Why are bands breaking up in 2024?
This year has seen an influx of beloved indie bands taking a break.
Photo: Sundara Karma
First The Magic Gang, then JAWS and now Sundara Karma. If you look at my top artists from 2017, you might just see those three in that exact order. So, why are we seeing more groups disbanding?
The simplest answer is that they want to explore different avenues and don’t want to be confined by the sound they’ve become known for. Sometimes, it really is that simple. In The Magic Gang’s case, they explained that the band had always functioned as four songwriters, four individual musicians, who would then come together and work on individual ideas as a unit. When announcing their break-up, they said they wanted to explore creative pursuits individually. And do that, they have.
During their farewell tour, after I saw them take a final bow in London, I travelled down to Bristol to see them out and catch two of them solo. Bassist Angus Taylor — who performed under Gus Tiramani — took to the early afternoon on a boat, performing last minute with just his guitar, before frontman Jack Kaye took to the outside stage right after as part of the duo Go Easy, joined on stage by Angus and Magic Gang drummer Paeris Giles, with guitarist Kristian Smith watching from the crowd.
Although this chapter is closed, the book isn’t yet finished so, maybe, like ghosts of indie past Swim Deep and Peace, we might see a return in the future. If there’s one band I’d like to hear a whole lot more from, it’s The Magic Gang.
Birmingham band JAWS announced their break-up earlier this month with three farewell shows, similar to The Magic Gang’s final run of dates that took place in May of this year. The only statement made was on their socials, with the message, “This has been everything to us, and we’re so lucky to have been able to do this for the last 12 years. For now it’s goodbye. We’ll miss you.” Considering they chose their wording wisely and opted for a “for now”, we could see the band back together in the future.
With a lot of these bands, it could be that they have tried hard to make a career out of it, and it’s simply not a viable choice anymore. Touring is expensive, getting studio time is expensive, hiring PR, managers — the lot — is expensive, and most, if not all, of these bands are lucky to break even. Making money from music isn’t the same anymore, if it ever was viable if you weren’t hitting the mainstream.
Sundara Karma are the latest band to announce their departure, one that nobody saw coming, considering the band had released their third album Better Luck Next Time last year and had completed a lengthy headline tour earlier this year. Similarly to The Magic Gang, the Reading band have decided to part ways to focus on music projects outside of the quartet.
It seems that the general consensus with these bands is that it became impossible to work with everyone’s personal taste and please everyone. We change, our tastes change too, and sometimes they go in the opposite direction.