![[hand]](/hs-pics/portraits/hands/gillan3.jpg)
![[face]](/hs-pics/portraits/faces/morse.jpg)
Roundabout
I was working for Swedish Radio at this year’s Sweden Rock Festival and someone in our team brought up the topic of member changes in classic rock bands. Deep Purple was of course accused of being worst, as they always are, even by fans of the band. To prove DP aren’t worst, and as research for a segment in a radio show we broadcast from the festival, me and a friend came up with this list of how many mbers each band has had (and THS editor Nick added a couple of entries):
Yngwie Malmsteen: 37
Whitesnake: 26
Steppenwolf: 26
Lynyrd Skynyrd: 25
Jethro Tull: 24
Uriah Heep: 24
Black Sabbath: 23
Guns ‘n’ Roses: 23
Rainbow: 22
Blue Öyster Cult: 22
Ufo: 22
Allman Brothers: 21
Anthrax: 20
King Crimson: 19
Yes: 18
Accept: 18
Scorpions: 17
Fleetwood Mac: 16
Opeth: 15
Deep Purple: 14
Kiss: 10
Rush: 4
Yes, Yngwie is a solo artist and should perhaps not be on the list but this was for a somewhat funny show on Swedish Radio so we put him in there for fun. We also included a couple of Swedish “dance bands” which beat Yngwie by far. 🙂 Some of you will also argue that Whitesnake, Rainbow and King Crimson are some sort of solo venture but our criteria was that if you have chosen a band name, you are a band.
Unauthorized copying, while sometimes necessary, is never as good as the real thing
Funny and instructive job! I am too lazy to look after the figures right now, but including bands like Magma, Hawkwind, Black Crowes or Jefferson Starship, just to name a few ones quite influential in their respective style, would have put DP even more small in the list…
June 25th, 2013 at 22:50Rush with 4 ??? They only change the drummer after their debut album.. Since 1974-5 they’ve always been Peart/Lee/Lifeson.. By the way, one of the best trio in modern music history….. As far as i can see , it makes only one change in their history.. so , Why Rush appears with 4 changes in this list ????
June 26th, 2013 at 03:08DP 14 ? wonder how did come to 14 ? I only have 7
June 26th, 2013 at 03:161 – paice-lord-blackmore-simper-evans
2 – paice-lord-blackmore-gillan-glover
3- paice-lord-blackmore-hughes-coverdale
4-paice-lord-bolin-hughes-coverdale
5 – paice – lord – satriani – gillan – glover (concert only )
6 – paice – lord – morse – gillan – glover
7 – paice – airey – morse – gillan – glover
I know it doesn’t count, yet feel that Spinal Tap should be included, as they have had at least 40+ members over the years. (Some real, and several fictional.)
June 26th, 2013 at 04:00D
Wot no Hawkwind? They’ve got a separate Wikipedia page for former members and there’s over 50 of them.
June 26th, 2013 at 04:43Also: Fairport Convention: 25.
i would class Malmsteen as solo artist, esp when he has admitted he does everything himself now, writing and arranging material and wants the people of the time to do the music.
June 26th, 2013 at 06:29@2, @3: This list is how many members have been in the band, not how many times a band has gone trough a change. I will update the article to clarify that. There are other bands who have remained pretty much intact but Rush played at the festival and their low number of members was pretty funny in relation to the other ones.
June 26th, 2013 at 07:19And Don Airey’s played in nearly a quarter of the bands listed….;-)
June 26th, 2013 at 07:52Michael Schenker Group would be an interesting addition in it’s various incarnations. If we compare rock bands with jazz groups, Purple have been a stable group. Try Miles Davis’ bands through the years for a huge number of musicians passing through.
June 26th, 2013 at 09:13How about Wishbone Ash? 20 to date! Or Asia – 22!! I feel that DP will be slipping further down this fascinating list…..!
June 26th, 2013 at 12:32Point of clarification:
There seems to be some confusion as to the premise of this subject. Some folks here read it as ‘number of line-up changes’ as apposed to ‘amount of ‘players that have come and gone’. Hence #3 listing the separate Marks as 7 and not realizing the point is that their have been 14 players in Purple throughout the years….
Ch-BeerZ?!
June 26th, 2013 at 13:53This is fantastic! I will agree with Svante that Whitesnake is a band and not a solo venture. The band name theory is spot on, but also, if a group featured Jon Lord, Ian Paice and John Sykes as prominently as Whitesnake did, the whole is made greater by the sum of its parts, therefore band, not solo endeavour. Also, major props on including Yngwie.
June 26th, 2013 at 14:16There are still a top rock band
some .. just that they have more musicians from Deep Purple / 14 /
Judas Priest 18
Chicago 18
Procol Harum 19
Supertramp 20
Roxy Music 20 + Jerry Hall 21st …. hehe
Thin Lizzy 23
The Doobie Brothers 32
and
“band-villages”
Iron Butterfly 70
Santana 72
sorry for possible mistakes
June 26th, 2013 at 15:36Blackmore is on 34 then, 22 in Rainbow and 12 in Purple. How many band members have Blackmore’s Night gone through..? Maybe he beats Yngve..? 😉
June 26th, 2013 at 15:55If you include Satriani you could add Randy California and Dave Mason too-both took over for a couple of gigs when Ritchie was ill!
June 26th, 2013 at 17:191)Paice
2)Glover
3)Simper
4)Hughes
5)Gillan
6)Evans
7)Coverdale
8)Turner
9)Blackmore
10)Satriani
11)Morse
12)Lord
13)Airey
14)Bolin
…………..
June 26th, 2013 at 19:30Santana should be on this list, and maybe he will be permanently at the top. . . .
June 26th, 2013 at 21:07Can’t believe that Yes just got 18, I’m sure they have more (Or maybe they just count from past century). . .
This list only reminds me that people are Perfect Strangers
Reinder @ 5- I agree totally, no Hawkwind? What is the point of the list if Hawkwind are not mentioned! Sheeesh, sacrilege indeed!
June 27th, 2013 at 07:50As long as Dave Brock ( The Captain) is there it’s Hawkwind! Personally, I am a supporter of different members in a band at times. As long as the core member(s) that are the songwriters & ‘sound’ of the band are always maintained, I am all for it big time! It brings in much more diversity, mixes it up heaps, drags the band away from being caught in a bubble! Deep Purple (Blackmore, Lord & Paice), Black Sabbath (Tony Iommi), Uriah Heep (Ken Hensley era), Hawkwind (Dave Brock) King Crimson (Robert Fripp), Yes (Jon Anderson & Chris Squire), Jethro Tull (Ian Anderson & Martin Barre), are just a few examples from my perspective. Some bands have managed to capture at certain times the source of the ‘sound’ of a previous incarnation, the latest Deep Purple album, ‘Now What’ is a good example of that! However, with a band like Rush for example, who I am a big fan of up to the mid 90’s, this can show how limiting the same musicians can be after a few decades! They now bore me to tears because of their limitations, I always hoped they were going to at least add a keyboard player back in the late 80’s! They contemplated it briefly, then decided against it. They didn’t want to ‘break’ the formula, fair enough from their perspective, but from mine, they are stuck in a rut! No new ideas from anywhere, too afraid to take the plunge, go out on a limb perhaps! Being a ‘progressive’ band, that was disappointing for me! I have moved on! An interesting topic though! Just my three cents worth, if it is worth that! Cheers!
To indra kusuma:
Also J L Turner – 1991
Oleg
June 27th, 2013 at 07:53MacGregor: I can somewhat relate to your feelings about Rush lately but on their current tour they have added an 8 piece string section on stage which makes things interesting. Well, it doesn’t make the new material more interesting, but it breathes new life into the oldies.
June 27th, 2013 at 07:56No.3 – No matter how hard you wish, you can’t erase Joe Lynn Turner like that 😉
June 27th, 2013 at 11:14Svante @ 20 – Yes, I was excited by the string section for Rush in a live setting. Alas, here in Oz were Rush have never ventured to, I don’t get the chance to witness them in concert. Back to a ‘live’ DVD for me. I read a few early reviews of a concert somewhere, mostly from die hard fans though who loathed it, but thankfully one or two reviews really liked it & said it added another element to their older classics. They are a class band Rush & it would be great to see them experiment a little further I feel. Cheers.
June 27th, 2013 at 21:50@21 VH1 did too…JLT did put his vocals on a very good DP album to boot.
June 27th, 2013 at 23:18How many bass players has Government Mule had?
June 29th, 2013 at 05:53Did he? I must have missed that one… 😉
June 29th, 2013 at 16:53No 21 – C’mon Doug PLEASE. He was a mistake so let’s erase him anyway possible (smile). I always get a laugh out of the (video) now DVD called “Heavy Metal Pioneers” where Turner says “I don’t sing other people’s dribble.” That is exactly what he has done since, lol.
#8 – Great observation, Stephen!
#13 – Iron Butterfly 70 and Santana 72! LMAO, is that for real, Ivica?
June 29th, 2013 at 19:12Nice listing!
But as you can see from the irritation in the first few posts there is more to member changes than just the “total number of different members”. But when you fokus just on different line ups, then there’s again two ways to count them. Because when it cames to “worst” one should have a look on the number of changes, too.
Let’s take Deep Purple as an example:
number of line-ups: 8
1 – paice-lord-blackmore-simper-evans
2 – paice-lord-blackmore-gillan-glover
3 – paice-lord-blackmore-hughes-coverdale
4 – paice-lord-bolin-hughes-coverdale
5 – paice – lord – blackmore – turner – glover
6 – paice – lord – satriani – gillan – glover (concert only )
7 – paice – lord – morse – gillan – glover
8 – paice – airey – morse – gillan – glover
number of line-up changes: 10
1 – paice-lord-blackmore-simper-evans (if we take the formation of the band as a change!)
2 – paice-lord-blackmore-gillan-glover
3 – paice-lord-blackmore-hughes-coverdale
4 – paice-lord-bolin-hughes-coverdale
5 – paice-lord-blackmore-gillan-glover
6 – paice – lord – blackmore – turner – glover
7 – paice-lord-blackmore-gillan-glover
8 – paice – lord – satriani – gillan – glover (concert only )
9 – paice – lord – morse – gillan – glover
10 – paice – airey – morse – gillan – glover
And: No. I don’t count Randy California or Dave Mason.
July 1st, 2013 at 13:15And: No. I don’t like to count JLT – but the truth can’t be changed by concealing the facts.
Did somebody say Uriah Heep?
July 1st, 2013 at 15:03Savoy Brown has had somewhere around 60+ members throughout their 48+ year history. Check out their Wikipedia page. I don’t know of any other band (except Hawkwind) that’s remained active for that length of time and had that many personnel changes.
July 2nd, 2013 at 12:06I refuse to acknowledge the 89-92 period as a Deep Purple Line-up. I don’t even own that album. I refuse to have it in my collection.
July 5th, 2013 at 04:00byron @15:
Sitting in for somebody due to an illness isn’t the same as replacing somebody who has quit. Ritchie officially left Purple and Satriani came to the rescue so Purple could finish the tour. He was actually offered the job but prior commitment prevented his joining….
Ch-BeerZ?!
July 10th, 2013 at 02:44Tracy @ 31 – Satriani opened up about his ‘stint’ in Purple only a couple of years ago. He had prior commitments, but he also stated in that interview, that he wasn’t really interested because of the Blackmore legacy thing. He said something along the lines, that he had too much respect for that side of it & he couldn’t relax in the guitar replacement position. Something like that anyway. He was humbled by the offer though! Cheers.
July 11th, 2013 at 08:47Yes, that is true MacGregor. Sometimes I’m not as long winded as other times and I leave out details. My main point to the factor was regarding an actual line-up change and temporarily, Satch was an official member of Deep Purple whereas Randy California and Dave Mason were only subs due to illness and were never offered the job.
“The Ghost of Ritchie” was what he called it. See the interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS9cNwOrgYY
Ch-BeerZ?!
July 11th, 2013 at 20:28I was more in favour of Morse joining Purple than Satriani. Not because I don’t think Satriani wouldn’t be up to the job at all, he is a mind blowing guitarist. But I just cannot get into his music that much, I own ‘Surfing’ but other things he has done leave me cold. I have seen a few dvd concerts, he always has a great band behind him cranking crazy instrumentals, they are interesting to watch at times. Because I was into Steve Morse with the Dregs & his own trio band, I enjoyed him being there, also because he is more melodic to me, mixes it up more with different styles etc! Also, Morse deserved a break, as both Satrian & Vai have a fair bit of recognition, I always felt Morse wasn’t being paid his due recognition & joining Purple gives him that in many ways! A good interview with Satch, he, like Morse also, is a very modest down to earth guy! Cheers.
July 11th, 2013 at 23:31ZZ Top: 3
July 12th, 2013 at 03:32Rush has had 5 members. Geddy Lee was not the original bass player and vocalist. Jeff Jones of Red Rider was the first back in 1968 and he was later replaced by Lee and of course the rest is history.
July 13th, 2013 at 03:46Sorry ZZ Top has had 6 total members
July 13th, 2013 at 03:49the brazilian band Made in Brazil: had at least 200+ members over the years
July 17th, 2013 at 03:52The passing of George Duke reminds me we ought to add the Mothers to the list with 33 members not counting Frank between ’66 and ’75.
There best known concert is of course captured on the Swiss Cheese/Fire! official bootleg.
Frank used other sidemen on his later projects, but they were not billed as the Mothers.
August 6th, 2013 at 21:38Check. Out. Blood, Sweat and Tears…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood,_Sweat_%26_Tears#Roster_of_member_musicians
October 15th, 2013 at 20:15