Biggest Band Break Ups and Make Ups

Want your band to last forever?

Biggest Band Break Ups and Make Ups

Mark Radcliffe explores the alchemy that ties great bands together and the pressures that pull most of them apart.  Creative tension is an essential ingredient of a successful band – if everyone gets along nicely all the time great music is rarely the result – and Mark explores how that tension works when things are good.  And what happens when it stops working…

Within all bands, and especially very successful ones, fault lines emerge that can cause them to implode and break up.  Radcliffe explores the stories of a number of great bands and lays bare the pressures that accompany global fame: constant touring, differing musical directions and ideas, fall-outs and reconciliations…  Indeed, as Mark reveals, given the issues that inevitably arise it’s a wonder that any bands stay together.

Radcliffe also looks at the relatively recent phenomenon of bands that have gone their separate ways later reforming to performing live – and sometimes recording – together again. 

How do the handful of bands that stay together for the long run manage it?  Radcliffe looks at a few key examples to show what the rules are for successful staying power – often over several decades.

If a break up is unavoidable, Radcliffe searches for those bands who have managed to walk away happily on their own terms.

And, finally, what advice can seasoned band veterans pass on to young new groups on how to stay together?

With revealing and entertaining contributions from band members, insiders and music industry experts, the film features bands such as The Police, Guns N’ Roses, The Beatles, Take That, Oasis, the Smiths and REM, with tales of money rows, personal and musical differences, the pressures of global fame, lifestyle excess, solo careers and court cases.