5 Absurd Reasons Musicians Have Been Fired From Famous Bands

In any event, before Lemmy was the frontman for one of the most respected no-B.S. metal bands of the last 30 years, he was in a little group called Hawkwind. Yep, Hawkwind was a space rock band best known for songs like, um, I have no idea. But in 1975, they kicked Lemmy out of the band. Why?

Well, knowing Lemmy, you're probably thinking he:

1. Did so much cocaine and heroin that he took control of the tour bus and drove it into a lake, or

2. Personally sodomized all the roadies with his bass guitar in a booze-fueled rage, leaving them without support staff, or

3. Ate their manager alive in one sitting.

But you'd be wrong. They kicked him out for getting caught with some pills (in powder form) at the Canadian border. That's it. How lame. He got kicked out of a band for possession of drugs so minor, Canadian authorities had to release him (although they did hold him for five days when they mistakenly thought it was cocaine). Maybe Hawkwind had other reasons and were just using the fact that Lemmy was temporarily behind bars to get a big enough head start running away. Of course, that's foolish. Lemmy beat them all to death with a hammer two weeks later. (I'm assuming.)

But then the spirit of the '80s returned! Meaning greed. And in 1996, the band reunited and put out some cheesy garbage and it sold really well. In fact, Trial by Fire made it to #12 on the Billboard charts and #36 for the year. A tour was inevitable. Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money (as people thought it funny to say back then, for some reason). But then Steve Perry had a hiking accident and broke his hip, requiring hip replacement surgery. When Perry didn't want to get it, they decided to hire some other dude who looked like a more masculine Kenny G and go on tour anyway.

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But, of course, after the tour and after they nixed Steve Augeri, Journey got back together with a healed-up Steve Perry, right? Nope. Journey decided to partner up with a Filipino dude who'd been fronting a Journey cover band.

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The Pixies recently got back together and replaced bassist Kim Deal with bassist Kim Shattuck, formerly of the Muffs. Things were going great. The band was touring. Then, after one leg of the tour ended, Shattuck got a call from the manager that things weren't working out. Shattuck believes it might have been due to the fact that the other Pixies are more introverted, and pointed to a show at the Mayan Theater in LA where she did a stage dive. In a Rolling Stone interview, she said, "I know they weren't thrilled about that. When I got offstage, the manager told me not to do that again. I said, 'Really, for my own safety?' And he said, 'No, because the Pixies don't do that.'"

Now maybe that's not true, but if you listen to Santiago's interview, it's not hard to believe. He claims it was impossible to fire her in person because everyone had gone home after the show. Also no one faxes anymore.

But the good news is that at least the boys in the band explained to Anderson why they were forced to tour instead of standing by their singer of 40 years. Oh wait. They totally didn't. Didn't even bother to tell him. Anderson apparently heard from a friend that he'd been replaced.

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But to truly understand how craptastic Van Halen's firing of Anthony was, you need to get the full picture of how the Van Halen brothers operate:

Part One: The split with David Lee Roth

When the VH boys and Diamond Dave split in 1985, it was easy to blame David Lee Roth. He's made a career of being a professional narcissist, a hyperbolic cartoon of a man. It was quite easy to believe that Eddie Van Halen was dying to be an artist and Dave only cared about testosterone-driven silliness. But as another 30 years would reveal, that's probably very wrong. Instead, it seems there's a lot of truth to that DLR clip below. It might be the only clip of Roth where he is so completely focused, articulate, and angry. It's Dave minus the "boz-de-boz-de-bop" goofiness, and he makes a very compelling argument that the Van Halen brothers are little brats who make people needlessly pick sides and draw battle lines.

Part Two: The Split With Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone

So the Van Halen boys hooked up with new singer Sammy Hagar -- a man with seemingly less ego than Roth, and more of a traditional musician. A man who embraced Eddie Van Halen's desire to continually wimp up Van Halen with cheesy keyboards. So problem solved, right? Nope. After a successful decade with Sammy, it seems the boys hated him, too, and he was surprise-fired. Then came a bullshit publicity stunt where the band pretended to bring back David Lee Roth to help sell their greatest-hits album. Oh, that's only if you believe Roth instead of the VH boys, and I totally do. The band then hired ex-Extreme lead singer Gary Cherone. And then they fired him, too.

Part Three: The Firing of Michael Anthony

So Van Halen's doing nothing, Eddie's health is failing, and nothing's going on with the band. Michael Anthony says, hey, sure I'll play some dates with Sammy Hagar while nothing's going on with the band I played with for 30 years. And guess what? Anthony gets fired. As Anthony said in 2010:

"The major reason why I'm not in Van Halen is because I became friends with Sammy again. The Van Halen brothers never got over that. If they hold a grudge, they hold it forever."

Now, some may say that's bullshit, because Wolfgang Van Halen (Eddie's son and Anthony's replacement) is a far better musician. Sure. Why not? It's not hard to be a better bass player than Anthony. He's merely serviceable, but, y'know, good enough to play bass for the band for 30 years, so it's not really clear why that matters. Also, anyone who says that is missing Anthony's real value: his killer high-end vocal. David Lee Roth gets it, and has spoken openly about wanting Anthony back in the band for precisely that reason:

"What we have at our fingertips is arguably one of the greatest high tenor voices ever and that was in Michael Anthony. . . . In our tiny little corner of the universe, that voice is as identifiable as the high voice in Earth, Wind & Fire, as identifiable as the high voice in the Beach Boys ... so I would always look forward to that reunion."

So after reviewing the footage, my verdict is that the VH boys are guilty of putting their own personal line-in-the-sand petty spiteful mentality over the music, just like Roth said they did 30 years ago when this whole thing started.

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