You Started It: Rock 'n' Roll's Most Notorious and Bitter Feuds

by Ken McNab

Many of the world’s biggest bands have imploded amid bitter and violent grudges over money, publishing, ego-driven power plays, relationships, drugs, and that famous old bromide, “musical differences.” Iconic bands like The Beach Boys, Fleetwood Mac, Pink Floyd, The Supremes, The Clash, The Eagles, The Band, The Police, Cream, and Guns ‘n’ Roses all suffered rancorous break-ups that have cast long shadows over their legacies.

Musical—and real—brotherhoods such as The Everly Brothers, Jagger-Richards, Ray and Dave Davies, Simon and Garfunkel, and Lennon-McCartney fractured as private brawls transitioned into toxic, public blame games.

Yet, as music lovers, we can’t help but be strangely captivated by the internecine warfare that is part of their shared antiquity, no matter the era you belong to—along with the timeless music they left behind.

Ken McNab’s You Started It charts these tales of rock ‘n’ roll excess and internal strife. He captures unique accounts from eye-witnesses of these legendary bands and their legendary breakups, bringing to life the divisions that produced domino effects of animus that followed them through the decades. McNab provides fresh takes on the human stories behind the in-fighting that saw a stairway to heaven become a highway to hell for the biggest bands of this or any other time.

Genres: Music

279 pages, Kindle Edition

Published November 1, 2022

About the author

Ken McNab is a lifelong Beatles fan and well-respected journalist with Scotland's Evening Times. He lives in Glasgow with his wife and children.

Reviews

[Patrick Macke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun little book that does a really good job of telling a few brief and entertaining stories about how argumentative some of your favorite rock bands are ... While the 15 stories here (really 13 stories because you couldn't pay me to read ones about Guns-n-Roses and the Police) are mostly about fights and grudge-holding and immature behavior and money-grabbin' stoners, they are also fairly useful as short little bios about some great bands - well worth the effort

[J.J. Lair · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biggest feuds and big names involved. You heard Ray and Dave Davies fought, but just how long and deep. Some feuds sounded like hype, but the author goes into more than hype. I can’t say there are surprises, but there is more detail than a music fan usually gets. The one down grade I have to give are the eye-rolling puns in group names; the eagle stopped flying, kink in relations.

[W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too many bloody puns