Bands End and That's Okay

By Ian French

Yesterday Slightest Clue played their last show, wrapping up over half a decade of jamming around Vancouver and beyond.

It always sucks to see a band you love end. But a band calling it quits doesn’t always have to be sad. Sometimes artists just need to start fresh. It’s like how people can get comfortable at their well-paying job for 8-12 years, the issue that arises is that it starts to get stale. 

That feeling of change is not saying you hate the work, or the environment, or the people you work next to; it just means you’re ready for something new. A new challenge.

a few weeks ago, we had to say goodbye to one of our founding members. TJ Campbell (like the soup) 

and like the soup, he’s been canned. (just kidding) TJ yearned for the sands of his homeland of Phoenix, Arizona (another perfectly legit and in no way negative reason to pull the plug on a project).

This stuff happens. Whether you’re the Beatles, or Fleetwood Mac, or Oasis, or Fleetwood Mac again, or One Direction, or Fleetwood Mac for a third time… Bands break up. But it’s not always like a Hall-&-Oates split with restraining orders involved down the line. 

It can be amicable and even exciting. Your favourite artists might be pulling out of one band, but that probably means their creative energy is going to go into a new project, something they might feel suits them better or there might be some incredible opportunity that you just can’t say no to. As sad as it can be, it’s equally intriguing to see what comes next. 

It’s not always sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes people aren’t just on different pages; they’re reading completely different books. Some may want things to end, while others desperately hold on tight. Think about Ringo, he felt right at home with the Beatles, but even he had the awareness that if John and Paul left, there wasn’t much of an audience left just for him.

Part of the reason that breakups are so common in music is that toxicity can be packaged and sold successfully as a hook for a band. That’s rock n’ roll, baby. On the outside it looks edgy and enticing, but behind closed doors, after each show, it could lead to a yelling match in the green room. 

That’s one of the reasons some artists like Passion Mango and Tiger Really choose to rely on themselves rather than the volatility of a band for the creative process. There’s just less that can go wrong, the only one who can really end the project is you. 

On the other hand, going it alone is hard. Bands exist for a reason and sometimes the combination of different styles and creative views contributing to a project is really what makes it special.

Breakups happen across all walks of life, don’t always have to mean bitterness, implosions, or tea-spilling drama. Sometimes they’re about timing, growth, or just the natural end of a great run.