Band Members Who Left and Came Back: 12 Gaps I Have Drawn

Band members who left and came back are the most satisfying thing I draw. On a list of albums a return is invisible. On a tube map it is a line that stops dead, leaves a white space across several stations, and then starts again, and your eye finds it before you have read a single word. Across the 70 discography maps I have researched, the longest gap belongs to Bill Wyman: 34 years between one Rolling Stones credit and the next.

At a glance: Twelve documented returns from my research sheets, ranging from six years to 34. Bill Wyman is away from the Rolling Stones for 34 years, Lemmy from Hawkwind for 30, Huw Lloyd-Langton for 24, Billy Preston for 16, and Gillian Gilbert from New Order for 14. Every figure below comes from the album credits I worked from when drawing the map, not from band histories. Researched and designed by Mike Bell at mikebellmaps.com.

What a Gap Actually Means on One of My Maps

A line on a discography map is a credited musician. A station is a studio album. If somebody is credited on an album, their line calls there; if they are not, it does not. That is the whole rule, and it is why a gap on the map is a research finding rather than a design choice.

It also means my gaps sometimes disagree with the received story. A musician can be a member of the band for years and still have a break in their line, because they were not credited on a particular record. The reverse happens too: somebody who officially left can keep appearing, because the sessions they played were shelved and released later. Both are on the list below, and I have flagged which is which.

Bill Wyman's 34 Years Is the Longest Return I Have Plotted

Wyman plays bass on 22 consecutive Rolling Stones studio albums, from the 1964 debut to Steel Wheels in 1989. Then the line stops. It stays stopped through Voodoo Lounge, Bridges to Babylon, A Bigger Bang and Blue and Lonesome, four stations and 34 years of white space, and then reappears once, in 2023, for a single bass credit on Live by the Sword from Hackney Diamonds.

That is 23 credits with one enormous hole in the middle, and it is the first thing most people spot on the Rolling Stones map. It sits a few centimetres from Charlie Watts, whose line is the opposite: unbroken across all 28 stations, the last of them drawn from a 2021 session and released after his death.

Lemmy Comes Back to Hawkwind Thirty Years After Being Sacked

Hawkwind produces more returns than any other map I have made, which is what happens when a band runs for 55 years as a revolving collective rather than a fixed line-up.

Lemmy Kilmister holds four consecutive credits between 1971 and 1975, and was sacked the day before Warrior on the Edge of Time came out. His line then does something I did not expect when I started the research: it picks up again as a guest credit on Take Me to Your Leader in 2005 and Take Me to Your Future in 2006. Thirty years of nothing, then two stations.

Huw Lloyd-Langton is on the same map with two separate gaps. He plays lead guitar on the 1970 debut, disappears for a decade, returns for Levitation in 1980 and holds a run to The Xenon Codex in 1988, then vanishes again and surfaces once more on Onward in 2012, 24 years later. Simon House leaves for David Bowie's touring band after PXR5 in 1979 and is back on Space Bandits in 1990. Nik Turner, sacked in the 1976 clear-out, returns for one saxophone credit on Choose Your Masques in 1982.

Two New Order Lines Break at the Same Station and Return at the Same One

Gillian Gilbert's line runs from Movement in 1981 to Get Ready in 2001, then stops. She is absent from Waiting for the Sirens' Call and from Lost Sirens, and returns on Music Complete in 2015, a gap of 14 years.

The detail I like better is that she is not alone. Dawn Zee sings backing vocals on Get Ready and again on Music Complete, and on nothing at all in between: exactly the same two stations, exactly the same 14 years, one a founder member and one a guest. On the Joy Division and New Order map those two breaks sit parallel, and there is no way to see that in a discography.

Tattoo You Is a Reunion That Never Actually Happened

Here is the case where the map needs reading carefully. Mick Taylor's Rolling Stones line runs from Let It Bleed in 1969 to It's Only Rock 'n Roll in 1974, then stops for seven years and reappears for two tracks on Tattoo You in 1981. Billy Preston does something similar, ending a five album run at Black and Blue in 1976 and turning up again on Tattoo You.

Neither man went back into a studio with the band. Tattoo You was assembled largely from unused recordings, so those credits are period-correct even though the release date is not. I plot them where the credits place them and note the reason, because pretending the map shows a reunion would be the easy lie. Preston's real return comes later, on Bridges to Babylon in 1997, 16 years after Tattoo You.

The Full List of Band Members Who Left and Came Back

Twelve returns, ordered by the length of the gap. Every entry is taken from the credits on the two albums either side of it.

Pat Smear's is worth one more sentence, because his line starts earlier than most people assume. It begins on Nirvana's In Utero in 1993, carries into the Foo Fighters at The Colour and the Shape in 1997, breaks for a decade, and has run unbroken since 2007. Both bands are on the same sheet, so the whole thing is one continuous line with a hole in it on the Foo Fighters map.

Which of These Maps Works Best as a Gift

If the person you are buying for enjoys this sort of detail, the maps with the most returns on them are the ones that reward standing in front of a wall. Hawkwind is the richest, with four separate returns and a 55 year span. The Rolling Stones map is the one where a single gap does the most work, because Wyman's white space runs right through the middle of the sheet.

All of them are printed as a Giclée on 230gsm premium fine art paper, textured matte, archival and acid-free, in A2 at 594 x 420 mm (23 x 16 in) and A1 at 841 x 594 mm (33 x 23 in), unframed or ready to hang in a black wood frame, from £42.00. A2 is the sensible first print; A1 is the one where you can read the individual credits without leaning in, which for a map like Hawkwind's genuinely matters.

Questions I Get Asked About Gaps and Returns

Does a gap on the map mean the musician left the band?

Not necessarily. The map records credits, not membership. Somebody can stay in the band and still have a break in their line because they were not credited on one record, and somebody who has formally left can keep appearing if archived sessions are released later. Tattoo You is the clearest example of the second case.

Which musician has the longest gap on any of your maps?

Bill Wyman, at 34 years between Steel Wheels in 1989 and Hackney Diamonds in 2023. Lemmy is second at 30 years away from Hawkwind, and Huw Lloyd-Langton third at 24.

Which map has the most returns on it?

Hawkwind, with four: Lemmy, Nik Turner, Simon House and Huw Lloyd-Langton, who manages two separate gaps of his own. It is a direct consequence of the band operating as a revolving collective around Dave Brock, who is the only line calling at every station.

What is not on these maps?

Live albums, compilations, greatest hits packages, singles collections and reissues are all excluded, so a musician who only appears on a live record gets no station. Only studio albums carry stations, and only musicians credited playing something carry a line, so a producer or engineer with no playing credit does not appear at all.

Where does the data come from?

Sleeve credits and session archives, compiled into a research sheet per artist before I draw anything. Every figure in this post came off those sheets rather than from a band biography, which is why one or two of them differ from the version of events you may know.

Related Music Maps

The natural companion to this piece is the opposite question: which bands never changed their line-up, where the answer turns out to be a very short list. The Hawkwind map and the Fall map are the two that carry the most broken lines between them.

You can see the whole range in the music wall art collection. If you are buying for somebody and cannot work out which band they would want on the wall, an art print gift card lets them pick the map themselves.