Rock bands that absorb or merge with other bands

[Bill M]

Is it at all common for a rock band to merge with or be absorbed by another band? Besides YES doing this twice, I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head.

[Dantalion Rides Again]

Closest I can think of is that Brady Bunch episode where they're a band. But the merger was really on the family level, the band came later.

Seriously though, never thought of it as two mergers. There's gotta be another!

[Dantalion Rides Again]

XYZ comes to mind but does it count? Asia too, but not sure that does either.

I'm lousy at this job so far, when is lunch?

[Soundwaveseeker]

Seeing the Yes 50 tour in 2019, I looked at the people on stage and saw Yes, Asia, Circa, half of World Trade, 2/5's of White, most of Arc Of Life, and Yoso without the dude from Toto. What a blur. Yes may be the most absorbed (self or otherwise) band in the Milky Way. But can't think of any others at the top of my head right now.

There are a number of bands where half the members form another outfit with some other people, and then when the band reforms they bring the other people from the other outfit into the fold.

[Kevin W]

Leicester's Showaddywaddy were formed when two completely separate bands enjoyed playing together so much they just decided to merge. Definitely not prog of course but surely that's got to count for this thread....

[bondegezou]

Henry Cow and Slapp Happy merged. Slapp Happy, a trio, brought Henry Cow in to be their backing band for Desperate Straights. They then fully merged and did In Praise of Learning under the Henry Cow name. Two thirds of Slapp Happy then decided this wasn't working and left, leaving their singer, Dagmar Krause, to continue fronting Henry Cow.

Then there's the band Here & Now, who joined up with the two key figures from Gong, Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, to become Planet Gong. Allen repeated that trick many decades later, merging his then Gong line-up with two members from the Japanese band Acid Mothers Temple. They released the album Acid Motherhood as Gong. Not long after that, Allen and some other Gong members joined with two members from Violeta de Outono to create Gong Global Family. Oh, then there was New York Gong, which was Allen plus members of the band Material. Yes has nothing on the complexities of Gong...

Gong's former bassist formed a band called Strontium 90 with guitarist Andy Summers. They recruited two members of a then unknown band The Police, Sting and Stewart Copeland. Strontium 90 was short-lived, with Sting and Copeland then bringing Summers back with them to The Police, dumping their initial guitarist after playing 2 gigs as a four piece.

[Frumious B]

Hmmmm….

Bob Dylan and The Band
Offa Rex (The Decemberists plus Olivia Chaney)
Zappa during the Flo and Eddie period?

I don’t know. It’s tough.

[Homemade Parachute]

Fleetwood Mac “absorbing” Buckingham/Nicks? To the extent that B/N had an album and played as a duo/band, maybe. Certainly one of the most fruitful mergers in rock history.

[luna65]

Yeah I would say B/N joining FM was the more successful version between them and The Buggles joining Yes.

[pianozach]

Didn't most of the Eagles used to be Linda Ronstadt's backing band?

[Yesed]

"Same name" notwithstanding. Asia with John Payne, is a poster child.

[Soundwaveseeker]

"Same name" notwithstanding. Asia with John Payne, is a poster child.

Yeah, Asia. It's a different kettle of fish if a member of a band (Asia) who's the last original member (Downes) leaves the official band to reform an earlier incarnation of the same band. That would be like if Chris had left Yes in 1988 to form CBWH. The rest of the band would have to change their name to Yes featuring Anderson Rabin Kaye and White( ARKW).

You gotta feel for John Payne, a replacement singer often gets little love as it is, then his whole incarnation gets dissolved. Now he's stuck with the 'Featuring' moniker, which screams 'second fiddle', but is necessary for marketing & promotion. Nonetheless, I'll be seeing John Payne Asia this summer. I'm a fan of all Asia.

[Yesed]

Yeah, Asia. It's a different kettle of fish if a member of a band (Asia) who's the last original member (Downes) leaves the official band to reform an earlier incarnation of the same band. That would be like if Chris had left Yes in 1988 to form CBWH. The rest of the band would have to change their name to Yes featuring Anderson Rabin Kaye and White( ARKW).

You gotta feel for John Payne, a replacement singer often gets little love as it is, then his whole incarnation gets dissolved. Now he's stuck with the 'Featuring' moniker, which screams 'second fiddle', but is necessary for marketing & promotion. Nonetheless, I'll be seeing John Payne Asia this summer. I'm a fan of all Asia.

Same here, I've loved Asia from the start. I've warmed up to John Payne, Saw him in Jersey PAC, love his intensity, and some of his Asia albums, some a lot more than others, Aura is my favorite. I gotta see him see again off the NJ turnpike on the way to the shore, if Hes playing there again, this summer.

[downbyariver]

Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament were in a band together called Green River, which dissolved due to creative differences with the other two guys. The duo then formed a band called Mother Love Bone with two other guys, which dissolved when the lead singer died. Finally, Gossard and Ament founded Pearl Jam with Eddie Vedder and Dave Krusen, a lineup that's been steady, except for several drummer changes, to this day.

Velvet Revolver was basically Guns N Roses minus their lead singer, but plus the lead singer from Stone Temple Pilots.

Audioslave was basically the lead singer of Soundgarden backed by most of Rage Against the Machine (Minus the vocalist).

At one point, Neil Young did a tour with Pearl Jam as his band (I don't mean opening for him, literally on stage playing instruments while he sang), with an accompanying album. I guess you could say that he absorbed them into his backing band.

However, those examples may not quite fit what the OP is looking for. Would it be accurate to say that what we're trying to come up with is a band that's already recorded one or more albums adding two or more new players from a different band and then recording an album with them under the same band name as before they found the new guys? Not counting solo artists with backing bands?

I am not sure I can readily think of any that have no relation to Yes.

Kansas was the result of two bands merging, one of which was in fact called Kansas going in (The other was White Clover), so they almost fit, but they only recorded their first album *after* the merger, so maybe not quite.

[luna65]

Didn't most of the Eagles used to be Linda Ronstadt's backing band?

Three of the original four were in her touring band, and all of the original four appear on her 1972 s/t release.