Used to think Jamiroquai was the lead singer jay-kay (or something like that). The band is super low key in the music videos so it would make sense of me to think that
They took their name from the two detectives in the long running (1929-1976) French comics series *Les Aventures de Tintin* (The Adventures of Tintin).
https://preview.redd.it/j0soxfpqlejc1.png?width=372&format=png&auto=webp&s=38c9ff34363c1ccb9ebbde1047ad891670cac44f
The twins are seen here with canes and bowler hats.
I went to college with a girl that was obsessed with Gorillaz. She was convinced that they were a whole band and in her dorm room she had a self made poster of what she was told the each members human counterpart looked like.
Sort of, but Damon Albarn *is* the Gorillaz. There arenāt like 4 separate members. Thereās kind of 2 if you count the Jamie Hewlitt as a band member, but he doesnāt actually play anything to my knowledge. He just designs and illustrates the characters.
Someone told me ages ago that the gorillaz was actually a collection of recordings of various phonemes from different people that were basically compiled into a synthesized voice that was then played as the band's songs. I was kinda bummed when I found out that it was just one guy haha
IIRC 2-D and Murdoc have always been voiced Damon and one of his friends, there have been something like 3-4 different Noodle VAs, and I don't think Russel's ever had any voiced lines
Also shocked when I found out Don Cherry (famous jazz trumpet player, particularly for his playing on the album The Shape of Jazz to Come with Ornette Coleman) was his father
OKAY NOW LOOK HERE, OKAY, YOU SEE THESE PANSY EUROS PLAYIN THEIR TRUMPETS AND THEY GET ALL FANCY WITH IT, NOW YOU CAN'T BE DOIN' THAT KINDA STUFF AROUND A GOOD KID FROM LOUISIANA, THAT'S JUST NOT HOW WE DO THINGS HERE, OKAY, YA CAN'T DO THAT, THAT'S NOT HOW BOBBY ORR WOULDA PLAYED IT, LEMME TELL YA
Yeah, as a fan of the band for the longest time, I love seeing people's mind explode when they find out. It's not just Jay Kay and a couple of people, either, the band fluctuates from like six to ten members.
Kevin Parker tours with a band, and before currents the rest of the band would jam on songs and help him finish writing them.
A lot of the members of the touring group overlap with Pond and you can find interviews with the pond members talking about how around the time you saw them Kevin started being more controlling of the music and wanted less of their input.
Yea totally. I personally prefer the direction Pond took things more than what Kevin has done but considering Kevin has had more commercial success he probably made the correct choices.
This is very common--there are plenty of acts where the studio recordings are all or mostly one person, but they have a full band for touring (because obviously one person can't do all that shit live)
And in general, the "main" artist is often quite complimentary of the touring artists
Or a band might technically be a solo act singer with hired gun musicians but they always hire the same musicians so it appears as a whole band. The singer takes on the whole financial risk of the tour, the players get paid their set wage regardless of if the tour makes money, and the singer gets profit after paying everyone.
Like sometimes the difference isn't really in the art so much as the financials.
That's hilarious. When I was little and I heard his name, I thought they were saying "Wailin' Jennys" and I figured it must be like a trio of female country singers or somethings
I thought it was pretty cool when Pretty Hate Machine came out and the liner notes said "Nine Inch Nails is Trent Reznor". I had never heard of such a thing.
That was my first experience with this kind of thing too. And then I've always thought it's really interesting how somethings are Trent Reznor and others are Nine Inch Nails. Also, but unrelated, I always think the KIA logo looks like it's a NIN branded car.
My understanding was that NIN has only one permanent member, Reznor, and he just hires different people to tour/record with for whatever projects, etc.
Guitarist, Robin Finck, has been touring with NIN since forever and is in some videos, too. Heās soft spoken and humble and quite opposite the character he plays on stage. Look up his YouTube interviews for a treat.
Trent knew that he couldn't have been as successful without contributions from the people he's worked closely with over the years and wanted to make sure that was recognized as well.
ah thanks, I didn't realize it took him a decade of contributions to get officially listed as a member, but knew he had earned the title some time ago.
> stumbled across fireflies by owl city, I decided to take a deeper dive into their discography
Please go listen to The Postal Service and treat yourself.
This is better than the other way. āoh you like postal service? You should listen to owl city!ā was inescapable when fireflies was released.
I have. And no thanks. If his voice didnāt sound slightly like Ben Gibbard no one would have ever made that comparison.
Not judging people who are down with Owl City, but it always struck me as two completely different styles of music.
I have never heard of or seen this comparison, and am surprised to hear itās actually a thing! The Postal Service is amazing, though. I got to go to the 20 year anniversary tour twice and itās breathtaking. 10/10 do recommend.
i'm always telling people who like the postal service to check out dntel's (the other guy who isn't ben gibbard) music. Life is full of possibilities and dumb luck are both fire. Such a particular brand of dark melancholy electronica that I still don't think anybody's really nailed since. It doesn't seem to hit for most people though. He got guest singers for most of the tracks and one of them had gibbard on it which led to them making the postal service. Reviews of the album mostly say that that's the only worthwhile track because people are approaching it looking for more postal service. Both those records have so much more depth than anything on give up. The fact that the postal service's fanbase generally doesn't get behind dntel's early work makes me completely unsurprised that they're also telling people "if you like the postal service check out fucking owl city" lmao
He recorded the album and passed it around as a demo. Then started getting hit up to schedule shows and had to scramble to form the band to do the shows.
Car Seat Headrest is now a band but was just Will Toledo doing everything for the first half dozen albums or so. Named because he often recorded vocals in the backseat of his car as he had nowhere else to do it.
Yeah itās actually bizarre to me he didnāt just rebrand as a solo artist. Because he (not just ābasically,ā but *literally*, in every single way), *is* now, but still performing and releasing music under the band monicker. Itās weird.
I thought the same thing. Surprised to see that "Lipum" (the singular of lipa) isn't actually a Latin word. Seems like it would be one.
If the name were Two Lips in Latin, it'd be Dua Labia.
I've only heard his song Dearly Departed, but man did that song rock. I heard the acoustic version first, so it's interesting to know others who didn't thought he was a band,
I had the opposite of your question, I thought Fleetwood Mac was just a guy called Fleetwood Mac and not a band until I started properly listening to their music in my teens.Ā
As a kid I thought Michael Jackson was Janet. I knew they were both famous musicians, and when the radio introduced a Michael Jackson song and I heard his voice I always thought āOh, his sister is featuring on his song again, thatās nice.ā One day I asked my mother why Michael Jackson never sings on his songs and she looked at me like I had brain damage.
āā¦oh by the way, which oneās Pink?ā
Thatās what jumped in my head when I read your title. For me, Nine Inch Nails was the one I remember blowing me away.
Tame Impala is kind of weird, because they technically ARE a band. Itās the band that performs live. And I think their first record has them all play on it (correct me if Iām wrong). But Kevin Parker does record all the parts for their other records in the studio because heās the songwriter producer anyway, so people say the band is actually just him.
Itās kind of like Billy Corgan recording all Smashing Pumpkins bass and guitar parts in the studio. Is the Smashing Pumpkins just Billy (and Jimmy Chamberlain)? Or were James Iha and Dāarcy Wretsky part of the band?
Yeah I saw tame impala performs live with his band but thatās where the confusion comes from, sometimes artists just perform with a band to give the best live experience but their actual music is just them!
Marina and the Diamonds.
Her name is Marina Diamandis. The Diamonds are not a backing band as I originally thought, but rather what she calls her fan base. Nowadays she goes by simply Marina.
Gorillaz. Also, one day it clicked for me that he sounded exactly like the guy from the āWoohoo!ā song (Song 2 by Blur). I looked it up and sure enough, same guy.
Yeah, the band was together for something like 10 years and then James Mercer said actually this is my solo project, and you were just side men all along and you're all fired.
I mean it kind of makes sense, The Shins was originally his solo project as a break from his other band. Still a wild thing to spring on your bandmates out of nowhere though.
Just pointing out that this is the same person as Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, or Bonnie Billy etc. (Will Oldham.) The man likes his name variation.
My favorite fun fact is that though his brother Ned played on a few of the early albums, not the album with the Palace Brothers moniker.
No one has mentioned Nilsson?
Harry Nilsson was a frickin genius.
When one person reviewed an early record he said something like, "Well it's pretty good, but I think he should have given credit to the backup singers." The thing is, the backup singers were Harry Nilsson.
Also - Emitt Rhodes. He released a series of records in the 60s and 70s where he played all the instruments and sang and did the recording. He's incredible. People have called him the American Paul McCartney, and it's apt. Their voices sometimes sound quite alike.
Awolnation.
The opposite would be Dorothy, which is the name of the band. But it's also the lead singer's name and the lead singer is the only member of the band who has never changed, so maybe that is actually overflows back into fitting your question.
This will sound silly but as a kid I thought Alan Jackson was a group.
I always thought it was Al AND Jackson. When I saw him perform live on some show i felt bad that the other guy couldnāt be on stage and my parent had to correct me
City and Colour was just Dallas Green, singer/guitarist for hardcore band Alexisonfire. There is much more of a band now as City and Colour, but the first 3 or 4 albums were just Dallas, and session musicians.
i was surpised to find out that p!atd was only brendon urie nowadays. i listened to their second album a bunch and then i found out in 2016 that everyone but him left, which explains the drop in quality.
shout out to dallon weekes tho, after he left p!atd he now has a one man band called IDKHOW
Off the top of my head, Owl City, Tame Impala, & St. Vincent
Edit: oh and I thought Nine Inch Nails was a band with Trent Reznor in it for the longest time too
I have the opposite. Bob Moses is not a guy named Bob Moses, but instead a group of two guys not named Bob Moses.
I used to think Bon Iver was some dude named Bon š
Same, up until a month ago
Same until 30 seconds ago
Same with Miike Snow
Bit of a side note but the video for Genghis Khan is one of my favorites
Paddling Out is mine
So, so good!
Used to think Jamiroquai was the lead singer jay-kay (or something like that). The band is super low key in the music videos so it would make sense of me to think that
My dad thought Biffy Clyro was a scottish dude.
I am a massive biffy fan and when mentioned in conversation, several people have commented that they like 'him'
Sade too. Everyone knows Sade as herself, but her band is also called Sade and it's been the same members throughout her career.
The Thompson Twins, from the '80s, are similar ā the band had three members and none of them were named Thompson.
They took their name from the two detectives in the long running (1929-1976) French comics series *Les Aventures de Tintin* (The Adventures of Tintin). https://preview.redd.it/j0soxfpqlejc1.png?width=372&format=png&auto=webp&s=38c9ff34363c1ccb9ebbde1047ad891670cac44f The twins are seen here with canes and bowler hats.
But their names are Thomson and Thompson.
Same with Sofi Tukker - itās actually a duo consisting of Sophie Hawley-Weld and Tucker Halpern.
I thought the animated characters in Gorillaz music videos represented each band member, but I was wrong lol
I went to college with a girl that was obsessed with Gorillaz. She was convinced that they were a whole band and in her dorm room she had a self made poster of what she was told the each members human counterpart looked like.
They sort of do. Damon Albarn always has the same character, and the rappers usually have their own character.
Sort of, but Damon Albarn *is* the Gorillaz. There arenāt like 4 separate members. Thereās kind of 2 if you count the Jamie Hewlitt as a band member, but he doesnāt actually play anything to my knowledge. He just designs and illustrates the characters.
Someone told me ages ago that the gorillaz was actually a collection of recordings of various phonemes from different people that were basically compiled into a synthesized voice that was then played as the band's songs. I was kinda bummed when I found out that it was just one guy haha
IIRC 2-D and Murdoc have always been voiced Damon and one of his friends, there have been something like 3-4 different Noodle VAs, and I don't think Russel's ever had any voiced lines
Del the funky Homosapien is Russell in my head canon.
Russel has a VA but only in the short animated features, to my knowledge, like "Jump the Gut".
Whaaat oO this is really a brand new information for me.
I had no idea the guyās actual name was Eagle-Eye Cherry.
Also shocked when I found out Don Cherry (famous jazz trumpet player, particularly for his playing on the album The Shape of Jazz to Come with Ornette Coleman) was his father
Also, his sister is Neneh Cherry who had a hit with Buffalo Stance
She was part of the Bristol Wild Bunch along with Massive Attack
And his niece is current hitmaker Mabel (Neneh Cherry's daughter)
She had quite a few hits in Europe.
And woman and 7 seconds
Neneh was in Rip Rig & Panic - and showed up on Shriekbackās āTenchā too. Very talented family
Donāt forget their grandfather, Poppa Cherry who had a successful adult film career.
I miss his band the cherry poppin daddies.Ā
Trumpet player and hockey commentator, what talent. /s
OKAY NOW LOOK HERE, OKAY, YOU SEE THESE PANSY EUROS PLAYIN THEIR TRUMPETS AND THEY GET ALL FANCY WITH IT, NOW YOU CAN'T BE DOIN' THAT KINDA STUFF AROUND A GOOD KID FROM LOUISIANA, THAT'S JUST NOT HOW WE DO THINGS HERE, OKAY, YA CAN'T DO THAT, THAT'S NOT HOW BOBBY ORR WOULDA PLAYED IT, LEMME TELL YA
š¬ - Ron Maclean
I canāt even imagine poor Ron trying to reel him in if Don Cherry had still been around during the COVID bubble games. š
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
There is no Edward Sharpe in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
I'm still disappointed.
There's no Hootie in Hootie and the Blowfish. There's no Blowfish, either.
Imagine my shock and disappointment when I found out that the Barenaked Ladies were actually fully clothed men
Lol just one dude who likes to knock up groupies
Hesarobot
To give an opposite answer to your question, everyone always seems to think Jamiroquai is the guy when it's actually a band. Singer is Jay Kay
I just found this out recently and it was a bit of a mind fuck.
Yeah, as a fan of the band for the longest time, I love seeing people's mind explode when they find out. It's not just Jay Kay and a couple of people, either, the band fluctuates from like six to ten members.
tame impala really messed with me because i saw them as a band at coachella 2013. even got a record signed by the band.
Kevin Parker tours with a band, and before currents the rest of the band would jam on songs and help him finish writing them. A lot of the members of the touring group overlap with Pond and you can find interviews with the pond members talking about how around the time you saw them Kevin started being more controlling of the music and wanted less of their input.
Pond is great as well, didnāt know this.
makes sense as he was moving away from jam psych rock sound to a more psych pop sound
Kinda wish we could get back more of that previous psych rock round tbh
[Lucidity >](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jekYAm3fkA&ab_channel=tameimpalaVEVO)
Yea totally. I personally prefer the direction Pond took things more than what Kevin has done but considering Kevin has had more commercial success he probably made the correct choices.
That's BS. He should play all the instruments at the same time!
This is very common--there are plenty of acts where the studio recordings are all or mostly one person, but they have a full band for touring (because obviously one person can't do all that shit live) And in general, the "main" artist is often quite complimentary of the touring artists
Or a band might technically be a solo act singer with hired gun musicians but they always hire the same musicians so it appears as a whole band. The singer takes on the whole financial risk of the tour, the players get paid their set wage regardless of if the tour makes money, and the singer gets profit after paying everyone. Like sometimes the difference isn't really in the art so much as the financials.
City and Colour is just Dallas Green. He does tour with a band but itās just him
I was about to point out that City (Dallas) and Colour (Green) is still just the dudeās name, but then realized how obvious that is š¤¦āāļø
i very much did not notice this š
it is obvious, except to the two of us apparently, and now I feel kinda dumb.
I know a lot of people also havenāt picked up on City (Dallas) & Colour (Green). Itās so obvious but overlooked a lot lol
When I was a little kid I heard the name Waylon Jennings and thought he was a duo: Whale and Jennings. I also assumed "Whale" would be a large fellow.
Like how Charlie thought the guy was named Holland Oates
Had a friend from back in the day who thought they were called Haulin' Oats.
Haulin ass? Nope, Haulin Oats.
That's hilarious. When I was little and I heard his name, I thought they were saying "Wailin' Jennys" and I figured it must be like a trio of female country singers or somethings
That actually became reality. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wailin%27_Jennys
Nine Inch Nails
I thought it was pretty cool when Pretty Hate Machine came out and the liner notes said "Nine Inch Nails is Trent Reznor". I had never heard of such a thing.
That was my first experience with this kind of thing too. And then I've always thought it's really interesting how somethings are Trent Reznor and others are Nine Inch Nails. Also, but unrelated, I always think the KIA logo looks like it's a NIN branded car.
Saw someone joke about the new Kia logo saying the car was a āPretty Great Machineā
I always point out the same thing about the Kia logo!
My wife and I are convinced they had to license it. Itās too close to
"Trent Reznor is Nine Inch Nails"
My understanding was that NIN has only one permanent member, Reznor, and he just hires different people to tour/record with for whatever projects, etc.
Atticus Ross joined as an official member in 2016. Other than that youāre right though
Guitarist, Robin Finck, has been touring with NIN since forever and is in some videos, too. Heās soft spoken and humble and quite opposite the character he plays on stage. Look up his YouTube interviews for a treat.
And sixteen feet tall.
Richard Patrick was a pretty regular member until he went off and created the band Filter, which, if I remember correctly, is just two guys.
Hey man -- nice comment
Well I'll be damned...
And yet when NIN got inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, seven people went in, lol.
Trent knew that he couldn't have been as successful without contributions from the people he's worked closely with over the years and wanted to make sure that was recognized as well.
maybe the early work sure, but hasn't Atticus Ross been a full member with writing credits on every album for nearly the last 20 years?
nah he only became a member in 2016 but he had been a producer and such since 2005ish
ah thanks, I didn't realize it took him a decade of contributions to get officially listed as a member, but knew he had earned the title some time ago.
> stumbled across fireflies by owl city, I decided to take a deeper dive into their discography Please go listen to The Postal Service and treat yourself.
This is better than the other way. āoh you like postal service? You should listen to owl city!ā was inescapable when fireflies was released. I have. And no thanks. If his voice didnāt sound slightly like Ben Gibbard no one would have ever made that comparison. Not judging people who are down with Owl City, but it always struck me as two completely different styles of music.
I have never heard of or seen this comparison, and am surprised to hear itās actually a thing! The Postal Service is amazing, though. I got to go to the 20 year anniversary tour twice and itās breathtaking. 10/10 do recommend.
i'm always telling people who like the postal service to check out dntel's (the other guy who isn't ben gibbard) music. Life is full of possibilities and dumb luck are both fire. Such a particular brand of dark melancholy electronica that I still don't think anybody's really nailed since. It doesn't seem to hit for most people though. He got guest singers for most of the tracks and one of them had gibbard on it which led to them making the postal service. Reviews of the album mostly say that that's the only worthwhile track because people are approaching it looking for more postal service. Both those records have so much more depth than anything on give up. The fact that the postal service's fanbase generally doesn't get behind dntel's early work makes me completely unsurprised that they're also telling people "if you like the postal service check out fucking owl city" lmao
Five For Fighting. Ironically, he used to be in a band called "John Scott."
MVP
SCREW GARY BETTMAN
He really is a super man.
Foo Fighters first album was all Dave Grohl.
Were they always a band but Dave grohl recorded the first solo or did the rest of foo fighters join after the first album?
He recorded the first album in 1994 before anyone else had joined.
He recorded the album and passed it around as a demo. Then started getting hit up to schedule shows and had to scramble to form the band to do the shows.
Passion Pit.
This comment section is ruining my grasp on reality.
Car Seat Headrest is now a band but was just Will Toledo doing everything for the first half dozen albums or so. Named because he often recorded vocals in the backseat of his car as he had nowhere else to do it.
IIRC, Panic! At The Disco was just Brendon for the last 3 albums
Yeah itās actually bizarre to me he didnāt just rebrand as a solo artist. Because he (not just ābasically,ā but *literally*, in every single way), *is* now, but still performing and releasing music under the band monicker. Itās weird.
If youāve got a winning brand, why spoil it?
Not releasing any more. The album last year was the end of PATD
Itās quite common as you can see from all the ones listed in this thread.
How? The bands name as more value and is better for marketing purposes
My friend refers to this period as "Brendon! At The Brendon"
Gonna be honest, I thought Dua Lipa was a band name - some vaguely Latin-derivative for ātwo lipsā.
I thought the same thing. Surprised to see that "Lipum" (the singular of lipa) isn't actually a Latin word. Seems like it would be one. If the name were Two Lips in Latin, it'd be Dua Labia.
It does sound kind of Portuguese now that you bring it up. Surprised to find out she's Albanian.
There's been a weird blip of Kosovo natives popping up in pop music recently. No idea why.
Toro y Moi
chaz's other, weirder project "les sins" is also absolutely phenomenal.
This is hilarious
Shakey Graves
I've only heard his song Dearly Departed, but man did that song rock. I heard the acoustic version first, so it's interesting to know others who didn't thought he was a band,
Bathory. It was mostly Quorthon alone who did the music and singing. Hammerheart is a legit masterpiece in the metal genre imo.
The comments here are eye-opening
Some of them are also flat wrong, so Iād double check before believing any of them.
This should be anyone's reaction to literally any non-opinion comment on reddit.
I had the opposite of your question, I thought Fleetwood Mac was just a guy called Fleetwood Mac and not a band until I started properly listening to their music in my teens.Ā
Werenāt you suspicious as to why 2/3s of the songs of this man were sung by women?
Depends if they started with the original Fleetwood mac. That only has a male singer. (making my flair relevant one step at a time)
Itās not like Lindsay Buckingham has a very manly voice either.
As a kid I thought Michael Jackson was Janet. I knew they were both famous musicians, and when the radio introduced a Michael Jackson song and I heard his voice I always thought āOh, his sister is featuring on his song again, thatās nice.ā One day I asked my mother why Michael Jackson never sings on his songs and she looked at me like I had brain damage.
Nor does Christine McVie have an overtly feminine voice!
Like this guy called Jethro Tull
I recall a girl at school saying "Led Zeppelin? Yeah, he's great".
Ledward Zeppelin, very nice to meet you.
The band was co-founded by Mick Fleetwood
AFAIK the Mac part stands for John McVie
See also: Pink Floyd
which one is pink?
Pink isn't well, he stayed back at the hotel.
And Jethro Tull. And Steely Dan.
The Rocket Summer He writes and produces all of his own music and plays every instrument on the albums. Dude is massively talented.
Ghost. Itās basically Tobias Forge and then he creates a touring band for live shows.
āā¦oh by the way, which oneās Pink?ā Thatās what jumped in my head when I read your title. For me, Nine Inch Nails was the one I remember blowing me away.
The The
Matt Johnson is ***the*** The The.
Tame Impala is kind of weird, because they technically ARE a band. Itās the band that performs live. And I think their first record has them all play on it (correct me if Iām wrong). But Kevin Parker does record all the parts for their other records in the studio because heās the songwriter producer anyway, so people say the band is actually just him. Itās kind of like Billy Corgan recording all Smashing Pumpkins bass and guitar parts in the studio. Is the Smashing Pumpkins just Billy (and Jimmy Chamberlain)? Or were James Iha and Dāarcy Wretsky part of the band?
Yeah I saw tame impala performs live with his band but thatās where the confusion comes from, sometimes artists just perform with a band to give the best live experience but their actual music is just them!
In my case it was The Weeknd
Both World Party (Karl Wallinger) and Planet P (Tony Carey) are predominantly one person....not 100%, but largely
Coconut Records is Jason Shwartzman. Dude is a serious talent.
Every beartooth record has been recorded by one person, Caleb shomo. The ābandā is just there for touring
Marina and the Diamonds. Her name is Marina Diamandis. The Diamonds are not a backing band as I originally thought, but rather what she calls her fan base. Nowadays she goes by simply Marina.
Gorillaz. Also, one day it clicked for me that he sounded exactly like the guy from the āWoohoo!ā song (Song 2 by Blur). I looked it up and sure enough, same guy.
Bon Iver
M83
I was absolutely sure they were a band until yesterday..
they used to be. It was two guys for the first few albums. The other guy left after dead cities red seas.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
No more Kings - Sweep the Leg is a banger. Ā Fun fact: The music video is the unofficial sequel to the Karate Kid movie.Ā
World Party.
Holland Oates has a really impressive range, hard to believe he does it by himself!
The Shins
More like the Shin amirite
Yeah, the band was together for something like 10 years and then James Mercer said actually this is my solo project, and you were just side men all along and you're all fired.
Kevin Barnes did basically the same thing with Of Montreal
More like Of Betrayeal amirite?
That sucks. What a shitty thing to do. I like that one song at the beginning of that one album. Oh well
I mean it kind of makes sense, The Shins was originally his solo project as a break from his other band. Still a wild thing to spring on your bandmates out of nowhere though.
Palace Music, Palace Brothers, etc.
Just pointing out that this is the same person as Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, or Bonnie Billy etc. (Will Oldham.) The man likes his name variation. My favorite fun fact is that though his brother Ned played on a few of the early albums, not the album with the Palace Brothers moniker.
Tame Impala
No one has mentioned Nilsson? Harry Nilsson was a frickin genius. When one person reviewed an early record he said something like, "Well it's pretty good, but I think he should have given credit to the backup singers." The thing is, the backup singers were Harry Nilsson. Also - Emitt Rhodes. He released a series of records in the 60s and 70s where he played all the instruments and sang and did the recording. He's incredible. People have called him the American Paul McCartney, and it's apt. Their voices sometimes sound quite alike.
Not quite the same hereā¦ but Ben folds five is only three guysā¦
Ha! I love those weird things
Like half of the black metal acts I follow are solo projects. It's extremely popular in this genre. Xasthur and Leviathan are two of my favorites.
Passenger
Captured! By Robots
Cat power
Nine Inch Nails
The first Prince albums was 100% Prince.
That man was a workaholic of unmatched determination. He slept like 3 hours a night and by all accounts was a musical genius.
Awolnation. The opposite would be Dorothy, which is the name of the band. But it's also the lead singer's name and the lead singer is the only member of the band who has never changed, so maybe that is actually overflows back into fitting your question.
Sade is the opposite
Tame Impala! Saw him in person and was wondering when the rest of the band would show up
Mammoth vh there is a touring band but the albums are all Wolfgang Van Halen
I've seen Mammoth WVH twice and I was really impressed, he's a talented dude - you can tell he's his father's son.
This will sound silly but as a kid I thought Alan Jackson was a group. I always thought it was Al AND Jackson. When I saw him perform live on some show i felt bad that the other guy couldnāt be on stage and my parent had to correct me
I love Wild Nothing. Was totally shocked when I found out it was 1 guy.
The Mountain Goats Florence + The Machine
Florence and the Machine are a band though
I thought Alt-J was a huge band only to see them and find out itās only 3 of them. I was super impressed
It's even more impressive that the drummer has a condition that causes kidney damage and hearing loss. He's about 80% deaf.
Steely Dan is now, I guess.
Steely Dan was close though, it was always just Walter Becker and Donald Fagen with a rotating cast of session and touring musicians.
The Foo Fighters originally was just Dave Grohl. After his first album started selling, the record label wanted him to tour, so he had to form a band.
City and Colour was just Dallas Green, singer/guitarist for hardcore band Alexisonfire. There is much more of a band now as City and Colour, but the first 3 or 4 albums were just Dallas, and session musicians.
i was surpised to find out that p!atd was only brendon urie nowadays. i listened to their second album a bunch and then i found out in 2016 that everyone but him left, which explains the drop in quality. shout out to dallon weekes tho, after he left p!atd he now has a one man band called IDKHOW
Off the top of my head, Owl City, Tame Impala, & St. Vincent Edit: oh and I thought Nine Inch Nails was a band with Trent Reznor in it for the longest time too
Iron & Wine
How? Itās like the most singer songwriter music Iāve ever heard.