Just ask the members of Stone Temple Pilots, the multiplatinum-selling, alternative-grunge band that recently reunited after more than half a decade's "separation" for a 65-date tour of North America's top-tier summer music festivals and amphitheatres.
Last month, faced with the very real possibility that singer Scott Weiland would spend up to eight days behind bars for a 2007 drink-driving charge, each member of the rock quartet voiced a different perspective on how disruptive Weiland's sentencing had been on band unity.
"Seeing a friend go through something like this, it's an uneasy feeling. It's a drag," said guitarist Dean DeLeo.
"To be honest with you, it's going to be a lot easier for me than it is for him," drummer Eric Kretz said of Weiland.
Robert DeLeo, Dean's brother and STP's bassist, seemed more concerned about his own self-preservation than his band-mate's debt to society: "I gotta take care of myself, man."
The scarecrow-thin Weiland made his feelings on the matter known.
"I live my life the way I live my life. I don't have to make any apologies."
Despite selling about 35 million albums worldwide and topping charts six times since 1992 with hits such as Plush, Sex Type Thing and Interstate Love Song, Stone Temple Pilots were initially dismissed by rock cognoscenti as Pearl Jam-clones.
But the group has learned to take any criticism in stride, likening themselves to no less an act than Led Zeppelin.
Judging by certain empirical data (if not cultural impact), the comparison isn't far off the mark.
Like Led Zep, the Pilots' hits remain in steady rotation on radio.
Additionally, the band's back catalogue sells at a consistent clip.
Maybe it has something to do with the still-commanding presence of one of the last bad boy rock stars - Weiland's snarling charisma, otherworldly androgyny and smoke-and-whisky tunefulness are among STP's most identifiable hallmarks, and his narcotic combustibility is its biggest liability.
Now, the group's members are taking pains to ensure that fans remember them fondly - even though STP never officially faded away.
"Success to us does not mean the number of records sold," Dean DeLeo said.
"It means making an indelible mark on the face of music."
Added Weiland: "Our biggest goal when we first got together was to create a legacy, musically.
"Now there's a whole new generation of kids getting into the band. The respect has multiplied like a snowball that goes, um, downhill."
Three days after making those remarks, Weiland would check himself into and be released from jail, having served just six hours of his sentence.
Not what you'd call hard time - even for a flamboyant frontman with a predilection for skin-tight trousers and mascara - and the band's tour started as planned on May 17.
It was Weiland's second taste of freedom in three months.
In March, he sprang himself from Velvet Revolver, the hard rock group comprising several former Guns N' Roses members.
That group scored a hit with its first album, Contraband, winning a Grammy and touring the world, but its 2007 follow-up, Libertad, never caught on.
VR's coffin was effectively shut after Weiland announced on stage at a gig in Glasgow, Scotland, that the group would be no more - without having finalised the decision with his bandmates first.
By then, Dean DeLeo had called Weiland about resurrecting Stone Temple Pilots with the tantalising offer of a big payday for a bunch of summer festivals.
Although STP seemingly thrives on conflict, its members have not always enjoyed the tumult that so often accompanies fame.
The bandmates went their separate ways in late 2002, bottoming after gigs with Aerosmith.
While Weiland toured with Velvet Revolver, the DeLeo brothers joined Filter singer Richard Patrick to form Army of Anyone in 2005.
Its sole album failed to catch on, and the group went on "hiatus".
"We probably could have got this thing off the ground if we were prepared to go on the road," Dean DeLeo said.
"But quite honestly, man, I'm far too lazy to do that." - Chris Lee
