Misfits perform in 1980s.
Courtesy Everett Collection
The Misfits helped kick-start all things horror-punk in the late ‘70s, but the classic lineup didn’t last. They split in 1983 and 12 years later, bassist Jerry Only and guitarist Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein actually secured the rights to tour and release music without iconic singer Glenn Danzig. Here are other bands who have reunited in the past.
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Bands Who Reunited (Even for One Night)
Image Credit: Courtesy Everett Collection The Misfits helped kick-start all things horror-punk in the late ‘70s, but the classic lineup didn’t last. They split in 1983 and 12 years later, bassist Jerry Only and guitarist Doyle Wolfgang von Frankenstein actually secured the rights to tour and release music without iconic singer Glenn Danzig. Here are other bands who have reunited in the past.
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Guns N’ Roses
Image Credit: Jack Lue/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images The peak era Guns N’ Roses lineup that delivered classics like “Sweet Child O’ Mine” and “Welcome to the Jungle” was an absolute force. Frontman Axl Rose always kept the band going, but for a long time, it seemed July 1993 would remain the last time he’d ever perform with guitarist Slash and bassist Duff McKagan.
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Guns N’ Roses: The Reunion
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Coachella But in 2016, Axl, Slash and Duff finally buried the hatchet and reunited. It all began with a surprise L.A. club show on April 1 and on that same day, Guns N’ Roses announced a North American stadium tour for that summer, to go along with other high profile gigs like Coachella.
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Spice Girls
Image Credit: JMEnternational/Redferns After becoming pop icons and achieving worldwide fame, the Spice Girls split to focus on solo work following 2000’s Forever, which didn't sell nearly as well as its two predecessors.
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Spice Girls: The Reunion
Image Credit: MJ Kim/Spice Girls LLP via Getty Images But the girls didn’t stay on hiatus forever. They went on a reunion tour in 2007 (pictured here) behind their new greatest hits compilation. They also reunited to play the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. And during an appearance on the Today show on Aug. 4, Melanie Brown said she'd be up for a reunion to mark the upcoming 20th anniversary of "Wannabe" in 2016. "Hopefully, we’ll gather the troops around, and we’ll get to do something to celebrate it next year," she said. "It’s in my plan, I don’t know about anybody else’s.”
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The Grateful Dead
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images The world lost Jerry Garcia in 1995 and for almost two decades, it looked like the Dead might never play again (even though various members continued to play together in various lineups).
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The Grateful Dead: The Reunion
Image Credit: Taylor Hill/FilmMagic In January 2015, that all changed. The band announced it would reunite with Phish’s Trey Anastasio (pictured in 2012 with guitarist Bob Weir) for three 50th anniversary "Fare Thee Well" shows at Chicago’s Wrigley Field and in Santa Clara, Calif.. And Deadheads everywhere rejoiced with the announcement that on Aug. 5 that the Dead would be resurrected with John Mayer as Dead & Company. The group, which will include three of the "core four" original players — Weir, drummers Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann — will make its debut at Madison Square Garden on Oct. 31.
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Velvet Underground
Image Credit: Mick Gold/Redferns By the time the Velvet Underground parted ways in 1973, the group often credited with inventing alternative music was down to exactly zero original members. Founding frontman Lou Reed hadn’t been playing with the band since 1970.
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Velvet Underground: The Reunion
Image Credit: Leon Morris / Redferns The surviving original lineup announced its reunion in 1992 and got through a European tour before tension between Reed and multi-instrumentalist John Cale dissolved the band again.
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The Who
Image Credit: Ron Howard/Redferns Long after their beginning in the 1960s, the band was never quite the same after drummer Keith Moon died in 1978.
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The Who: The Reunion
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage They stopped touring following a 1982 run in support of that year’s It’s Hard, their last studio album until 2006. The band played shows here and there until their next full-fledged tour in 1989. Ever since then, fans of a new generation have had a chance to catch the legendary band, minus Moon and bassist John Entwistle, who died in 2002.
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The Replacements
Image Credit: Alan Singer/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images When the Replacements officially disbanded in 1991, the Minneapolis punk band was far removed from its mid-'80s heyday; in fact, frontman Paul Westerberg was the only active member.
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The Replacements: The Reunion
Image Credit: Gary Miller/FilmMagic In 2013, the ‘Mats returned to play a handful of Riot Fest shows (and later, full-fledged tours) with only two original members, but Westerberg and Tommy Stinson actually sounded sharper and cleaner than they did in their more destructive days. In April 2015, The Replacements started "Back By Unpopular Demand" U.S. and European tours, but on June 5 at the Primavera Porto festival in Spain, Westerberg announced that the 'Mats — "lazy bastards to the end," he declared onstage — were playing their final show.
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The Police
Image Credit: Terry O'Neill/Getty Images After one hit album after another, The Police booked a studio session in 1986, but it was doomed from the start. Frontman Sting’s priorities had shifted to his own solo material, and drummer Stewart Copeland breaking his collarbone in a horse-riding accident didn’t exactly help matters. The studio time yielded no album and The Police called it quits, leaving 1983’s Synchronicity as their last LP.
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The Police: The Reunion
Image Credit: Larry Marano/Getty Images When the trio finally got back together in 2007, they didn’t record any new music, but instead gave their fans a wildly successful reunion tour. From 2007 to 2008, the 151-date trek grossed $362 million.
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The Monkees
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images The Monkees’ original run ended in 1971, after the 1970 album Changes was a critical and commercial disappointment for the group, which was originally formed for a sitcom about a Beatles-esque band.
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The Monkees: The Reunion
Image Credit: Dave J Hogan/Getty Images However, support from MTV and Nickelodeon (they were a made-for-TV band after all) encouraged the band to regroup for a successful 20th anniversary tour in 1986. Though Davy Jones died in 2012, the group's surviving members — including Micky Dolenz and Peter Tork — reunited for brief tours in 2012 and 2013.
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The Cars
Image Credit: Chris Walter/Getty Images The Cars’ 1987 album Door to Door didn’t sell nearly as well as its forerunners, and Ric Ocasek and his fellow “Just What I Needed” rockers decided to call it quits in 1988.
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The Cars: The Reunion
Image Credit: Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images In 2011, they reunited to release a new album called Move Like This. Bassist and occasional lead vocalist Benjamin Orr died in 2000 but was thanked in the liner notes: "Ben, your spirit was with us on this one."
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Sleater-Kinney
Image Credit: Getty Images North America When Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006, guitarist Carrie Brownstein was years away from her starring role on Portlandia, so the punk trio’s appeal was mostly limited to cult status.
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Sleater-Kinney: The Reunion
Image Credit: Taylor Hill/WireImage SK’s surprise 2014 reunion (which led to the widely acclaimed 2015 album No Cities to Love) was so warmly received that on its comeback tour, Brownstein, Corin Tucker, and Janet Weiss played far bigger venues than ever before.
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The Sex Pistols
Image Credit: Virginia Turbett/Redferns The Sex Pistols’ 1978 U.S. tour wrecked the volatile punk band. Plagued by violence, addiction, poor planning and in-fighting, the O.G. punk band disbanded after the tour’s final date in San Francisco.
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The Sex Pistols: The Reunion
Image Credit: Richard E. Aaron/Redferns In 1996, the always anti-corporate Pistols did the unthinkable — reunite. With original bassist Glen Matlock replacing the deceased Sid Vicious, they embarked on the "Filthy Lucre Tour" and remained active together (without releasing new music) until 2008.
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Pulp
Image Credit: Martyn Goodacre/Getty Images Pulp was one of the coolest Brit bands in the mid-to-late ‘90s. In the Britpop scene, Oasis and Blur got more attention, but a good case can made for Pulp’s superiority, in large part due to the charismatic frontman Jarvis Cocker. They ultimately broke up in 2002.
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Pulp: The Reunion
Image Credit: David Wolff - Patrick/Redferns via Getty Images The band reunited in 2010 and toured the world, even earning themselves a documentary (2014’s Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets). They’ve hinted at making new music, but haven’t produced any yet. "Everything to do with Pulp or to do with me happens at such a glacial pace, that's it hard to tell whether anything's happening or not, but when it does, the whole geography of the planet is changed," Cocker told NME in February 2015.
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Outkast
Image Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc Hip-hop duo OutKast — Andre 3000 and Big Boi — went their separate ways after starring in and making the soundtrack for the 2006 Prohibition Era musical film Idlewild.
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Outkast: The Reunion
Image Credit: Braastad, Audun/AFP/Getty Images In 2014, they reunited to play dozens of festivals (beginning with Coachella) but sadly, didn’t give us the gift of new music. There were plenty of jumpsuits, though!
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*NSYNC
Image Credit: Franziska Krug/Getty Images *NSYNC's swan song — the boy band's 2001 album Celebrity — was a commercial success, but artistically, the group had splintered, with Justin Timberlake and his songwriting skills starting to overshadow the rest of the group
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*NSYNC: The Reunion
Image Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic for MTV They split in 2002 and didn’t get together on the same stage again until the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, where they performed “Bye Bye Bye” in the middle of a Justin Timberlake solo medley. And hopes for some kind of reunion at SNL's 40th anniversary celebration (which had Twitter all twitterpated beforehand) were sadly dashed.
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Led Zeppelin
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images On Dec. 4, 1980, two months after the tragic death of drummer John Bonham, Led Zeppelin announced they were disbanding to saddened fans while promoting their 1979 album In Through the Out Door.
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Led Zeppelin: The Reunion
Image Credit: Danny Martindale/Getty Images Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones reunited to play Zeppelin material at 1985's Live Aid concert, and again in 1988, but both shows were poorly received. In 2007, Led Zep reunited at London’s O2 Arena at a benefit for the deceased music executive Ahmet Ertegün’s charity. Bonham’s son Jason filled in on drums.
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Fall Out Boy
Image Credit: James Looker/ Retna Pictures After leading the pop-punk scene for the better part of a decade, Fall Out Boy was in need of a break following 2008’s Folie à Deux.
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Fall Out Boy: The Reunion
Image Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic After their personal side projects fizzled out, the four members returned to Fall Out Boy, ready to save rock and roll. In fact, that’s exactly what they named their 2013 comeback album (Save Rock and Roll), which included the hit “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light ‘Em Up).” Patrick Stump, Pete Wentz and co. scored their third No. 1 album with the release of American Beauty/American Psycho in January 2015.
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Destiny’s Child
Image Credit: Getty Images After releasing a pair of albums in 2001, Destiny’s Child went on hiatus and returned in 2004 with Destiny Fulfilled. It would prove to be their last album, as Beyoncé’s solo career headed straight for the stratosphere and Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams took their own paths.
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Destiny’s Child: The Reunion
Image Credit: Kevin Mazur/WireImage The trio briefly reunited during 2013’s Super Bowl, running through a handful of Destiny’s Child hits during Beyoncé’s halftime show (pictured) and then appeared together in March 2015 at the Stellar Gospel Awards, where they performed "Say Yes" from Michelle Williams' Journey to Freedom album. A rep for Beyonce told Billboard at the time that rumors for a reunion tour were "completely false."
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Cream
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images The rock supergroup Cream — which included guitarist/singer Eric Clapton, bassist/singer Jack Bruce and drummer Ginger Baker — only existed for three years in its first run, from 1966 to 1968.
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Cream: The Reunion
Image Credit: KMazur/WireImage However, Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker reunited in 1993 for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and again in 2005, for four shows in London’s Royal Albert Hall, the site of their last 1968 show.
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Blondie
Image Credit: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images The punk/new wave band fronted by Debbie Harry had a nice run of hits during the late 1970s and early 80s, but the disappointing 1982 LP The Hunter spelled the end… for a while.
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Blondie: The Reunion
Image Credit: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images The group reunited 15 years later and have been together ever since. Their most recent album was 2014’s Ghosts of Download.
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Blink-182
Image Credit: Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images Blink-182 went on indefinite hiatus in 2005.
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Blink-182: The Reunion
Image Credit: Chelsea Lauren/WireImage After drummer Travis Barker sustained life-threatening injuries in a plane crash, the pop-punk trio decided to give it a go again, eventually releasing the 2011 album Neighborhoods. By 2015, however, guitarist Tom DeLonge stopped playing live with the band and was replaced by Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba.
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A Tribe Called Quest
Image Credit: Raymond Boyd/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images The Native Tongues scene leaders ended their first run in 1998, with the release of The Love Movement. They haven’t recorded any proper studio albums since.
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A Tribe Called Quest: The Reunion
Image Credit: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images ATCQ reunited on Nov. 13, 2004 — the same night Ol’ Dirty Bastard died — and included a tribute for the Wu-Tang rapper. They played various reunion shows (including Kanye West’s "Yeezus" tour) until finally calling it quits in 2013.