A growing music debate: band versus brand. Here’s what that means: National

On May 26 in Moncton, NB, Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman will kick off a national tour under the name The Guess Who. The last time they played a show like this was on July 30, 2003 for SARSfest in Toronto.

Why so long? Because they all left The Guess Who before it was done.

Randy left the group in 1970 and Burton in 1975, and the group continued with bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson. It was Kale who realized that there was no clear owner of the name ‘The Guess Who’, so he filed a trademark in the US in 1986 without informing Burton or Randy. The group continued without its two main players and songwriters.

And it got even stranger. Kale stopped performing with The Guess Who in 2016 and Peterson was semi-retired, only appearing occasionally with the band. Fans who showed up to see the band saw and heard a performance by musicians unrelated to the original group. The name was the same. The songs were the same. The members of the band were not.

In 2023, both Cummings and Bachman sued to get the name back, saying this version of The Guess Who was “nothing more than a cover band” and did nothing to dissuade the public that Cummings and Bachman were no longer with the group. Kale and Peterson fought back, arguing a form of “you sleep, you lose,” saying the statute of limitations for trademark disputes had long since expired.

The good news is that everything will be settled in September 2024. The trademark is now jointly owned by Cummings and Bachman, allowing them to officially embark on this 2026 tour as The Guess Who.

This is an example of the ‘band versus brand’ debate just getting louder. something I first started writing about in 2022. How many original members does a band need to legitimately market itself as that group? Two? A? No?

Musical nostalgia remains an important source of income, and artists still tour into their seventies and even eighties. However, the members of these acts are claimed by the disasters of old age, if not by the Grim Reaper.

The Rolling Stones will remain The Rolling Stones as long as Mick and Keef are around. Fleetwood Mac without Christine McVie and Lindsey Buckingham? That’s close. ZZ Top with just Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard? They were able to unlearn it.

And I have no doubt that Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will do a great job as a reunited Rush, although it will be difficult for many fans to see the band on stage without Neil Peart. Was it difficult watching The Who with just Pete and Roger? For me it was.

There are dozens of bands with only one original member left: Bush (frontman and leader Gavin Rossdale), Danzig (Glenn Danzig), Everclear (Art Alexakis), Jethro Tull (Ian Anderson), Megadeth (Dave Mustaine), Ministry (Al Jourgensen), Queens of the Stone Age (Josh Homme), Soul Asylum (Dave Pirner), The Cure (Robert Smith), The Beach Boys (Mike Love), Boston (Tom Scholz), Emerson Lake and Palmer (drummer Carl Palmer), and Deep Purple (drummer Ian Paice) are just a few examples.

Then we have what we might charitably call ‘follow-up bands’. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley have often said that the KISS experience is so great that it doesn’t matter who’s on stage in the costumes. There is a version of the band The Allman Brothers that still performs, but does not include any member of the original group formed by Duane and Gregg in 1969. This current iteration is being promoted as an entity that keeps the spirit of the Allman Brothers alive, something that has the full support of the Allman families.

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Next brings a double-headlining road trip with Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd, two bands inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Double Trouble Double Vision tour will feature a version of Foreigner that may not feature guitarist Mick Jones, the last remaining original member. He has not toured with the group since 2022 due to health reasons related to Parkinson’s.

In the meantime there are zero The original members left Skynyrd after Gary Rossington’s death in 2023. Everyone else in the lineup joined later, although John Van Zant, Ronnie’s brother who died in the 1977 plane crash, at least maintains a family bond.

However, this is not well received. Paste calls this one “rock and roll con job” that promises “all the hits, all the nostalgia, and none of the original members.” It looks like an old airplane that has undergone so many D checks, the most extensive maintenance procedure required every six to ten years. Eventually, so many of the aircraft’s original parts are replaced that it is no longer the aircraft it was when it left the factory. (Read on to learn more about this philosophy the problem of the ship of Theseus.)

There’s a certain level of ick here that also applies to Blood, Sweat & Tears, Quiet Riot, Ratt, GWAR (but who would notice with all those costumes?), Iron Butterfly, Canned Heat, Little River Band, Molly Hatchet, Sepultura and the Spinners. There is even a version of The Glenn Miller Orchestra (founded in 1938) that still performs today. All we really keep are the logos and the associated IP address.

Which brings me back to this “band versus brand” debate. How long will fans keep buying in? I predict things will get worse with AI, holograms and avatars. T-shirts will still be sold, and there will be the usual meet n’ greets, special ticket packages and all the other offers. There is money to be made. Who cares if it’s the same band you grew up with?

These days, the band never has to break up, and no matter how many members leave or die, we’ll probably always be able to buy a ticket to the show.

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