The Untold Truth Of Bad Company

By the late 1970s, Bad Company was still putting out hits, with their 1979 album "Desolation Angels" doing well on the U.S. and U.K. charts. That changed one year later, as Simon Kirke told Louder that Bad Company was "pretty much spent" by 1980. "We were tired, we were cranky with each other, Paul and

By the late 1970s, Bad Company was still putting out hits, with their 1979 album "Desolation Angels" doing well on the U.S. and U.K. charts. That changed one year later, as Simon Kirke told Louder that Bad Company was "pretty much spent" by 1980. "We were tired, we were cranky with each other, Paul and Boz were not getting on," he recalled. "In fact they got into a fist fight, which is usually the kiss of death for any British band." It wasn't helping either that their label, Swan Song, which was overseen by Led Zeppelin and BadCo manager Peter Grant, was in dire straits following the September 1980 death of Zeppelin drummer John Bonham.

Meanwhile, Paul Rodgers had his own issues with the band while they were recording what would turn out to be the classic lineup's final album together, 1982's "Rough Diamonds." Now clean and sober, he found it harder than ever to relate with his hard-partying bandmates. Furthermore, he took issue with Mick Ralphs' apparent inability to write songs that met BadCo's high standards. "I didn't feel that they were serious about what we were doing. We'd be in the studio and I'd be thinking, 'My god, we're making an album, can we get it together here,' you know? It was just very, very frustrating," he added.

Rodgers decided to leave Bad Company following the release of "Rough Diamonds," and the band decided to "retire gracefully" soon after, as Ralphs described it.

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