Bandmembers Who Changed Everything

There's a thread about "indispensable band members" — this is a related but different discussion. Who, by joining (or leaving) a band, has changed it irrevocably, either for good or ill? Let's leave singers out of it, and expand the discussion beyond the realms of rock and pop. I'll offer a few examples:

1) Wayne Shorter joins Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers — the band immediately leaps into a higher gear and releases all their best/best-known work in the course of four years or so
2) Kirk Hammett replaces Dave Mustaine in Metallica — the band becomes, well, METALLICA, while it's arguable they might have remained Just Another Thrash Metal Band had they kept DM around
3) Dave Lombardo quits Slayer — the band carries on, but the music is just not as good (heavier, stiffer) without him
4) Jaco Pastorius joins Weather Report — a brilliant electronic jazz group devolves into fuzak-y schlock

Darren Emerson joins Underworld. They've been fine without him, but he really provided a huge creative spark.

Jamie Muir joining Crimson was a pivotal moment for the band, brining percussion to the fore; only there for one album, he joined the same time as Bruford but was instrumental in pushing Bruford further and further into new creative territories. I think even the most recent 3 drummer incarnation would never have happened without Muir's influence.

I thought the Art Blakey stuff with Benny Golson is also accounted with Blakey's best. They kept some of those songs in the book even during the Shorter years.

Neil Peart is my first thought

(I think years ago I started a couple of threads just about new drummers joining or leaving and changing everything.)

along those lines, Janet Weiss joining Sleater Kinney

thudmaster Matt Sorum replacing Adler in GnR too

Mick Taylor joins the Stones for their great junkie country blues era

Stephen Egerton/Karl Alvarez, as them joining the Descendents distinctively changed their sound, so that when Milo Aukerman left the first time, they became All.

(many would argue the album WITH Milo is when they became All, esp since the album was named All. All.)

Charlie Sexton joins Dylan's band in 1999 and helps revive his reputation as a performer.

Robert Trujillo - added a funky side to Suicidal Tendencies that hadn't really been present previously, and has largely been present in future incarnations even after he left. including right now, because his son is in the band, and he plays the bass very similarly.

has there ever been a case of a guitar player joining a band that was so much worse than his predecessor that they outright couldn't play the old material

Mick Ronson leaving Bowie's band probably freed David up to explore soul and artkraut.

xpost Bass, but Sid Vicious?

Obviously the Velvet Underground became a less experimental band after John Cale left.

Arthur Kadmon joins the Fall in 1982, records sixteen seconds of guitar for "Hard Life in the Country" and is dismissed

Brix Salenger chats up MES post-gig at the Metro in Chicago and joins the band two months later, they become slightly less abrasive for a bit

Roy Bittan and Max Weinberg join the E Street Band.

Lindsey Buckingham joins Fleetwood Mac .

Matt Sharp leaves Weezer.

Katrin joining The Ex on drums in 1985, she has been a core member ever since.

Barry Andrews leaving XTC I think freed them up to radically change their sound and get more serious

Kat rules. She is one of the most fun drummers to watch.

A lot of key coming and goings in the Bad Seeds.

Michael McDonald joining the Doobie Brothers.

Ahh I missed the part about leaving singers out of it.

Didn't he join with Skunk Baxter? Plus Michael played keyboards, so he counts!

Steve Hackett I think qualifies *twice*, first for joining Genesis and allowing them to get a lot heavier and less folky, then when he got ditched, which freed the band up to simplify their sound and start writing pop singles

wonder how many other band members could say that

James Williamson joins the Stooges. A totally different band.

Dave Grohl joins Nirvana.

wonder how many other band members could say that

Maybe Uli Jon Roth in the Scorpions?

Vince Clarke leaves Depeche Mode, Martin Gore takes over songwriting duties and they get less poppy and more darker.

Yes lost a lot of its funky energy when Bruford was replaced with White IMO.

Uli Roth is a good one

speaking of Yes I think Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman joining both changed the band's sound considerably

Nels Cline joining Wilco

^ nah they’re still boring af

speaking of Yes I think Steve Howe and Rick Wakeman joining both changed the band's sound considerably

― frogbs, Wednesday, April 3, 2024 4:22 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Oh yeah that for sure

J. Geils when he was removed from the J. Geils Band

Damo joining CAN
Rollins joining Black Flag (w/ Dez switching to 2nd guitar)
Milo joining as well as leaving The Descendents
Dave leaving/Bilinda joining MBV
Yamamotor leaving Boredoms
Gary Young leaving Pavement
Bobby leaving Jesus & Mary Chain
Lou getting fired from Dinosaur Jr
Suzzy joining The Roches
Eno leaving Roxy Music
Todd joining Slint
Lindsey & Stevie joining FMac

do these count?
Charlie Goucher leaving this planet (and the Sun City Girls)
DBoon dying (then trying to be replaced by Ed fromOhio)

Always thought the Matt Sharp leaving Weezer and that changing things thing was a bit of fantasy

I kind of agree that Nels Cline joining Wilco was underwhelming. the guy is a genius guitar player but I never feel like he's doing everything he is able to do in that context; their albums became much less adventurous after he joined. He's a professional so he plays to the music and doesn't overwhelm it, so I don't think their decreasing inventiveness is due to him.

I think when Nils AND Glenn AND Jim O'Rourke (also Loose Fur) were in Wilco was kind of the peak of those wild Wilco goes experimental era... but I am coming from an extremely ignorant POV as I haven't heard a Wilco song in probaby 20+ years.

Richard Thompson leaving Fairport Convention after Full House. They were never as inventive or exciting again.

dave gilmour vs pink floyd ?

Half of Tindersticks' original line-up left after their sixth album, including the violinist who had been key to their sound. They've kept going with a new line-up but they've never recaptured the glory of those first few albums.

David Jackson played for a year with the reformed Van der Graaf Generator and then fell out with the rest of them. They've soldiered on as a trio but it's thin gruel without his sax presence.

dave gilmour vs pink floyd ?

― mark e, Wednesday, April 3, 2024 2:55 PM (two minutes ago)

Syd!

yeah, but dave came in and changed everything surely.
i.e. syd was the core of the orig groove ?

The timing! Just about to post the below suggestion:

Pink Floyd had like 2 majorly impactful changes. Almost the poster boys for this thread

Syd leaving while Gilmour joins
Waters leaving

BTW here's a fun electronic music entry:

Andy Turner and Ed Handley leaving Black Dog for Plaid

It wasn't Dave coming in that changed everything as much as Roger taking control.

xps

Ozzy leaving Sabbath

Alan Myers joining DEVO is a good one I think. I also think that D.H. Peligro joining the Dead Kennedys was a pretty important change for them.

Ernie Isley joining the Isley Brothers made a _huge_ difference for them.

Larry Graham leaving Sly and the Family Stone... I'm not sure it made _quite_ as much of a difference as people sometimes say, but it certainly was _very_ significant.

I also think Hugh Hopper replacing Kevin Ayers in the Soft Machine made a really big difference. Karl Jenkins joining the Soft Machine too, but in a less positive sense.

Lindsay Cooper replacing Geoff Leigh in Henry Cow. I think that changed them a huge amount.

With jazz it's hard because it seems like nearly every bandmember change is an important one.

Also Daevid Allen leaving Soft Machine just before the first LP. But strangely not Robert Wyatt leaving, he'd already been marginalised by that point.

As nice as Trespass is, I think it's highly likely they would have died a death had Genesis not found Phil Collins. There waS rumour that Roger Taylor tried out for them but it appears to have been debunked

Topper Headon in The Clash

Guess the inverse of this is when 3/4 members are replaced but the band still sounds the same

Alan Myers joining DEVO is a good one I think.

I actually forgot he wasn't there from the start, but yeah he was the main difference between what you hear on Hardcore and what you hear on the debut album, they probably don't get a record deal without him.

another one is Mike Howlett quitting a band called Strontium 90, leaving them as a trio of Sting, Stewart Copeland, and Andy Summers. they did alright.

Ben Shepard joining Soundgarden is what I always think of. When Badmotorfinger came out it blew me away, and as I dipped into the back catalog it was missing a cohesive creativity even if the riffs were there. As a friend pointed out "it's all Slaves and Bulldozers". His presence seems to let them integrate the prog and psych elements and brought a certain logic to the bludgeoning, less pastiche of Sabbath/Zep/Stooges and finally their own identity.

Another key bassist: Guy Blakeslee's band Entrance is nothing special except for that 2006 album Prayer of Death, where working with Paz Lenchantin seem to validate his ego and they wrote a really cool set of Bolan-meet-Sandy-Bull drone rock.

this thread had a good opening post

I'd rather hear what you didn't like about every other post

another one is Mike Howlett quitting a band called Strontium 90, leaving them as a trio of Sting, Stewart Copeland, and Andy Summers. they did alright.

― frogbs

Oh yeah, I was gonna mention this example. Not quite true this. Howlett picked up the rhythm section of a punk band called the Police for his record, but not the guitar player, who was a guy named Henri Padovani. I think they'd put out one single, a song called "Fall Out". Instead of Padovani he got this guitar player who'd been around for ages, had done some gigs with the Soft Machine back when they were opening for Hendrix in '68, named Andy Summers. Summers wound up joining the band and a little later (they did at least one gig as a four-piece) Padovani (who was a much less technically accomplished guitarist than Summers) wound up leaving.

anyway, considering the revolving door of band members zappa had, ruth underwood leaving the mothers made a _big_ difference. (compare to ian underwood, whose departure from the mothers, after being one of zappa's major collaborators for years, made nary a blip!)

The George Duke era of Zappa is also a standout.

I'd rather hear what you didn't like about every other post

― Halfway there but for you

a lot of times people mention singers, which, like, yeah, grace slick joining changed jefferson airplane, sandy denny joining changed fairport convention

ok BUT you know whose joining changed fairport convention? Dave Swarbrick.

Howlett picked up the rhythm section of a punk band called the Police for his record

which record was this? because the Strontium 90 stuff seems pretty split between Sting and Howlett - "Visions of the Night" reappeared as a B-side, parts of "3 O'Clock Shot" were reused on Police songs, there's that demo of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic"...was this a record that just never came out? clearly there wasn't really a finished product there. anyway, Andy Summers is on this stuff, from what I remember of the booklet Andy had some other work so Padovani came along, but then Andy retook his spot

Daniel Fichelscher joining Popol Vuh.

The George Duke era of Zappa is also a standout.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson)

see that's the interesting thing, most of the members of the band stayed on for the spring '75 tour with beefheart which you can hear on _bongo fury_, including george duke, tom fowler, napoleon murphy brock, and on that tour they sounded _very_ different than the fall '74 band is. like not to attribute _too_ much to underwood's presence but to me, that tour was where the late '70s sneering grossly misogynist zappa really _started_. there was some of that on the '73-'74 tours, like, "dinah moe-humm" and "camarillo brillo", stuff like that, but those songs were not exactly the core of the '73-'74 band's material, they were more like, hey, let's play "dupree's paradise". when the '75 band played the old material like "echidna's arf" and "florentine pogen" they sounded like an oldies act doing their old hits, or like zappa would do a lot in the late '70s going "ok let's do some Weird Stuff" and to me, that's just a huge fucking waste of george duke's talents. the shows seemed to be more about shit like "carolina hardcore ecstacy", "advance romance", and "the torture never stops". boring blues numbers. captain beefheart was _there_ but he wasn't _there there_, if you know what i mean, whether or not beefheart had his own billing it was zappa's band. don didn't want to be there, zappa was "doing him a favor" and made sure don knew it.

the other change for that tour was terry bozzio replacing chester thompson, and there's definitely a difference, but there had already been a difference between thompson and ralph humphrey - but there was still that sense of continuity. the "bongo fury" band didn't have that sense of continuity, for me.

talking about ian underwood, though, i will say that his _joining_ the mothers really changed them. the mothers at that point already had at least one top-notch musician in don preston, but underwood's background was more suited to, i think, zappa's formal writing. a lot of the stuff on _uncle meat_, for instance, underwood being in the band was a _huge_ part of what made that possible for zappa. and you can't really hear that live because there are basically no live recordings from before fall of '67, but from what there is, yeah, underwood's joining just made them a fundamentally different band, to the extent that zappa, who was, uh, not one to share the spotlight, kind of highlighted underwood's playing in a couple of places on _uncle meat_. and then of course zappa and underwood were the shared backbone of _hot rats_. they weren't quite _equals_ i wouldn't say, but i think underwood had more influence on that than he did on any of zappa's other projects, and i think a lot of what differentiates _hot rats_ from zappa's other projects _is_ down to that influence.

which record was this? because the Strontium 90 stuff seems pretty split between Sting and Howlett - "Visions of the Night" reappeared as a B-side, parts of "3 O'Clock Shot" were reused on Police songs, there's that demo of "Every Little Thing She Does is Magic"...was this a record that just never came out? clearly there wasn't really a finished product there. anyway, Andy Summers is on this stuff, from what I remember of the booklet Andy had some other work so Padovani came along, but then Andy retook his spot

― frogbs

oh ok thanks for the correction lol, my apologies, i should get my facts straight before "correcting" people :)

all that tuned percussion stuff on Uncle Meat was Underwood correct? big part of that record, always wondered if Zappa truly deserved the songwriting credits he gave himself there

Zappa can be accused of a lot of things - except not composing very precise marimba and vibraphone lines.

Eddie Jobson joining Roxy.

I was thinking about this in relation to my posts yesterday, and even though the violin solo in "Out of the Blue" is maybe my favourite moment in the catalog, there's something "merely ornamental" about a lot of his contributions.

his replacement of eno was a major change in the band's approach and sound tho, come on

RINGO

that does make me think of a fun new idea for a thread: new band members who changed nothing. starting with the ramones shuffling their members in the 80s

his replacement of eno was a major change in the band's approach and sound tho, come on

The songs were "going that way" by Stranded anyway, he was by no means the instigator. It's as if Ferry told him, "play my keyboard part, but fancy".

Neil Young firing Danny Whitten from the Harvest sessions is pretty monumental in what followed.

RINGO

Anyone who underrates what he brought to the group should have to listen to their Decca audition tape repeatedly.

The songs were "going that way" by Stranded anyway, he was by no means the instigator. It's as if Ferry told him, "play my keyboard part, but fancy".

― Halfway there but for you,

Ferry has said Jobson's hiring freed Ferry from his keyboard, making him a frontman at last.

Fair enough, I'm thinking of records rather than live shows. That really widens the scope of the question.

Jannick Top really changed Magma's sound, in fact he's responsible for a certain strain of Zeuhl, specifically the more grindy bass-heavy stuff

bob stinson leaving (or, rather, being told to leave) the replacements. his, um, replacement was a very different guitarist and a very very different presence, and they were an irrevocably different band after that.

Fair enough, I'm thinking of records rather than live shows. That really widens the scope of the question.

― Halfway there but for you

yeah, when YouTube became a thing I was struck by how much of their live sound (and studio presumably) depended on Ferry's keyboards; Eno handled the FX and more outlandish sounds.

Doug Gillard. Both times he joined Guided By Voices.

Jannick Top really changed Magma's sound, in fact he's responsible for a certain strain of Zeuhl, specifically the more grindy bass-heavy stuff

― frogbs

he did, but what _really_ changed them IMO was when the "jazz" players left... ok, look, i'm a huge bootleg nerd, and that 1001 degrees centigrades period, very jazz, and all through that time you have this thing that started as "mekanik kommandoh" growing out of it, and what comes out of that, to me, the first time you hear it is at the chateauvallon festival in august 1972, something that is clearly recognizable as the "mekanik destruktiw kommandoh" on the album, with the vocals taking center stage. like if you listen to them playing it less than a month before in avignon, it's still this very funky, jazz kind of thing. and at chateauvillon it's not, it's more martial. and teddy lasry, jeff seffer, faton cahen, they're all about to leave.. ... they play no more of a role, really, than they do on the album version. they're ornamental. and right after that show they players leave, i can't remember why, the nature of that dispute.

and the period after that which you have is very interesting, it's this very skeletal group, kind of what you'd hear on "Wurdah Itah" but without Top involved. to me the big influence you have here is the organist, Jean-Luc Manderlier, who isn't seen as a major member but who I think had a major influence during this time period. Because you also hear him at Chateauvallon, which is where this big change to MDK happens, and it's the keyboards that are really leading the music here, without Top involved. And Rene Garber, he's also, I think, a big name, a close collaborator here, even though you don't necessarily hear him play much. And of course Klaus Blasquiz, but he's a singer, not an instrumentalist.

Top is a big influence - you can hear over this time K.A. evolving into Kohntarkosz, and Top is a big part of that, and you have particularly this _incredible_ transformation of "Sowiloi", a piece which dates back to at least '71, into something even greater than what you can hear on the "Inedits" album - it's really an exceptional piece, and Top is key to that. And then you have kind of the slow collapse of the band, that legendary tape from the end of the year that's held within the inner circles, the weird occult fascist shit that goes on, this might be around the time when Nico got them all addicted to cough syrup, I don't know.

But the thing is when you have the '75 band come together a couple months later, it doesn't sound like a new band, even with the tremendous influence of Didier Lockwood. They sound like a continuation of that same sound, even though it's Bernard Paganotti (who I love so much, BTW, he's my personal favorite of Magma's bass players - listen to his solo on MDK on the Reims '76 release, plus of course Weidorje) on the bass instead of Lockwood.

So if there's any one person I'd name as a key influence, I'd say that I'd say it would probably be, oddly enough, Jean-Luc Manderlier. That he was the one whose presence coincided with this sea change in Magma's sound.

Ernie Isley joining the Isley Brothers made a _huge_ difference for them.

Chris Jasper + Ernie joined at the same time and Jasper's keys/synth and songwriting was a huge game changer for them.

Bernie Worrell joining Funkadelic, though his influence grew over the years.

Steve Shelley joining Sonic Youth, for sure.

Another drummer who added muscle: John Weathers of Gentle Giant.

hah - I knew we had someone big into Magma bootlegs around here. I agree the biggest change was whatever happened after 1001 Degrees but I never knew if that was due to lineup turnover or if it was just Vander starting to realize his creative vision. certainly the seeds of it were there on the first 2 albums, but he's not the only songwriter. I might be wrong here but I thought Jannick Top was the only one past that who actually got a songwriting credit on a Magma album - at least, up until their latest one

off the top of my head, i think rene garber got a cowrite credit on "eliphas levi"? an early version of which was on his unreleased "heart music" album. which by the way is terrible, it's a bad album, and the version of "eliphas levi" on there isn't nearly as good as the _merci_ version either.

No, the aforementioned jazzers wrote stuff on the first two albums.

(xp) Oh sorry, misread you.

ah, you're right. Paganotti also has a credit on "Weidorje" on Udu Wudu.

looking this up informed me to the fact that Jannick Top has a son named Jimmy Top, not to be confused with Jimmy Pop of the Bloodhound Gang

Steve Shelley joining Sonic Youth, for sure.

Yeah, when I revisited their first decade of work recently, I really wondered what they might have become if Richard Edson had stuck around on drums. They could have been like Konk with clanging guitars! But really, Shelley was the drummer they needed (and he seems to be a primary force behind their wave of archival releases).

Guess the inverse of this is when 3/4 members are replaced but the band still sounds the same

I think this is kinda true for The Stranglers where the only original band member left now is the bass player, but their work and performances remain strong & consistent with their sound and overall variety. They found an amazing frontman with Baz. Of course, this is discounting the Paul Robert years (which certainly had its moments as well but also a couple of their weakest albums, can't help but see Paul standing in the shadows of Hugh and Baz).

Cake were like that too, I think the entire lineup minus the singer and trumpet player turned over after their 2nd album. They didn’t exactly sound any different

And of course The Fall, who regularly turned over the lineup but for Mark E Smith and yer gran on bongos, but always sounded the same.

Well they didn't really tbh

Dunno if that’s the band members themselves as much as it is MES finding people willing to do what he wanted, iirc most ex band members say he wasn’t really a fan of their creative liberties

ah, you're right. Paganotti also has a credit on "Weidorje" on Udu Wudu.

― frogbs

oh yeah, i forget that's technically a magma song. it's more of a stealth pilot, like that time mork and mindy appeared on, uh... was it laverne and shirley?

Happy Days