Dream Tropes Wiki/Revolving Door Band

This is when a band becomes notable for a constantly changing lineup, with musicians coming, staying for only a few years (or, sometimes, even less than a year) and then leaving—essentially, the musical Sub-Trope of Revolving Door Casting.

The musicians' time spent with the band is important; just because most (or even all) of a band's lineup has changed doesn't automatically qualify it for this Trope.

Here's a clarifying non-example: The original lineup of the Four Tops were Levi Stubbs, Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton. All but one (Fakir) either died or became too ill to stay with the band (and later died) and were replaced (they were even a trio for a while); one of the replacements (Theo Peoples) left in 2011 and was himself replaced. But these changes happened years apart: they were Stubbs, Benson, and Fakir from 1997 to 1998 (when Peoples joined); Stubbs, Benson, Fakir and Peoples from 1998 to 2000 (when Stubbs suffered a stroke and was replaced by Ronnie McNeir), McNeir, Benson, Fakir, and Peoples from 2000-2005 (when Benson died and was replaced by Roquel Peyton, Lawrence's son), and McNeir, Peyton Jr., Fakir and Peoples from 2005-2011 (when Peoples left and was replaced by Harold "Spike" Bonhart).

It can be anything from a single position having a different musician from time to time, to the second type of I Am the Band, to its Logical Extreme: the group going through entire lineups on a regular basis. In short, it's a band that makes the phrase Musical Musicians not redundant. For when this happens to the cast of a Long Runner series, or a series of films, see Long-Runner Cast Turnover.

NOTE: It is not unheard of for a band to fit both this and Long-Runner Line-up.

## Examples

### Metal

* Uncle Dunkle: *Good lord*. The longest-lasting lineup lasted for only *3 months*. Mr. Dunkle and Gary the Astronut are the only consistent members. Wikipedia had to resort to *making a separate page to list all the band members*.

### Rock

* Rinava: Ryu Judoku's beloved band has had 4 different keyboardists, 3 different drummers, 3 different rhythm guitarists, and 3 different bassists (it's different than Kitty's 3 pattern as in there's only three 3's and a 4). Two of the bassists were also two of the drummers, and one of the rhythm guitarists is the band's current drummer.

### Unsorted

* Scarlet Grain... *good lord*. The longest-lasting lineup lasted only two years. The only other original member aside from Alexander Meyers is lead guitarist/backing vocalist Bob Ash, and even he was away from the band for a long time. And when he rejoined in 2010, the band kept his first replacement Louis Paulsen, who had rejoined with the 2007 reunion of the band.
* Kitty has gone through 3 different rhythm guitarists, 3 different bassists, 3 different keyboardists, and 3 different drummers. To put it short, the former band member lists have *four 3's*. Kitty Saughai (the resident I Am The Band example), Dennis Nona, and Melissa Hiyoko Keri have been the only consistent members, and even then Melissa has been keyboardist from '75 to '88, briefly in 2004, and again since 2017. Marshall Fernandez of The Given Takers took on keyboards from 2014-2016 while Jaylin Rounds of Rinava laid down the keys from 2005-2013 and again in 2016 as an interim member while Melissa was in talks with Kitty to rejoin.