If you scroll the internet for a few minutes, you can find plenty of rock and roll debates like “who was the Stones’ best second guitarist” or “Deep Purple’s best lead singer." If they last long enough, rock bands almost always see some lineup changes.
Sometimes, the band barely misses a beat, as AC/DC managed when iconic singer Bon Scott died and was replaced by Brian Johnson. Other times, the departure of one key member effectively ends the band’s glory days.
The Who, a band in the news lately for an aborted lineup change, may have replaced drummer Keith Moon with Kenney Jones after Moon died in 1978, but they were never the same.
Replaced and success? Oh, yes.
If a band is in its prime, it takes a very clear sense of purpose to call it a day after the departure of one member (often due to death). Zeppelin did it. So did Minutemen. But more often than not, the band regroups, retools, and plows forward. Even if they choose a new name – something like New Order – the band continues.
So it is not uncommon at all for a band to make changes during its run. One musician departs and a new one arrives. Happens every day,.
What is rare is when that new musician replaces the old one for a second time, not necessarily in the same band, mind you. Although that can happen, as we shall soon see, when it happens within the same band, it’s usually a situation where one guy is in and out for various reasons—maybe he’s pursuing a solo career, maybe he’s in rehab—and a go-to guitar player or keyboardist is already in the band’s orbit.
That replacement was already a part of the band. They just made it official while the first guy was taking time away.
Here are four instances where one musician followed another, not once but twice, beginning with a fairly obvious one that does involve the same band.
Black Sabbath – Lead Vocalist
Black Sabbath changes lineups as often as the New York Jets change quarterbacks. (If you’re not a football fan, that means they do it a lot.) The original quartet – Tony Iommi on guitar, Geezer Butler on bass, Bill Ward on drums, and legendary frontman Ozzy Osbourne remained intact for their first decade. Then, around 1978, Ozzy got the itch to go solo.
That kicked off a long and winding road of famous and unknown singers. When Ozzy left the first time, Dave Walker briefly stepped in. But Ozzy came back soon. When he took his more serious leave of absence a year later, Ronnie James Dio took the mic. Dio was a force. When he decided to start his band a few years later, it kicked off a 15-year period in which six men would front the band.
It was so wild that not one, but two different singers named Gillan stood out front. (They spelled their names differently – I’m going with Ian Gillan’s spelling, because, you know, he’s Ian Gillan.) Then, miracle of miracles, in 1997, the original quartet reunited for good, with Ozzy on the mic.
Only this was Black Sabbath, so it was not for good. When Ozzy left in 2006, Iommi (the only continuous member) and the boys again turned to Ronnie James Dio to step into Ozzy’s shoes for the second time. (More on this in a moment.)
Black Sabbath – Drummer
I promise that the remaining entries will feature two distinct bands, but Sabbath is the gift that keeps giving when it comes to this kind of thing. The original drummer, Bill Ward, had an even more turbulent run with the band than Ozzy Osbourne. By my count, he has come and gone four times. And he just returned for a fifth time this year to play on their farewell tour, which culminates in Birmingham this Summer.
Unless he leaves again.
Sabbath has used five other formal drummers and a host of session and touring players behind the kit. But if Ward does see fit to walk away yet again, Vinnie Appice, who played in Ronnie James Dio’s band in the 1980s, could no doubt step in.
He replaced Ward when he left briefly in the early ‘80s, then replaced a different drummer on an emergency basis in the early ‘90s. Finally, he rejoined Dio with Iommi and Butler in 2006, again replacing Ward.
Technically, that band was called Heaven & Hell, but, come on – it was just another incarnation of Black Sabbath. I mean, this was Sabbath's exact lineup in the early ‘80s.
Poco & the Eagles – Bass Player
When Buffalo Springfield split up in the late ‘60s, some members formed Crosby, Stills, Nash & (eventually) Young. A couple of others – Richie Furay and Jim Messina – formed the country/folk/rock band Poco. Their original bassist was Randy Meisner. But Meisner did not like the measure of control exercised by Furay and Messina. After playing on the band’s first album, he left.
Furay and Messina appear to have been so devastated that they painted their bassist out of the album cover (if you look at the cover of Pickin’ Up the Pieces, you’ll see a dog where Meisner had been.) Then they hired Timothy B. Schmit, whom they had considered before deciding on Meisner, and didn’t miss a step. They recorded nine albums, and Schmit took on more and more leadership.
Meanwhile, Meisner landed with a new band that had just backed Linda Ronstadt on the road. Don Henley and Glenn Frey brought the former Poco bassist on board. Meisner was with the Eagles for most of their success in the 1970s, culminating with the smash hit Hotel California in 1976.
Though he had co-written some of their biggest hits and occasionally sang, Meisner and Frey could not get along—the bass player left after Hotel California.
Who did they replace him with? Timothy B Schmit, the same musician who had stepped into Meisner’s shoes when the bass player left Poco in 1971. Though Schmit has remained with the band until today, they have never replicated the success of Hotel California. And he left Poco just before they recorded their one major hit, “Crazy Love.” Mixed blessings, I suppose.
Eleven & Pearl Jam – Drummer
Jack Irons was around at the birth of the band that eventually became the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and he played drums with them in the 1980s. He left late in the decade and teamed up with Walk the Moon’s Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider to form Eleven.
Eleven had a lot of Pearl Jam in them, so it may not have been a considerable surprise when Irons left midway through the band’s third album to join up with the most significant alt act in the country in the mid-‘90s. Irons played with Pearl Jam on No Code and Yield.
When he jumped ship with Eleven, they recruited Matt Cameron, who had recently finished drumming on one of the seminal alt grunge albums of the decade – Superunknown – with his band Soundgarden. Cameron completed the Eleven album for Irons before returning to Soundgarden.
Then, it just so happened that Irons grew tired of Pearl Jam’s grueling tour schedule and quit the band in 1998, shortly after Soundgarden had split up. Once again, Cameron was called on to replace Irons. But this time, he stayed and has been with Pearl Jam ever since.
And – for the record – the answers to the questions posed at the beginning of this article are Mick Taylor and the aforementioned Ian Gillan.