Keith Buckley has addressed Every Time I Die’s break up at a solo show in London.
The band underwent a messy split in January, following a public spat between frontman Buckley and the band’s other four members.
During the show on Monday (February 7), Buckley addressed the split saying “it is not the end of anything: I can’t even say what the state of the band is right now.”
He continued (via Metal Hammer): “I don’t know what the future holds, but I know that, right now, this is exactly where I fucking want to be, and I’m very thankful to be here.”
“I think that it’s an objective fact that Every Time I Die existed for longer than most bands, so there was something in that formula that was alchemic, that was completely singular to us. And I think it was the rivalry… I think it was just those two forces constantly battling which kept pushing the band along. And once I got sober, and I realised that that was a very antiquated way to power shit…[I thought] we don’t need to push the band forward with negativity, we can talk about things now.”
On stepping away from the band he said: “I really felt that was a good thing for everyone, because I knew that there was friction between Jordan and I. There were a lot of things that happened during the pandemic that still haven’t come out between he and I that led to this, there were multiple attempts at communication, therapy and everything. I love therapy… and I went to it, and I encouraged it for the band, but it was cut off, and I didn’t know why.
“I just feel like I was looked at in bad faith, and I understand that, because I was an alcoholic and I did a lot of terrible things, and so it’s easy to see someone who’s constantly fucking up their own life and just realise that every decision they make is gonna suck, no matter what… And I know that that bad faith filter had been put on for 20 years.”
“All I hoped to do was get a clean start and say, take all those filters away and try to look at me now as someone who is totally changing the way they’re living and thinking and speaking and interacting and communicating, and give it a chance: just pretend that I’m not the guy that you got used to. And they couldn’t do it. And it broke my heart.”
Regarding the split, he went on to say that he “did not see this coming” and that he was “led to believe that everything I was doing was working for the betterment of the band.”
“I wanted the band to come out of the pandemic shot out of a fucking cannon, because I knew that ‘Radical’ was going to do it for us, it was going to be the one that finally got us to a Mastodon level, or whatever…I just wanted the band to have their time to shine.”
On January 18, bassist Steve Micciche, guitarists Jordan Buckley and Andy Williams, and drummer Clayton “Goose” Holyoak all shared a joint statement saying their last show with the band took place in December.
They wrote: “While we hoped to come to an agreed upon legal statement that outlined the truth, we were informed today of something planned to be released not mutually agreed upon that consists of inaccuracies and controls a narrative to benefit one.”
The message went on to say that there has been “no direct communication” with Buckley, saying “it’s either impossible for direct communication with him solely or we’ve been cut off to any and all communication by him himself”.
The following day, Buckley responded with a lengthy statement, saying that “any emotional [or] metal connection” he had with his former bandmates had been “thoroughly severed” when he got a letter from a law firm on December 20, which Buckley had shared on the same day the band’s statement was issued.
The letter said that the firm, Savur Law, had been retained by the rest of the band “for legal representation in connection with a separation agreement” between them and Buckley, requesting he contact them to discuss “the business terms of an amicable separation between the parties”.
The news came after the band said last month that they were working on issues with Buckley “privately” after the singer announced an impromptu hiatus days earlier, saying he’d be skipping three of the band’s scheduled shows.
“Caring for my own mental health has taken priority over EVERYTHING else in my life,” he wrote at the time. After Every Time I Die made their own announcement confirming that the shows would not be cancelled, with fans invited to “come and help [them] finish this tour”, Buckley hit back online.
Buckley went on to allege that his brother, Jordan Buckley, “[told] an outsider that ETID had been in talks to replace me this entire time”. Following the statements from Buckley, Every Time I Die announced that they would be cancelling the last three shows of the tour.
