Bands in which all of the main members are dead

Rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan just died a couple months ago, but Jerry Allison and Joe Maudlin are still around

Majority are dead: Lynyrd Skynyrd's 'classic line-up' (4 out of 7)
Half-dead: The Beatles, Badfinger (both quartets)
Many alumnae who are dead: The Byrds, The Grateful Dead

The band Hapshash and the Coloured Coat, according to the liner notes of the CD of their first album, has one dead and one psychiatrically hospitalized member, out of a total of 3.

*badum crash*

Dead Byrds: Gene Clark, Michael Clarke, Gram Parsons, Clarence White.

The Who--Ox, Moon.

Miles Davis alum who're dead: Himself, Tony Williams, Cannonball Adderley, Bill Evans, Sonny Sharrock.

Coltrane's '60s group dead: Trane, Jones, Jimmy Garrison.

Chic: Edwards, Tony Thompson.

Beach Boys: Dennis, Carl, Brian...

Kind of Blue band -- R.I.P.
Miles Davis
John Coltrane
Paul Chambers
Cannonball Adderley
Bill Evans
Wynton Kelly
Jimmy Cobb

Jazz was hard living.

I believe all the original members of Chase died in their own plane crash, though.

And the original Temptations are, I believe, 4/5 gone.

Johnny Ramone Has Cancer
Guitarist was diagnosed four years ago

Ramones guitarist Johnny Ramone is in a Los Angeles hospital battling prostate cancer, according to his longtime bandmate, drummer Marky Ramone. "Johnny's been a champ in confronting this, but at this point I think the chances are slim," says Marky, who joined the Ramones in 1977 when Tommy Ramone left the band.

"John never smoked cigarettes, he wasn't a heavy drinker and he was always into his health," Marky continues. "It just proves when cancer seeks a body to penetrate, it doesn't matter how healthy you are or how unhealthy you are. It just seeps in and there's nothing you can do."

The fifty-five-year-old guitarist, born John Cummings, first learned of his condition four years ago and has undergone extensive chemotherapy.

"I've been getting so much email from people and from papers and magazines wanting to know what was up I had to take it upon myself to say something, because eventually John won't be in any condition to say or do anything," Marky says. "He went through many chemotherapy treatments. Some of it worked better than others. At this point [the cancer] has started to go into other areas of the body."

Widely acknowledged as the world's first punk band, the Ramones have lost two members in the last three years, with singer Joey Ramone's death in 2001 of lymphatic cancer and bassist Dee Dee Ramone's death from a drug overdose the following year.

Johnny Ramone retired from music following the Ramones' final tour in 1996, and, after more than two decades spent on the road, the Ramones leader felt little temptation to continue playing.

"I was ninety-nine percent sure I was not going to come back and play," Johnny told Rolling Stone in 2001. "I was always open, but I didn't want to go back on tour under any circumstances. If they could have come up with an offer that I couldn't refuse for one week of jobs, somewhere in the world, I would have thought about it."

Despite a poor prognosis, Johnny remains upbeat. "He seemed in good spirits the last time I saw him," says Marky. "He was talking about the positive things the Ramones accomplished: getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame [in 2002], how our music is being accepted at this point. It put a smile on his face. Knowing John, he'll fight this horrible disease to the end. Everybody is wishing the best and hoping the best. We'll stand by him."

Four Bar-Kays died in '67: Jimmy King, Ronnie Caldwell, Carl Cunningham, Phalon Jones. Ben Cauley and James Alexander went on to make "Too Hot to Stop," "Freakshow on the Dancefloor," and many others with the '70s BKs.

:((((((((((((

kick.

i also feel like there's a version of this thread that's more extensive

All of the Hendrix Experience now.

Not the thread you want to be updating, but should add the Band here.

Sadly all four original Ramones are gone as well

Little Feat

Allman bros

This is a pretty easy question to answer

Better question might be what is the most-recently formed band in which all members are deceased?

It is now. It wasn't then.

Honourable mention of Viola Beach, obv.

xpost well there you go

Bill Payne & very bad man Roy Estrada still survive from the first lineup of Little Feat

This is a pretty easy question to answer

...if you just name bands with living members

IIRC, all the key Left Banke guys are dead, which is kinda surprising since they were all teens when the band was big.

If "band" doesn't necessitate instruments, I'm sure there are numerous doo-wop groups where all members (say, whoever was in the group when they released their signature song--most had only one) are gone.

jaimoe lives.

Not the thread you want to be updating, but should add the Band here.

This is a pretty easy question to answer

since this definitely isn't you getting drunk and finding any active thread to go on and call the posters cunts and losers for having a conversation where they interact with other people - go ahead, get started!

It seemed a strong likelihood a couple of weeks ago that this thread would be adding another band soon, but I didn't want to post anything to that effect.

Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame once again waiting until it's too late to do an underappreciated artist right.

Skynyrd update: of the members who actually played on proper albums during their initial run (i.e. not the Blackfoot guys) 9 out of 10 are gone. Artimus Pyle is last man standing and also has the best name - even his real name (Thomas Delmer Pyle) is pretty great.

Harvey Brooks is the last of the original Electric Flag guys, as Nick Gravenites & Barry Goldberg have both departed in the last six months.

(xxpost) Baseball HOF seems to maybe finally becoming a bit more observant of that with the election of Dave Parker this year (on the fence as a player but healthwise struggling, so I think most fans were happy).

Now this is true of Badfinger too. What a miserable few weeks this has been.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Molly Hatchet:

"As of August 2, 2020, all of the band's original members are deceased."

Deaths of former members:
Original vocalist Danny Joe Brown died in Davie, Florida, on March 10, 2005, at the age of 53. His obituary attributed his death to kidney failure, a complication of the diabetes he had since age 19, along with Hepatitis C.[52]
Original guitarist Duane Roland died at his home in St. Augustine, Florida in 2006 of natural causes at the age of 53.[53]
Bass player Riff West died on November 19, 2014, at age 64, after a lengthy illness caused by severe injuries suffered in a car accident.[54][55]
Original drummer Bruce Crump died on March 16, 2015, at age 57, from complications after a 12-year battle with throat cancer.[56]
Thomas "Buzzy" Meekins died on May 14, 2015 from congestive heart failure at the age of 63.
Original bass player Banner Thomas, age 62, died from complications of pneumonia and rheumatoid arthritis on April 10, 2017.[57][58]
Founder and original guitarist Dave Hlubek died of a heart attack on September 2, 2017, at the age of 66.[59]
Jimmy Farrar, who was frontman from 1980 to 1982, died of heart failure on October 29, 2018, at 67.
Singer Phil McCormack died on April 26, 2019, at 58.[60] McCormack had been sidelined in early 2019, after suffering from health troubles that affected his voice.
Original guitarist Steve Holland, in the band from 1971 to 1984, died on August 2, 2020, of pneumonia as a complication of COVID-19 at age 66.[61]

Not one of the 10 reached 70.

Doesn't seem to have slowed them down!

https://www.songkick.com/concerts/42284311-molly-hatchet-at-arcada-theatre

Upcoming events at the same venue include Pat Travers Band, Foghat, 38 Special and April Wine.

Foghat is down to one original member.

he still has my permission to jam

...Then Jam He Must!

Pat Travers is still around, though at 70 one would presume his days of both snortin' whiskey and drinkin' cocaine are well behind him

of course, one might also presume that he was LYING about both snortin' whiskey and drinkin' cocaine, because how would he have made it to 70 with that kind of lifestyle (esp seeing that none of the Hatchet hit that milestone)

how would he have made it to 70 with that kind of lifestyle

Lemmy made it exactly 4 days past his 70th birthday.

That's the way he liked it baby

Not the same situation because some original members are still alive, but I just discovered yesterday that there is a currently active version of the Burrito Brothers containing all non-originals, and two of them have longer tenures than anyone except Sneaky Pete Kleinow.

Chris James – keyboards, vocals (2010–present)
Tony Paoletta – pedal steel guitar (2013–present)
Peter Young – drums (2015–2016, 2019–present)
Steve Allen - guitars, vocals (2022–present)

Not the same situation because some original members are still alive...

100% not the same situation because Hillman forced them to remove Flying from their band name, so they're just a garden variety cover band.

He won't even let them go parachuting

They aren't even allowed to eat burritos onstage.

They need to have prescriptions for any pharmaceuticals embroidered on their suits

New York Dolls

Good to name them, they were being alluded to in the first posts on March 1st.

Ah, I was interpreting the allusion in regards to Badfinger, in either case, sigh

Little Feat

― calstars, Friday, February 14, 2025 6:54 PM (one month ago) bookmarkflaglink

not true! 2 members of the original 1969 lineup and 3 members of the classic 73-79 lineup are alive.

The Moody Blues
The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Surely Hayward and Lodge are "main" members of the Moody Blues, if not originals?

fair enough. for some bands, the founding lineup is what's being discussed, for others it's the lineup that made the band's biggest records, the distinction should be made.

Somber bit from Greil Marcus (last paragraph of a long answer to a question about David Johansen's death):

But what I really feel, reading about his death, is the carnage and the waste and the price paid. Why are some bands--the New York Dolls, the Ramones, the Band--completely gone, everyone dead, when there are still two Beatles and three Rolling Stones, for that matter three Sex Pistols and three from the Gang of Four? What is the chemistry and the poison that infects some and lets others go? Money might have a lot to do with it--I don’t know about the Ramones, but after his cancer diagnosis David Johansen went online to ask for help, and except for Robbie Robertston all of the members of the Band died in bankruptcy or worse. What about the people who wrote about the Dolls and the Ramones and the Band, who were part of their story, who will never write another word--Lester Bangs, Robert Palmer, Nick Tosches, Ed Ward, Paul Nelson, so many more? You get old enough, you can get survivor’s guilt along with it.

If he thinks the Sex Pistols are playing shows with a new singer because Lydon is dead, who does he think is fronting PiL?

I assume he's overlooking Glen Matlock there?

Marcus is old too, so there may be an error or two in his counting...It was the mood that struck me, especially as he almost died a year ago himself, and with all the writers he mentions having been friends of his.

There was a brief period where quite a few people I personally knew passed on - all for different reasons and across various ages - and that definitely made me think about death to a much greater degree and for a much longer time than ever before. But that's nothing compared to someone like Marcus - most of the people he's gotten to know in his life are likely gone now, including one of his daughters from cancer. It wouldn't surprise me if death is never far from his mind nowadays.

I had forgotten about his daughter, that's right--within the past two years, I think.

I think death has been there in his writing from his early days--things he's written about Johnny Ace, Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson, and others, plus his Creem piece about pop-star death, which was a joke and not a joke--something that makes sense if you read his recent What Nails It.

Not sure if he’s implying the Gang of Four are moneybags because 3/4 of the original lineup are alive. More likely just chance.

Sorry if this is an outré question, but are Badfinger and The Clean the only "name" groups to have multiple members commit suicide?

As of Monday, the Walker Brothers.