10 great artists trapped inside terrible bands

Mark Tremonti – Creed

As soon as the grunge wave rose and fell, there would always be people nipping at the heels of what the Seattle crowd had already done. Bush had co-opted the sound of Nirvana for themselves, and despite turning into a respectable band later on, Stone Temple Pilots had to ward off haters thinking they were a wannabe Pearl Jam thanks to songs like ‘Plush’. If Scott Weiland were the one Eddie Vedder impersonator we had to worry about, that would be fine, but the true tragedy of Creed has to do with the people around Scott Stapp.

Despite the fact that Stapp sounds like the one post-grunge icon who happened to go to Sunday school a few too many times, Mark Tremonti is among the finest guitarists of his generation. From his later work with Alter Bridge to his solo career, he is a bona fide guitar hero in the tradition of people like Kirk Hammett or Marty Friedman from the thrash metal world, but from the few times that he was able to shred in Creed, no one would bother to notice all that much.

Because as soon as he starts plucking out the opening bars of ‘With Arms Wide Open’ or ‘My Sacrifice’, all people wanted to hear was Stapp yammering on about the trials and tribulations of the world that can be solved by his friend Jesus. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with someone wearing their faith on their sleeve like that, but this is the worst kind of praise music one could ask for since it’s actively taking away from someone else’s God-given talent.

Ryan Met – AJR

AJR’s entire approach to their music is infuriating enough on its own. It’s not like every member of the group doesn’t have talent, but when listening to the random falsetto yodelling in their songs and the 2010s-style washed-out production, they have discovered that there are no limits to them selling everyone’s millennial experience right back at them. But when not looking at them turning the everyday problems of the world into an adorkable pop-rock song, Ryan Met might be the most technically gifted of the three brothers.

While he tends to fade into the background often, one of his greatest strengths is having an overall flair for the production side of things. Granted, that does lead to some truly heinous moments when a song like ‘Weak’ burrows into everyone’s skull, but the fact that he is cool enough to show different mixing techniques with his fans is proof enough that he knows that it’s about sharing music as much as it is about counting the zeroes on any royalty checks.

He’s not exactly perfect, and someone should tell him how to put something that isn’t trebly nonsense into the mix half the time, but only time will tell if any of that potential can be seized upon. After all, none of them can talk about going through their quarter-life crisis forever, but given how well it’s working out for them, let’s hope he’s not writing songs about his mom throwing out his Legos when he’s pushing 50.

John Mayer – John Mayer

The whole point behind any John Mayer song always comes down to the one jackass in the middle of everything. While his arrogant persona has admittedly cooled in recent years, there is still a large portion of people who listened to him sing the line “bubblegum tongue” on ‘Your Body is A Wonderland’ and have never returned since. When he did learn to shut up about certain things, though, people didn’t realise that they had the musical equivalent of Stevie Ray Vaughan in the pop sphere.

Aside from the inherent smarminess of songs like ‘Daughters’, Mayer seems way more interested in making something that he wants to hear. Some of his recent tunes might be a little bit more sleepy than what the pop charts is looking for, but he has wanted to play the long game for a while as an artist, even managing to put together the fantastic Where the Light Is live performance and coming correct by doing justice to legends like Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix on his albums.

No one gets into that position by being merely good, and considering Mayer himself has seemed to wipe his hands off his pop career, the fact that he can keep everything rolling at least shows that he wanted some kind of musical redemption. It’s one thing for a band not to want to listen to what their critics say, but Mayer actually listened to his haters, saw some good points, and came out of the whole thing as a better person and an even more interesting artist.

Fergie – Black Eyed Peas

In the late 1990s, there was no reason to think that The Black Eyed Peas would be anything significant. While words ‘conscious hip-hop’ shouldn’t be anywhere near the same band that made ‘My Humps’, there was a moment where it looked like they had something that felt like a passable discount version of A Tribe Called Quest. But when they finally had a singer behind them, drafting in Fergie was both the best and the worst thing that could have happened to them.

First of all, Fergie is a genius choice for a lead singer, having that same smoky voice as someone like Lauryn Hill but with a bit more edge. Once Will.i.am figured out that all he needed to do was make the most annoying song in the world six times in a row over the course of a single album, all of that potential went out the window in favour of her either fading into the background on rap cuts or being forced to sing literal baby gibberish on songs like ‘Boom Boom Pow’.

Even though the rest of the Peas are glorified backing musicians on their later records, the fact that Fergie could do a convincing version of ‘Black Dog’ with Slash in her spare time should tell you all you need to know about her credentials. Will.i.am had a musical equivalent of a 747 in the group, and yet he somehow failed to make any of their songs get that high off the ground for longer than 30 seconds.

Mick Mars – Mötley Crüe

Motley Crue practically invented the entire outlook of the Sunset Strip. While the mind of Nikki Sixx might be more than a little bit screwed up at times, their first handful of albums at least showed they could make glam-rock sound like punk in the same way that bands like New York Dolls did a few years before. As soon as they started writing songs only about sex and drugs, though, Mick Mars was content to play his bluesy licks and count out all the money that he made.

Despite Sixx writing some convincing street lyrics, Mars always brought some muscle behind it. Tommy Lee certainly helped by having his drums sound like cannons, but whereas everyone else in the band was focusing on getting laid after the shows and drinking so much that they could hardly stand, Mars was carrying on the tradition of people like Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck, to the point where he managed to bring them away from hard rock to a bluesy shuffle in the middle of ‘Wild Side’.

And while his health conditions led to him being royally screwed over by his bandmates, they managed to get an even more qualified member in the group once John 5 stormed in. Mars’s replacement can be considered an honorary candidate for this list, but when it comes to the classic licks the band were known for, it’s easy to forget that the only reason ‘Live Wire’ works is his relentless downpicking.

Janis Joplin – Big Brother and the Holding Company

The entire psychedelic rock scene was inundated with bands once San Francisco became a part of the conversation. It truly felt like a utopia could be created through music, and while Jim Morrison was already ready to bring something darker to the table, everyone was speaking the language of the blues, only this time with a few more colours added in for good measure. Jefferson Airplane had icons like Grace Slick, and any Grateful Dead show felt more like one big musical family, but it seemed like Big Brother and The Holding Company was always holding Janis Joplin back in a way.

That said, this is one of the few exceptions in this list. Big Brother was competent enough for prime time, but if Joplin were taken out of the equation, most of the band wouldn’t have had the charisma to pull off some of their tunes. Even a track like ‘Down On Me’ is subdued on the original recording, but once Joplin showed off her pipes on the live stage, it’s like listening to a completely different song, to the point where it seems like a huge downgrade whenever someone else gets behind the microphone.

And once Joplin tragically passed away, there’s a reason why most people knew her as a force of nature in her own right before her only proper solo album was released after her death. Big Brother were absolutely fine for what they were, but every musician needs people who can match their intensity, and Joplin knew when she was staying too long at the party after a while.

Keith Nelson – Buckcherry

If hair metal was already on life support when the grunge movement started, it didn’t have a prayer afterwards. The entire rock scene had moved on to everything from pop-punk to nu-metal to indie rock, and no self-respecting label would waste their time with people following in the footsteps of acts like Faster Pussycat. By some strange miracle, though, Buckcherry broke through on the strength of smut alone, but there were some fleshed-out pieces of their group.

Despite the massive shakeups the band have taken over the years, Keith Nelson was always there for the moments where things sounded listenable. Whereas Josh Todd is a good vocalist in small doses, his main flaw was having to crank things up every single time he sings, even on the ballads. His job sounds like hard work, but Nelson made everything look effortless, even bringing some ear candy into the mix on their debut record on tracks like ‘For the Movies’.

Some of their later material may have taken a bit of a beating by not having his guitar as much in the mix, but even when they were in their prime, a tune as insipid as ‘Crazy Bitch’ at least had people listening for the guitar licks. The songs themselves might be hedonistic to the point of self-parody, but Nelson is one of the few things that save the group from being a real-life version of Spinal Tap.

Eric Carr – Kiss

None of the members of Kiss ever claimed to be great musicians when they were starting out. The original lineup only wanted to ensure that they left the audience satisfied, and that sometimes meant sacrificing playing the most accurate rendition of their songs. Although most 12-year-olds could forgive not hearing a few notes if they saw Gene Simmons breathing fire, Eric Carr went from being a superfan to one of the greatest assets the group ever had during their makeup-less years.

Since their time without their signature outfits in the 1980s distilled them down to one of the many hair bands out at the time, Carr sounded monstrous whenever he was behind the kit. Peter Criss already had a great sense of flair from studying jazz, but there was nothing but pure swagger in the way Carr played on Creatures of the Night, to the point where songs like ‘War Machine’ and ‘I Love It Loud’ may as well be drum features rather than fleshed-out tracks.

Although cancer would claim his life far too soon at the age of 41, Kiss has certainly never forgotten the legacy that Carr left while he was there. From being a powerhouse to a great songwriter to one of the most approachable members of the band during his time together, it’s always refreshing to see someone with Carr’s level of talent never forget the fact that he was a fan before anything else.

Wes Borland – Limp Bizkit

Every single genre has that one moment where everything started getting slightly ridiculous. The hair-metal fans will never forget how stupid it looked watching the video for ‘Cherry Pie’ and every member of the punk scene shed a single tear the minute that they saw bands like The Clash making something as offensively terrible as Cut the Crap. Nu-metal wasn’t a genre lacking in goofiness, but Limp Bizkit took those whiny sensibilities to a new level once they started hitting the Family Values touring circuit.

While most people’s ire towards the group can be directed squarely at Fred Durst, there’s much more behind him. It’s easy to respectfully leave out DJ Lethal from the conversation for his already-legendary stint in House of Pain, but Wes Borland was the true standout of the group, always playing up his eccentric outfits and having the kind of guitar chops to make him a perfect foil to someone like Les Claypool from Primus.

Then again, some of Borland’s stints outside the band have almost been a bit too strange for mass consumption, fitting somewhere between the goofiness of Frank Zappa and the heaviness that most would expect from a traditional Limp Bizkit project. Borland certainly doesn’t deserve to have the musical version of a high school bully as a frontman, but since he is kept in check in his main outfit, he almost deserves kudos for dialling it back in the exact right way.

Travis Barker – Machine Gun Kelly

Machine Gun Kelly never really had any business trying to become a rock star. He was never the greatest rapper alive, but he was at least on the right track towards something before he got executed in spectacular fashion by Eminem. If he needed to switch genres after something that visceral, though, how did he manage to get one of the greatest drummers of all time in the studio?

Make no mistake, half of the reason why albums like Tickets to My Downfall work for some people is down to Travis Barker. The drummer knows pop-punk like the back of his hand, and when he’s not arranging classic Blink-182 songs for the summer shed circuit, it’s easy to picture him looking at the Pro Tools session of whatever his buddy did and throwing in as many tricks as he can to make it sound great.

And considering it sounds like he couldn’t be asked to care when he’s on his own doing a cover of System of a Down’s ‘Aerials’, it feels like Barker is almost a necessity more often than not. There’s hardly any sensible rock fan who’s looking at Kelly as a god amongst mere mortals, but the only reason why a song like ‘Emo Girl’ is a certain definition of listenable is down to the heavy lifting from one of the greatest drummers of the modern age.