Toad the Wet Sprocket Call It Quits
Twelve years after administering their first dose of saccharin
alternapop,Toad the Wet Sprocket have come down from their sugar
high. The Santa Barbara,Calif., quartet, renowned for Top 40 hits
like “All I Want,” “Fall Down” and”Good Intentions,” ended its
six-album career after a failed attempt atwriting new material in
their home town. In a prepared statement, bandfrontman Glen
Phillips said, “In recent months it became harder to keepeveryone
satisfied within the confines of the band. It felt like if we
stayedtogether much longer, the tensions would hurt both the music
and ourfriendships.”
Band manager Chris Blake called Toad’s last stand “the classic
definition ofan amicable break-up based around musical differences
… they no longerreally can meet in something called Toad the Wet
Sprocket.” The split comesalmost exactly three months before the
group was scheduled to play its fifthannual benefit concert for the
Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center. Blake saysthe gig has been
cancelled and it “doesn’t appear likely” there will be aPresidents
of the United States of America-like farewell show.
Instead, the band’s creative forces, frontman Glen Phillips
andguitarist/vocalist Todd Nichols, will begin demoing new songs
for their solodebuts. What the remaining members have on the docket
is still unknown,although the statement says “look for projects
from all four in the nearfuture.”
According to Blake, the band has some-but not
Prince-like-amounts ofunreleased material available, primarily from
Coil (1997) sessions. Thegroup released most of its
quality outtakes on the 1995 odds-and-sodscompilation In Light
Syrup. Of course, a “best of” retrospective willfollow in the
wake of Toad’s demise, though it’s not known if Columbia
Recordswill attempt to rush the release before this year’s fruitful
holiday seasonrolls around.