivalry" had dominated the band, with choice words from Liam like "I f**kin' hate that t**t there. ... I hope one day ... I can smash [the] f**k out of him, with a f**kin” Rickenbacker, right on his nose, and then he does the same to me." He also keeps calling his brother a "potato" on social media, and Noel stated in 2005 that Liam's "actually frightened to death of me. I can read him and I can f**king play him like a slightly disused arcade game." Hopefully Mama Oasis is used to family dinners without the entire family around.

Since splitting in 1970, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel have reunited a handful of times, and it never lasts because the two can barely stand one another. The tiffs began almost immediately, when the pair recorded an album and Simon, instead of promoting it, jetted off to England to record his own solo material. Then there was the time both men vetoed each others' suggestion for the 12th song on Bridge Over Troubled Water — the album was released with 11 songs because heaven forbid an album have 13 tunes. After that, the duo called it quits.

Since then, we've heard everything from swipes (In a 2015 Telegraph interview, Garfunkel claimed he had "created a monster" in Simon, and called him a "jerk" for breaking up the duo so quickly), and petty jabs (Simon admitted in 1982 he had inserted "so long already, Artie!" into the fade of "So Long Frank Lloyd Wright," which isn't a jerk move at all), to outright dismissal (after Garfunkel suffered vocal cord problems in 2010, Simon told the BBC he "would just as soon not go back and visit the past." You'll notice most of the hostility seems to come from Simon's camp — if Garfunkel had his way, the duo would've never broken up, save for a break every now and again. But Rhymin' Simon makes the rules, much to the chagrin of everyone who loves to hear them harmonize.

We've already documented Steve Perry's issues with Journey — in a nutshell, Perry grew tired of the band, left, and claimed he never felt like he was truly in the band. Then Journey replaced him with a soundalike and performed sans Perry at their Hall of Fame induction, though he did attend.

But now, other members of Journey have issues with one another, and it's threatening the band as a whole. As documented by Ultimate Classic Rock, guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain have been feuding over the band's artistic direction. According to Cain, Schon wanted to do a hard rock record, and the result — 2011's Eclipse — didn't do all that hot. Cain feels they should never go that route again, but since Schon feels like he's the main member of the band, he believes Cain should quit undermining him. As he said on Instagram "I want to be elevated by whom I play with, not feel like I've got cement shoes. If anyone is unhappy they are not running my band, then they should leave."

If that's not enough, Cain has been doing religious music on the side ever since marrying a minister. Schon has issues with that as well, fearing religious and political slants (Cain's wife spoke at Donald Trump's inauguration) could compromise the band. Hopefully if Cain goes, they find another keyboardist who plays exactly like him.

Bandmates end up hating each other for various reasons, but one of the most insurmountable reasons is ego. Sometimes, bandmates just can't ever get along, because according to the law of egos, two equally enormous egos can't occupy the same space.

That appears to be the gist of the trouble between Pink Floyd members David Gilmour and Roger Waters, at least according to the observations of drummer Nick Mason. "I think it's really disappointing that these rather elderly gentlemen are still at loggerheads," he told Rolling Stone. "I think the problem is Roger doesn't really respect David. He feels that writing is everything, and that guitar playing and the singing are something that, I won't say anyone can do, but that everything should be judged on the writing rather than the playing."

Waters left Pink Floyd in 1985, and Mason says he thinks Waters is still "rankled" that the band survived without him. Waters and Gilmour reunited for a set at Live 8 in 2005, and again five years later at a U.K. benefit show, but the two haven't been seen together in public since 2011.

Mason is a lot more optimistic than most of the rest of us are. "I live in hope," he said. "I mean, I don't think we're ever going to tour as Pink Floyd again. But it would seem silly at this stage of our lives to still be fighting."

New Order was basically the soundtrack for an entire decade, famous for its kick drums and distinctive bass lines, and yet off stage the group was pretty much the opposite of the cohesive, music-making machine they were on stage. In an interview with Getintothis, former bassist Peter Hook said the band was pretty good at putting aside their differences to make music. "Anyone watching it would think, 'Oh my god look at them, they've got everything. They've got success, they're feted, what a wonderful world' and yet really we f*cking hated each other."

Unfortunately those negative feelings went beyond just being grumbly old men and all the way to court, when Hook accused his former bandmates of "clandestinely" trying to control not just the New Order trademark, but also the Joy Division trademark (the band's earlier incarnation with late frontman Ian Curtis). Hook also said the band, which he'd left in 2008, owed him "millions of pounds" in unpaid royalties. Hook's former bandmates, though, said the dispute was about Hook's royalties from the work the band had done after his departure.

The lawsuit was settled in 2017, but the animosity never went away. "He left the band, and then he complained about leaving the band," said singer/guitarist Bernard Sumner. "He's so angry. If you choose to take a path in life, don't blame other people for the path you've chosen to take."

Really, when you think about it, just about all of your problems can be blamed on the older generation. You're neurotic because your parents made you that way. The world is getting hotter because the older generation didn't think they had to worry about carbon dioxide. And the Pixies broke up because their elders didn't give them a stern talking-to.

That's what frontman Black Francis told Q, anyway. "We would have survived if we could have just stopped the train and taken a f*cking vacation. The people around us who were older should have seen that."

Ultimately, though, the band split in 1993 in part because of the rift between Francis and bassist Kim Deal. "Kim and I just didn't get along well after a time," Francis said. "She always had her own ambitions and became comfortable in a leadership role in her other band [The Breeders]. It must have been hard for her to be in a band where some other guy was always pulling at the reins."

That's a very diplomatic statement, really, since for years rumor has held that the relationship between Francis and Deal wasn't just "hard," but hateful to the point that Francis once threw a guitar at Deal during a gig in Stuttgart. That sounds like a little more than just "didn't get along well." But hey, rock and roll, baby.

The cool thing about punk rock is that no one really expects you to play nice. When you have songs like "No Feelings" and "Anarchy in the U.K.," and also your name is "Johnny Rotten," people sort of expect you to be a jerk. Which by default means you probably don't get along with people.

According to Ultimate Classic Rock, the Sex Pistols finished their first and only tour of the U.S. in January 1978, long after the death of bassist Sid Vicious and, according to a lot of observers, long after the death of the Sex Pistols, too. After that mediocre American tour, Johnny Rotten left the band. They didn't reunite until 1996, almost two decades later.

Rotten didn't bother with all the diplomacy and niceties that we've seen in other bands, though. "We still hate each other with a vengeance," he said at a press conference. "But we've found a common cause, and that's your money."

Animosity among bandmates evidently even goes beyond the grave — Rotten didn't have anything nice to say about the late Sid Vicious, either. "Sid was nothing more than an empty coat hanger to fill an empty spot on stage," he said.

Since that reunion in 1996, the Sex Pistols have toured a couple more times, and Rotten told Rolling Stone he'd be open to future reunions, too. So at least in the case of the Sex Pistols, hatred can be overcome. If only by money, but whatever. Now that's punk.