Guildford-based foursome Meet Me In St. Louis have confirmed they have have split up. The news comes after several days of speculation regarding the band's fate.
The band released a statement today, confirming that drummer Paul Phillips had left the band, thus taking the original five members down to an unworkable three. Guitarist, Oli Knowles stated: "I'm writing with great regret to inform everyone that Meet Me in St. Louis has reached its end.
"This is due to a loss of another member (Paul) and the agreement that the band would not be the same if that member were replaced."
On the 30th October last year, the band announced that vocalist Toby Hayes had decided to leave Meet Me In St. Louis but assured fans that the rest of the band would find a new vocalist and continue going on strong.
However, this week, the loss of yet another member proved to be the final straw, and at Monday's gig (Feb 4th), the band made several statements at their show in Norwich which intimated that the band would be no more after the current tour.
It's still unclear as to whether the band will continue with their final three dates scheduled, including tonight's concert in London. But here's the info if you fancy going on down:
6 Feb 2008 - Barden's Boudoir, Dalston, London
7 Feb 2008 - The Boileroom, Guildford
8 Feb 2008 - The Great White House - Ipswich
Here's the statement from Oli Knowles in full:
Hi,
I'm writing with great regret to inform everyone that Meet Me in St. Louis has reached its end. This is due to a loss of another member (Paul) and the agreement that the band would not be the same if that member were replaced. It came as a shock to the rest of us as our plans for the next few months were extremely positive after such a bumpy ride at the end of 2007. When Toby left, we all felt pretty low but we got through it because we knew that the music would be written by the same 4 people and essentially be the same. Although he had input musically it was minimal and was mainly focused on vocal melodies and lyrics. We were able to carry on with confidence and either get a new singer or continue instrumentally. Unfortunately the same could not be said in this instance.
I cannot tell you precisely what the reasons for Paul's decision are. I think it was a snowball effect of events over the past 3 years that made being in a band extremely hard to deal with and eventually became too much.
So that's it. On a positive note, I personally have had the most exciting 3 years of my life. I think that we'd all agree on how proud we are to have been able to create music with each other and perform it to so many people. Writing and playing shows, whether it be to 20 people or 200, was what we lived for. It was what we were, for 3 years. At times it was fucking gruelling but overall, incredible.
It wouldn't have been possible without the help and encouragement of so many people: Our family and friends, fans (a lot of whom have become friends!), BSM and Xtra Mile, promoters, every band we've ever played with, everyone who's put us up for the night or more, anyone who's given us a review, anyone who's ever taken pictures for us, every sound man that let us play really really loud, even those who didn't i guess... Without these people we wouldn't have an album and playing live would have been really fucking dull.
Although the band has come to an end, I'm pretty sure we'll never stop playing music and hopefully other projects will be as exciting if not more.
So once again huge thankyou's and many apologies to everyone.
The end.
Oli and MMISL
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