Wild Beasts have announced that they will be splitting up, after 15 years as a band. Accompanying this announcement was plans for a final EP, titled Punk, Drunk, And & Trembling , which arrives on October 20.
The band have also confirmed three farewell shows, running from February 15-17 next year in Dublin, Manchester, and a final date at London’s Hammersmith Apollo.
— Wild Beasts (@WildBeasts) September 25, 2017
The band first confirmed their split through a post on their Twitter, and confirmed that all four band members had concluded that it was “time to leave this orbit”.
Several bands, including Foals and Everything Everything, have paid tribute to Wild Beasts after this announcement, taking to Twitter to express their love for the soon-retired group.
We always looked up to this band. Their influence on us has been huge and it won't be the same without them. Long live @WildBeasts x https://t.co/wqqxBxFOAg
— EverythingEverything (@E_E_) September 25, 2017
Frontman Hayden Thorpe also spoke directly to NME about the band’s split, as well as the bands members’ plans for the future. “I guess any band is a remarkable feat of human endeavour in that you function with this sort of synchronicity, you’re in clockwork with one another, you hold gravity on one another. We’ve always been a full-blooded band and we never really wanted to compromise. Boy King [the band’s final album, released in 2016] was as provocative as our first record [2008’s Limbo, Panto], so we thought that this is our story arc. It felt a loving thing to do. It’s like watching the end of a sparkler finish up, it was as hot and dazzling as when we first got going. But rather than huddle around the glowing embers, we decided to extinguish it.”
When asked if the break-up was an amicable one, Thorpe confirmed that it “Absolutely” was, continuing “Although our stories are all individual, we all had the same love and care for what we had created. […] If you look at our band, there was a certain sense that you couldn’t take one person away and it still be intact. That’s something I’m proud of.”
When quizzed about what the future held for both him and his bandmates, Thorpe was again very honest, admitting “At this stage, I very much don’t know. Our focus at the moment is on the final chapter of the band. But there’s something beautiful about not knowing what will come next.
“There is a sense of ‘what will I do without the gang?’ In many ways I feel like I need to go into the witness protection programme and try to figure out if I’m allowed to speak about what I’ve seen, done, the vast array of lifetime I’ve lived over the past few years. Being in a band has been a very visceral, spontaneous and powerful time.”
