Guiding By Voices, an indie rock band with a long history, has said that reports that they are breaking up are greatly exaggerated, citing a new album as proof.
There was a lot of talk about the Ohio band on May 19 when a new episode of Lou Barlow’s RAW Impressions show accidentally broke the story. This week, Lou talked to Guided By Voices bassist Bobby Bare Jr. and his wife Adelle. Adelle said she had never seen the band live.
Bare replied, “We’re breaking up, you’ll never will.” When Lou says, “You’ll never, they’re done,” Bare seemed to confirm that the band was over when he said, “We’re never going to play again.”
There may have been a misunderstanding about the reveal, though, because the episode’s description on YouTube says that it was “loaded with technical difficulties” and that “the audio is often breaking up.”
After the news seemed to have come out, the hosts of the show talked to Brooklyn Vegan to explain what they thought about it. Adelle said, “From what I know, they didn’t have any plans to play more live shows.” “But I believe they are still recording!” Not split up. Also, I did have a lot of technical issues with the podcast episode.
Lou agreed and said that the band was working on a new album, but he knew there would be “no more live shows.”
A Guided By Voices representative told Rolling Stone that the band was not breaking up, even though rumors were flying everywhere. They also said that a new record called Thick Rich and Delicious would be out on Halloween. At this point, the band hasn’t shared any more details about the new album.
The news that Guided By Voices is breaking up wouldn’t be completely surprising, though. The band led by Robert Pollard started in 1983 and put out a total of 15 albums before breaking up in 2004. Their most successful album was 2002’s Universal Truths and Cycles, which reached No. 160 on the Billboard 200 and No. 3 on the Heatseekers charts.
When they got back together in 2010, they made six more records before they broke up again in 2014. Since getting back together in 2016, the group has been very busy, putting out 19 records in the last nine years, including February’s “Universe Room.” This year, Pollard will also put out the first record from his side project Rip Van Winkle. It will be called Blasphemy and will come out in July.
To back up Bare’s claims that they won’t be playing live again, Guided By Voices haven’t played since an event in Dallas in October 2024. Reviews of that event said Pollard had said it would be their last show. Indeed, their website doesn’t show any more live dates at this time.
