Guided by Voices Break Up, Cancel Tour
Prolific indie rockers Guided by Voices have broken up again. The band announced the news on its website and canceled all of the tour dates on its planned fall trek. Ticket refunds are available at point of purchase.
“Guided by Voices has come to an end,” the band said in its statement. “With four years of great shows and six killer albums, it was a hell of a comeback run…. Thanks to everyone who has supported GBV.”
When The New York Times pressed frontman Robert Pollard for the reason behind the group’s breakup, the singer-songwriter, who has three other bands, replied with an email saying the group had run its course. “I feel we’ve done some great work with these albums, it wasn’t just a reunion to cash in,” he wrote. “But it’s gone as far as it was going to go and to go beyond this point, to any degree or any length would be just going through the motions. It’s time to wrap it up with this particular entity.”
The group had reunited its “classic ’93 – ’96 lineup” in 2010 to play Matador Records’ 21st anniversary concert. The band, whose membership has always revolved around Pollard, had broken up in 2004 with the singer-songwriter saying at the time that, after being a group since 1983, the time felt right.
After the 2010 reunion concert, Guided by Voices picked up the rigorous touring and recording schedule that made them indie icons in the Eighties and Nineties, when they often put out multiple records a year. The group issued three full-lengths in 2012 alone, an album and an EP in 2013 and two LPs in the first half of 2014, in addition to many, many seven-inches and singles. In December, Pollard told Rolling Stone he would consider working on a third Guided by Voices album, in addition to other projects, but “it depends on how much live work we get.”
“When I make an album, I tire of it pretty quickly,” Pollard said in the interview to explain why he is so prolific. “I may listen to it for a week after it’s finished and then I put it away. Within another few weeks, I may have written 10 or 15 new songs. By the time one album comes out, I’m already tired of listening to it and on to the next. I’ve got quite a few vehicles to work with.”