Bands behaving badly? It’s only rock ’n’ roll.
Bands behaving badly? It’s only rock ’n’ roll.
Members of alternative rock bandJane’s Addiction filed dueling lawsuitsWednesday over singerPerry Farrell’s onstage scufflewith guitarist Dave Navarro at a Boston concert last year, a fracas thatprompted the cancellationof the rest of their reunion tour and a planned album.
They join a long and storied tradition of bandmates suing one another, taking interpersonal and legal troubles from the recording studio to the courtroom. Here’s a look at a few very famous cases.
Jane’s Addiction
WHAT HAPPENED: Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins and bassist Eric Averysued Farrellin Los Angeles Superior Court seeking at least $10 million, alleging that Farrell’s behavior on their recent tour had ranged from erratic to out of control, culminating in an assault where Farrell punched Navarro both onstage and backstage.
HOW IT WAS RESOLVED: It hasn’t been; it’s just getting started. Farrell and his wife, Etty Lau Farrell, sued the three bandmates in the same court Wednesday, blaming them for the conflict and the violence.
The Beach Boys
WHAT HAPPENED: How much time do you have? Thelate, great Brian Wilson,the Beach Boys’ leader,feuded with his cousinand bandmate Mike Love over songwriting credits dating back decades. Love had sued Wilson several times, beginning in the 1990s.
HOW IT WAS RESOLVED: Wilson often wasn’t the victor — except in 2007, when U.S. District Judge Audrey Collins threw out one of Love’s lawsuits against Wilson. In it, Love alleged that a free, 2004 promotional CD of re-recorded Beach Boys songs cost him millions of dollars and violated Love and Wilson’s partnership.
Oasis
WHAT HAPPENED: The sibling rivalry between Oasis brothers Liam and Noel Gallagher is well established. Their brawls not only led to the band’s dissolution in 2009,before their 2025 reunion,but also a legal upset. In 2011,Liam sued Noelfor saying Liam’s hangover caused the cancellation of a 2009 festival performance. He said in a statement that the lawsuit was not about money, but that he wanted an apology and for Oasis fans “to know the truth” — that laryngitis prevented him from performing.
HOW IT WAS RESOLVED: The lawsuit was dropped.
Creedence Clearwater Revival
WHAT HAPPENED: The post-breakup decades ofCreedence Clearwater Revivalwere marked by so much legal and personal infighting that you might think CCR stands for Conflict, Clash, Repeat. In 1996, singer-songwriter-guitarist John Fogerty sued ex-bandmates Doug Clifford and Stu Cook for performing under the name Creedence Clearwater Revisited. That case settled in 2001, but the bandmates sued Fogerty in 2014, alleging he was violating the settlement by continuing to publicly slag off the Revisited name. And they said Fogerty himself was now illegally using Creedence Clearwater Revival in concert advertising.Fogerty sued back in 2015, saying Cook and Clifford weren’t paying him proper songwriting royalties for their performances.
HOW IT WAS RESOLVED: A federal court merged the two cases, and the resulting hybrid was settled under confidential terms in 2017.
Fleetwood Mac
WHAT HAPPENED:Fleetwood Macand feuds are practically synonymous. Breakups and divorces between members are essential to some of their best songs. The conflict resumed in the 2010s when the band kicked lead guitaristLindsey Buckingham off their 2018 tour, and he sued. Buckingham claimed he was told five days after the group appeared at Radio City Music Hall that January that the band would tour without him. He says he would have been paid at least $12 million for his share of the proceeds.
HOW IT WAS RESOLVED: Later that year, Buckingham said they had settled the lawsuit.
Journey
WHAT HAPPENED: At some point, two key members ofJourneystopped believin’ in each other. And all over an Amex. Longtime guitaristNeal Schon sued longtime keyboardist Jonathan Cainin 2022, saying Cain was refusing to let him use the band’s American Express card. A counterclaim came from Cain, who said that Schon was running up enormous personal charges on the band’s account.
HOW IT WAS RESOLVED: A judge in 2024 appointed a custodian over the band’s financial decisions, specifically empowered to settle disagreements between Schon and Cain.
Hall & Oates
WHAT HAPPENED: In 2023, Daryl Hallsued his longtime music partnerJohn Oates, arguing that Oates’ plan to sell off his share of a joint venture would violate the terms of a business agreement theHall & Oatesduo had forged long before. The move quickly prompted a judge to temporarily block the sale.
HOW IT WAS RESOLVED: The lawsuit and arbitrationare ongoing.
The Beatles
WHAT HAPPENED: Their artistic partnership had been over for months, butthe Beatleshad to break out the barristers to break up their business.Paul McCartneywent to London’s High Court of Justice in 1970 to dissolve the Fab Four’s 1967 contractual partnership, which included the Apple record label. McCartney above all wanted to get rid of manager Allen Klein, whom John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr wanted to keep as overseer of their business. “The only way for me to save The Beatles and Apple,” McCartney told British GQ in 2020, “was to sue the band.”
HOW IT WAS RESOLVED: The court ruled in McCartney’s favor and appointed a receiver to oversee their ventures in 1971. But negotiations and wrangling continued until a long-term solution that would become known as “The Beatles Agreement” was signed by all four members in 1974.
Maria Sherman And Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press