10 classic bands with an insane number of members
Live fast and die young isn’t rock music’s only defining principle. When you consider many of the greatest to ever do it, the likes of Santana and Hawkwind, they also seem to embrace the more the merrier philosophy. There exist only a handful of massively successful bands that have maintained their original line-ups, whereas most prolific bands have an open and seemingly endless revolving door of members.
Rock music and all its associated excesses often mean bitter feuds and, more pertinently, deaths, bringing significant line-up changes in their wake. But rock isn’t the only arena that sees a constant flurry of bands churning through members, and every genre, from J-pop to post-punk, has its own bands with insanely expansive rosters.
Helmed by the vitriolic Mark E. Smith, The Fall had a revolving door line-up policy so vast that it almost dwarfed the music itself lyrics. With 33 studio albums and 66 members under their belt, The Fall’s extensive line-up put post-punk on the map, never letting a small thing like a divorce or on-stage breakup scupper their music-making.
Best summed up by the sharp-tongued Smith when baited about the band’s constant rotation of members: “If it’s me and yer granny on bongos, it’s The Fall.”
While your granny definitely wasn’t part of their line-up, Hawkwind always listed non-musicians as part of their crew, meaning everyone from cosmic dancer Stacia to the lightning engineer only known as ‘Liquid Len’ contributed to their 60-member line-up.
Formed in 1966, Santana’s membership also hit the 60s. With 68 musicians having been a member of the line-up at one time or another, Carlos Santana’s leadership of the Latin rock band has not only seen them sell over 100 million albums but become iconic in their own right, solely for their sheer dedication to allowing new musicians in.
Although the notable figures from the likes of Iron Butterfly and Blood Sweat and Tears are impressive, J-pop beats rock and roll excess with a landslide, with AKB48’s staggering line-up begging the question: where do bands end and choirs begin?
As of this year, the Japanese girl group has 72 members, all divided into separate teams that enable the group to perform in multiple places at once. The brainchild of Yasushi Akimoto, the idea was they could be the first girl group complete with their own theatre (the AKB48 Theatre in Tokyo), who could perform daily – rotating performances and personnel so fans have near constant access to the “idols you can meet”.
Reaching nearly 300 members since their 2005 inception, AKB48 has managed not only to be a constant fixture in the public eye but sell over 60 million records. And they certainly didn’t get there with a “less is more” approach.
10 bands with the most members:
- Dexy’s Midnight Runners – 53 members
- Iron Butterfly – 59 members
- Hawkwind – 60 members
- The Fall – 66 members
- The Drifters – 67 members
- Santana – 68 members
- Savoy Brown – 69 members
- The Waterboys – 76 members
- Blood Sweat and Tears – 183 members
- AKB48 – 292 members
