bands whose members' solo projects did not precipitate a break-up or split

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards released a bunch of solo albums in the 80s and 90s between Rolling Stones records.

Primus seems to have weathered a number of Les Claypool projects: Holy Mackerel, Fearless Flying Frog Brigade, Oysterhead, Claypool Lennon Delerium. I don't know much about the quality of any of those solo projects or Primus' more recent work.

Grateful Dead and Phish both did alright with balancing numerous solo projects with their main gig.

In contrast, when Duff McKagan, Slash, and Gilby Clarke's solo records started rolling out, Guns 'n' Roses was effectively over.

What other bands have had members release solo projects, but those members remain in the band and the band remains successful?

Beth Gibbons did it successfully before Portishead came back with 'Third'.

Brian Ferry was putting out solo LPs from 73 onwards

Genesis

Beatles, George Harrison

Radiohead

NERD

(and Paul McCartney with The Family Way in the same period, come to that)

Dead Can Dance

I shall steal the obvious answer of Tom Tom Club

Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora both released solo albums in the early 90's

Does Fever Ray count? "Shaking the Habitual" was well after that album, but I don't know if they were technically broken up in the interim.

Grateful Dead solo projects even contributed a number of the most longstanding songs teh band jammed on for decades.
Playing iN the Band's debut was as the Main ten on Mickey Hart's Rolling THunder.
It's fully formed song debuted on Bob Weir's Ace alongside Greatest Story Ever Told
Bird Song & Sugaree debuted on the 1st solo garcia lp and went on to be played by the GD until he died

paramore's hayley williams is about to announce a solo project called petals for armor which presumably does not mean paramore has dissolved

Yes, some discussion about that in the /r/paramore subreddit is what got me thinking about this.

Great answers everyone.

I did not know that Harrison and McCartney had solo records while the Beatles were still together!

I know there was Wonderwall the electronic score from I think 1968.

Electronic Sound is an odd one

Krause later said that "No Time or Space" was a recording of him demonstrating the Moog III to Harrison in Los Angeles, following a session for Jackie Lomax's album Is This What You Want?, which Harrison was producing at the time. Krause claimed that the demonstration was recorded without his knowledge and nor would he have given his consent, since his playing included ideas he intended to develop on the next Beaver & Krause album. Krause's name was originally included on the front cover of Electronic Sound, under Harrison's, but it was painted over at Krause's insistence. The words "Bernie Krause" were nevertheless visible under the silver ink on original LP pressings.

Siouxsie & The Banshees: at one point in 1983 Siouxise and Budgie were doing the Creatures, and Robert Smith and Steve Severin formed the Glove and then the Banshees just carried on making albums as normal right after

Members of the Who put out no fewer than 14 solo albums before they broke up in 1983: one by Keith Moon, four each by Daltrey and Townshend (counting Townshend's collaboration with Ronnie Lane, Rough Mix), and five by John Entwistle, who was the first of them to make a solo record. In fact, there are as many Entwistle solo records in the 1970s as there are Who albums.

Portastatic
Damaged Bug
Alvarius B and Sir Richard Bishop
Moon Duo

Not sure if jazz is fair game, but The Modern Jazz Quartet seems like a good example: John Lewis and Milt Jackson did tons of projects outside of that group, but the same 4 core members played together in MJQ for 20+ years.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Kiss_Logo.svg/1280px-Kiss_Logo.svg.png

The Faces and Rod Stewart
John Frusciante and Red Hot Chili Peppers

Meshuggah guitarist Fredrik Thordendal made an album as Fredrik Thordendal's Special Defects in 1997; obviously, Meshuggah continues to this day.

Yes all made solo albums around 1975, before reconvening (now with Rick Wakeman back in the fold) for the late 70s era of Going For The One etc.
Three-quarters of Queen had sideline solo careers on the go.
Melvins?

so many Parliament-Funkadelic side-projects

wu-tang clan

Genesis

― van dyke parks generator (anagram), Monday, January 13, 2020 8:55 AM bookmarkflaglink

Idk. By the initial definition, that band members release a solo album but remain in the band, Gabriel left to record his solo albums and never came back. So his example is out.

Didn't lead to a split or even much of a slowdown, but Phil's solocareer certainly accelerated their demise. After Face Value came out, the gaps between Genesis albums grew lengthy. They'd never taken more than two years between albums before, but the gap between s/t and Invisible Touch was three years, and then five between that and We Can't Dance, then Phil left and they only did that shite Ray Wilson alb before calling it quits.

They did last ten years after he went solo but that solo career did bring that lineup to a fairly premature end

Fleetwood Mac
Franki Valli/Four Seasons

U2
Public Enemy
Beastie Boys
Kiss
The Cure
Bon Jovi
Rolling Stones
Pop Will Eat Itself
Faith No More
Blur
Radiohead
INXS
Pearl Jam
Daft Punk
Traveling Wilburys

Didn't lead to a split or even much of a slowdown, but Phil's solocareer certainly accelerated their demise. After Face Value came out, the gaps between Genesis albums grew lengthy. They'd never taken more than two years between albums before, but the gap between s/t and Invisible Touch was three years, and then five between that and We Can't Dance, then Phil left and they only did that shite Ray Wilson alb before calling it quits

I was thinking more of Tony Banks' A Curious Feeling (1979) and Mike Rutherford's Smallcreep's Day (1980), both of which were recorded while Genesis were on hiatus.

Ahh good call

U2

- Snake Charmer EP 1983
- Captive OST 1986
- In The Name Of The Father single 1994
- Theme From Mission: Impossible single 1996

band resolutely refuse to split up to this day

Public Enemy

- Valley Of The Jeep Beats 1991
- Super Bad 1994
- Autobiography Of Mistachuck 1996
- Blood Of The Profit 1998
- Git On Down / The Hot 1 2xA 1999
- Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear 2000
- Mumia 911 2000
- And The Word Became Flesh 2001
- The Impossebulls 2002
- Hollywood 2006
- Tribb To JB - The Peeps Of Soulfunk 2007
- Don't Rhyme For The Sake Of Riddlin' 2010
- The Black In Man 2014
- Everything Has Changed; Nothing Is Different 2014
- If I Can't Change The People Around Me I Change The People Around Me 2016
- Prophets Of Rage 2017
- Celebration Of Ignorance 2018

guy who did two solo albums in 91 and 94 left in mid-00s

Beastie Boys

- Drum Machine EP 1985
- Dead Fucking Last EP 1993
- My Crazy Life 1994
- BS 2000 1997
- Hell House 1997
- Simply Mortified 2000

Kiss

- Paul Stanley 1978
- Ace Frehley 1978
- Peter Criss 1978
- Gene Simmons 1978
- Asshole 1997

two members fired in early 80s, but not because all four had released solo albums earlier

The Cure

cited above

Bon Jovi

- Blaze Of Glory 1990
- Stranger In This Town 1991
- Destination Anywhere 1997
- Undiscovered Soul 1997

guitarist fired in the '10s or so

Rolling Stones

as well as a bunch of solo albums in the 80s and 90s

- Today's Pop Symphony 1966
- Memo From Turner 1970
- The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions 1971
- Monkey Grip 1974
- Stone Alone 1976
- Green Ice OST 1981
- Bill Wyman 1982
- The Charlie Watts Orchestra Live At Fulham Town Hall 1986
- From One Charlie 1991
- Warm & Tender 1993
- Long Ago & Far Away 1996
- Charlie Watts/Jim Keltner Project 2000
- Watts At Scotts 2004
- The Magic Of Boogie Woogie 2010

Pop Will Eat Itself

- All Blue Revue 1994

Faith No More

- Mr Bungle 1991
- Adult Themes For Voice 1996
- Disco Volante 1995
- Seasick 1996
- Pranzo Oltranzista 1997
- What Is Not To Love 1998
- Weird Little Boy 1998

Blur

- Hanging Around EP 1996
- Vindaloo single 1998
- The Sky Is Too High 1998
- Naughty Christmas single 1998
- Ravenous OST 1999
- Jerusalem single 2000
- The Golden D 2000
- Tomorrow Comes Today EP 2000
- Crow Sit On Blood Tree 2001
- 101 Reykjavik 2001
- Gorillas 2001
- Mali Music 2002
- Who Invented Fish+Chips? (Who Invented Poo?) single 2002

guitarist eventually left after his fourth solo album so I didn't count that one

Radiohead

- most of the cunts in this lot have done 19 other things afaik

INXS

- Igniters EP 1981
- Sex Symbol single 1985
- Dogs In Space OST 1986
- Rooms For The Memory single 1987
- Motorcycle Baby single 1988
- Max Q 1989
- Here's Looking Up Your Address 1990

Pearl Jam

- all of these dudes have like five solo albums and ten other bands

Daft Punk

- Trax On Da Rocks 1995
- Spinal Scratch 1996
- Santa Claus 1997
- Troobadoor 1998
- Music Sounds Better With You 1998
- Trax On Da Rocks vol 2 1998
-Intergalactic Disk 1998
- Hysteria 1999
- Boogie Shell 1999
- Together 2000
- Gator 2001
- Crydajam 2002
- So Much Love To Give 2002
- Soul Bells 2002
- Irreversible OST 2002
- Nymphae Song 2002
- Outrage 2003

Traveling Wilburys

- Oh Mercy 1989
- Full Moon Fever 1989
- Mystery Girl 1990
- Armchair Theatre 1990

Low. Alan Sparhawk has a couple of side projects.

Zak Sally left to concentrate on his side projects (cartooning and publishing / running a printing press by hand) tbf, possibly when he got the Coconino deal

Sonic Youth

Jefferson Airplane (Hot Tuna)
Yo La Tengo

The Pixies (The Breeders)?

thought abt Pixies, but couldn’t discount that Frank split them out of grumpiness re Breeders

The Go-Betweens don't really count either as they did officially break up before pursuing other projects, but it's kinda like the two songwriters' solo experiences confirmed for them that they were meant to be together. Post-hiatus material was apparently their most commercially successful in some markets.

Dave Davies released a couple while The Kinks remained a going concern.

Did Suicide officially break up when Vega and Rev started doing their own things or was there just a long opening in their schedule?

Wu-Tang Clan

^ already mentioned

There's been another side project since the last mention

people have been saying that Father of The Bride sounds like an Ezra Koening solo album, but I wonder how inclined I'd have been to listen to it had it been marketed and released as such. I think there's often an expectation with a solo album that it will either be a stripped back acoustic thing, a self-indulgent thing, an MOR pop thing, or simply a 'sounds like the band but not as good thing'

it doesn't particularly sound like one to me but the impression i've gotten is that the other two members of the band didn't have that much to do with the recording or songwriting this time so i understand people calling it an ezra solo album

both sam prekop and archer prewitt have done solo records while also doing sea and cake stuff. and then there's all of john mcentire's various endeavors.

I shall steal the obvious answer of Tom Tom Club

As well as David Byrne's The Catherine Wheel and Jerry Harrison's The Red and the Black, all of which came out in 1981.

On their 2nd post-Remain in Light (and pre-Speaking in Tongues) tour in 1982, they had 4 Byrne and 1 Harrison solo songs in the set:

Psycho Killer
Love -> Building on Fire
Cities
Big Blue Plymouth (Eyes Wide Open) (David Byrne)
Once in a Lifetime
Mind
My Big Hands (Fall Through the Cracks) (David Byrne)
Slink (Jerry Harrison)
Big Business (David Byrne) / I Zimbra
Swamp
Houses in Motion
What a Day That Was (David Byrne)
Life During Wartime
Take Me to the River
Crosseyed and Painless

"Genius of Love" didn't get added to the set until the Speaking in Tongues tour.

^ surely Gold Class level of this phenomenon, when the 'main' band performs side-project material.

Fleetwood Mac has done that a couple of times--Buckingham doing a solo acoustic "Go Insane" or the Buckinghamless '90s band doing "Stand Back."

The Church have released a lot of albums but I think there's even more Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes, & Marty Willson-Piper solo albums out there.

oh yeah, great example. Kilbey's really blown this out with actual dozens of demos album and whatnot on Bandcamp, but I bet you're right just going on physical releases too.

struggling to see how Pop Will Eat Itself fit this tbh

one of them did a solo album and nobody split the band up over it

I dunno if it counts because all 3 were solo artists before the band started but Yellow Magic Orchestra had quite a lot going on through their run

Sakamoto released B-2 Unit & Left Handed Dream, plus the score to Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence. I think he toured LHD too but I'm not sure about that.

Takahashi had three pretty successful solo albums and toured a couple times.

Hosono only had one solo album during this period (Philharmony) but he was plenty busy as a producer and songwriter, getting involved with Miharu Koshi, Jun Togawa, and a dozen others

Of course there's also all the YEN Records stuff, most of which HH and/or YT would appear on in some capacity.

xp

one of them did a solo album, quit the band less than a year later then the band split up completely the year after that!

I mean one of the criteria is the solo album member remains in the band, for a start. plus the band put out its final studio album 2 months after the solo album, and the only thing they released after that was a remix album

He recorded it about two years earlier though AIUI, in the wake of the bloopy ambient Part Man Part Machine remix he did on the Get The Girl CD. Then he stayed in the band, wrote so much of the next album that for the first time in their history he requested a tiny note saying who'd written the lyrics for how many songs, recorded and released the album, toured it around the world for a year, then - again AIUI - suddenly left because he had unexpectedly become a single or shared-custody dad and had to get a day job that enabled him to work during school hours only.

He wasn't kicked out bcz anyone was jealous of his massive success with a barely-distributed album of bloops and splashes, and he didn't make another record himself for over a decade (when he put out some moderately terrible laptop nu-metal MP3s).


think there's even more Steve Kilbey, Peter Koppes, & Marty Willson-Piper solo albums out there

I figured this out btw and it's bonkers

fair enough I guess the band didn't split up directly because of his solo album (although Wikipedia says he left to focus on his solo project, but that's Wikipedia, and there is no citation), but they split up anyway so not exactly a continuing success

yeah, they split up because the remaining other singer had writer's block and threw tantrums when the drummer kept bringing in fully-written instrumentals. so they might have stuck it out if Gra hadn't irresponsibly chosen to go and feed and clothe and raise a child - and with a US label now putting loads of support behind them bcz Reznor asked, they prob would have been a continuing success - but it all worked out pretty well for the dude with writer's block in the end.

I thought it was more normal to have solo albums that don't cause a split?

doesn't the My Morning Jacket guy have a bunch of solo albums?

the Parquet Courts guys too

Animal Collective

Big Thief. (I read that sometimes Adrianne will do a solo set at a Big Thief show, and the other guys will set down their instruments and watch.)

course if it's true there was a racist showing their ass in the front row, pretty weak if nobody defended the dude from it

(xp - wtf)

Guitarist Buck Meek also released a solo album in 2018; and somehow has time to fit in a touring side thing, despite belonging to a constantly touring "main band"(!)