{"id":582627,"date":"2026-04-14T00:34:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:34:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/582627\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T00:34:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T00:34:12","slug":"3-classic-rock-legends-who-almost-quit-the-music-business-entirely-and-were-glad-they-didnt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/582627\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Classic Rock Legends Who Almost Quit the Music Business Entirely (And We\u2019re Glad They Didn\u2019t)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of the biggest classic rock legends<\/a> of all time nearly quit the business at one point in their careers, some of whom almost walked away when they were at the top of the charts. It\u2019s definitely hard to imagine, but the following three classic rock legends gave pretty good reasons for wanting to quit while they were ahead. Here\u2019s what they had to say about a few hard moments in their enormously successful careers.<\/p>\n

Paul McCartney<\/p>\n

This is a particularly shocking entry on our list of classic rock legends who almost quit music. After all, Paul McCartney was a legendary member of the legendary rock band, The Beatles, from its inception to their inevitable breakup in 1970. And it\u2019s hard to imagine some amazing solo McCartney classics, like McCartney II or Ram or many Wings albums never getting made. However, McCartney himself said in a BBC radio interview in 2016 that after The Beatles ended, he wasn\u2019t sure \u201cwhether [he] was still going to continue in music.\u201d He began to drink to deal with the stress of lawsuits and business dealings in the fallout of the band.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was Linda [McCartney] who said, \u2018You\u2019ve got to get it together\u2026\u2019 and that led to Wings,\u201d said McCartney<\/a>. \u201cI liked the idea of a band. I wanted to go back to square one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yusuf Islam (Cat Stevens)<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an example of a classic rock star who actually did quit the business\u2026 for a while. Thankfully, Yusuf Islam (better known as Cat Stevens by his OG fans) returned to music after some time away. The \u201cMatthew And Son\u201d folk rock hitmaker converted to Islam in 1977. In 1979, he sold all of his guitars for charity and then announced his decision to leave the music world behind to focus on philanthropy. A just cause, for sure. Thankfully, he returned to music in 2006.<\/p>\n

Bill Berry<\/p>\n

R.E.M. is at the cusp of what many would define as classic rock, but former member Bill Berry\u2019s story is one worth telling. Berry, the band\u2019s drummer, left the band and the music industry entirely in 1997, two years after suffering a cerebral aneurysm that almost claimed his life. Thankfully, he recovered. But according to Berry, his priorities in life shifted dramatically away from music. He became a farmer and wouldn\u2019t return to the music industry until 2022. That year, he returned to music with a supergroup called The Bad Ends. He has also reunited with R.E.M. occasionally.<\/p>\n

Photo by Chris Walter\/WireImage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some of the biggest classic rock legends of all time nearly quit the business at one point in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[2617,88,216,2156],"class_list":["post-582627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-classic-rock","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}