What’s better than one overpaid, egotistical musician mouthing off? Two overpaid, egotistical musicians mouthing off at each other publicly, so that we can watch!
With Foals’ recent attempt to start a war of word with The Strokes, it got us thinking. Over the years, there have been countless feuds in rock music, whether caused by rivals butting heads, a clash of personalities or simply someone being an intolerable eejit.
Below, we take a look at five of the most memorable.
NOEL GALLAGHER VS. LIAM GALLAGHER
Forget Oasis vs. Blur - the real juicy tug-of-war was not the Battle of Britpop, but the War of the Gallaghers. The brothers have always had a love/hate relationship, with Noel taking on the role of ‘exasperated older brother’ as he witnessed his little bro’s erratic (and occasionally cliched, let’s be honest) rock star behaviour over the years. It seems that it all eventually became too much in Paris in 2009, when an almighty row backstage at the Rock en Seine festival in Paris spelled the end of Oasis.
Since then, they’ve taken hilarious potshots at each other, occasionally veering into personal territory after Liam berated Noel’s wife Sara MacDonald on Twitter, saying that she has ‘wished [him] dead’ and was the one holding Noel back from an Oasis reunion. Noel, meanwhile, has come out with gems over the years such as ‘Liam is a man with a fork in a world of soup’. Their poor mammy, that’s all we’ll say. Peggy, you’re a saint.
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DAVID CROSBY VS. HIS FORMER BANDMATES
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young were undoubtedly one of the most influential supergroups of all time. Yet despite their ability for otherworldly harmonies, their personal lives were not quite as compatible. Crosby, in particular, has made no bones about their falling-out over the years, exacerbated by the huge amount of drugs he consumed during their brief tenure in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Although the band reunited intermittently over the decades, Crosby has been taking potshots at Young as recently as 2014, calling Young’s wife, actress Darryl Hannah, “a purely poisonous predator” and later telling Howard Stern “I sent an email to Neil, saying, ‘Listen, I know you’re pissed at me because I slagged your girlfriend. And I’m sorry.’ I’ve apologised for a couple of times publicly … and I said, ‘I’m really sorry I shot my mouth off about your girlfriend. I really am. But we’ve all been horrible to each other over the years.’ Young responded by saying “Crosby should write an introspective book: “Why People Won’t Talk to Me Anymore”.
Graham Nash has also accused his former bandmate of terrible behaviour, saying in a 2016 interview “I don’t like David Crosby right now. He’s been awful for me the last two years, just fucking awful”. Nash continued, “I’ve been there and saved his fucking ass for 45 years, and he treated me like shit. You can’t do that to me. You can do it for a day or so, until I think you’re going to come around. When it goes on longer, and I keep getting nasty emails from him, I’m done. Fuck you. David has ripped the heart out of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.”
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DAN AUERBACH VS. JACK WHITE
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You might think that there’s a community of-sorts amongst certain musicians of a similar genre - particularly if they live in the city. That wasn’t the case with The Black Keys’ frontman Dan Auerbach and Jack White, formerly of The White Stripes and currently of The Raconteurs. In emails that only came to light during White’s divorce from Karen Elson in 2013, White didn’t try to disguise his contempt for Auerbach and expressed annoyance that their kids attended the same Nashville school. "That's a possible twelve fucking years I'm going to have to be sitting in kids chairs next to that asshole with other people trying to lump us in together," he wrote. "He gets yet another free reign to follow me around and copy me and push himself into my world."
The Black Keys, to give them credit, didn’t rise to the bait and things appeared to settle down - until 2015, when Black Keys drummer Patrick Carney accused White of ‘trying to fight [him]’ in a New York bar - although they later seemed to have sorted it out privately. Since then, there’s been no further updates so we’re assuming their beef has been squashed and White is a little less angry at them (and the world in general.)
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AXL ROSE VS. SLASH
It’s a miracle that Axl Rose and Slash are managing to share a stage these days in the reformed Guns N’ Roses line up, given their decades-long feud. Having worked on some of the biggest rock albums of the 1980s and 1990s together, their spat reportedly began (according to their former manager) after guitarist Slash worked with Michael Jackson in the mid-1990s. Rose had been abused as a child and had believed the numerous allegations made against Jackson, so was devastated at what he saw as a betrayal of trust.
Around the same time, GNR’s album ‘The Spaghetti Incident’ flopped and Rose made all the band members sign new contracts that would essentially make them incidental players in the band. Slash took umbrage with this and saw it as the last straw, so he walked. The pair didn’t speak for 20 years until they made amends and reformed for Coachella in 2016.
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ELTON JOHN VS. MADONNA
He may have mellowed with age, but Elton John has never been one to shy away from speaking his mind. He’s also fond of the odd catty comment about his fellow performers - but at one period in the not-too-distant past, he really had it in for Madonna. In 2002 he called her Bond song ‘Die Another Day’ ‘the worst Bond tune ever’, he later accused her of lip-syncing on her 2004 ‘Re-Invention’ tour, saying "That's me off her Christmas card list, but do I give a toss? No."
Madonna replied through a spokesperson, saying “Madonna does not lip-synch nor does she spend her time trashing other artists ... Elton John remains on her Christmas card list, whether he is nice ... or naughty."
Elton then accused her of being a “miserable cow” for not performing at his bachelor party ahead of his wedding to David Furnish, which saw her spokesperson once again replying with a statement that read: “Madonna wishes Elton all the best, and hopes married life will make him a happier person". Ooof!
A few years later, Elton, while insisting that they were still great friends, then called her “a f*cking fairground stripper” in regards to her move toward dance music and after she accused Lady Gaga of being ‘reductive’. To her credit, a dignified Madge never returned any shots fired at her, and Elton later apologised to her personally after they found themselves in the same posh restaurant in France. With friends like these, you might say…
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KANYE WEST VS TAYLOR SWIFT
The best feud of all time? OF ALL TIME?! Perhaps not, but this one sure was entertaining. Kanye West has made more than a few enemies over the years, but his beef with Taylor Swift, which was pre-Kim Kardashian, was one of the most random. As you’ll remember, the rapper rudely stole the then-country-star Swift’s moment in the spotlight at the MTV VMAs in 2009, storming the stage to insist that Beyonce deserved the award that she had just won. That wasn’t the end of it, though: in later years, after a shaky ceasefire, the drama was reignited after Swift took umbrage with West referring to her in the lyrics of his song ‘Famous’, saying “I feel like Taylor Swift still owe me sex / Why? I made that bitch famous” (later changed to “I feel like me and Taylor still might have sex”.
Swift denied giving him permission to mention her name, but West’s then-wife Kim Kardashian then produced a recording of a phone conversation that contradicted her version of events. Swift later said that she explicitly did not agree to being referred to as ‘that bitch’ in the song, and saying that she would “very much like to be excluded from this narrative, one that I have never asked to be part of, since 2009.” Yet even as recently as 2019, this has still been drudged up - with Swift calling the now-divorced pair “bullies” and saying that Kardashian’s attempted ‘cancelling’ of her changed her life. This one could run for years.
