Beach Slang Open Up On 'Breakup': "That's The Most Cliche Thing We've Ever Done"

Following a heated show in Salt Lake City which led to frontman James Alex telling the crowd this would be the band's last show, and consequently ending the gig early, Philadelphia punk rockers Beach Slang have opened up to The Music about what led to the onstage meltdown.

Owing the onstage break-up of sorts to "the pressure-cooker of being on tour" for over a year with very little breaks, James Alex told us, "We thought we were The Kinks. Just another band fighting amongst themselves, succumbing to the pressures.

"We just had a moment of dumb, little infighting. Stuff that we know was bubbling under the surface, but [because] this thing has taken off so quickly, we never had the time to properly suss it out. So, in the pressure-cooker of being on tour, it just bubbled over, very temporarily, in obviously the wrong venue. That thing should’ve happened in the hotel, or wherever. But we’re a rock’n’roll band, one who wears their hearts on their sleeves, and we had a little disagreement on stage that bubbled into something.

"I walk away from that, and the thing I’m most disappointed about is that’s the most cliché thing we’ve ever done. To be just another band who fights on stage," Alex admits. "It wasn’t like this catastrophic event, which is obviously how it appeared when press picked up on it. There isn’t any real juice or bite to it. We knew those tensions were there. Unfortunately it came out in a public place. Our regret is that we should’ve made the time to talk about it in a place that made more sense, not on stage at a rock’n’roll show."

"We’re a rock’n’roll band, one who wears their hearts on their sleeves, and we had a little disagreement on stage that bubbled into something."

After the show, Alex took to Facebook the following day to apologise for the show, explaining that he realised he was wrong about breaking up the band mere moments after he left the venue. "After I left the stage in Salt Lake, thinking I was ending Beach Slang," Alex wrote, "I was walking down the street, back to the hotel, when a girl from the show ran up to me, hugged me so sincerely, and said, ‘Don’t do this. We need you.'"

Alex also explained to us what led to the Facebook apology.

"I wanted to shed my skin a little bit. Even in a digital age, you’re still looking for the heart in things. I just wanted to put it out there: we’re human, and there needs to be a margin-for-error for human flaw. Here’s an honest representation of that night. We had a bad moment, I split from the place, that thing happened with that person coming up and talking to me and hugging me, and that really snapped me back into, like, ‘what’re you doing?’ I look at it that I’m really lucky, living this dream life; I get to make a living at the thing I love more than anything. But, even in that, you can lose sight of it momentarily. And that just happened to me.

"Now, everyone’s perspective, within the band, about the band, is so much healthier. I can’t be completely upset that it happened, because it was almost like it needed to happen to get where we are now. Sometimes, I think, in order to fix a thing you need to break it first."

Alex also confirmed a few more details about Beach Slang's upcoming second record — in particular, that it is coming out in September and is home to 10 songs drawing from some wider musical influences.

"Musically, I sort of reached a little deeper into my record collection and pulled some other things out. My love for the Psychedelic Furs is a lot more apparent on this record. I think my love for shoegaze and British new-wave — bands like Catherine Wheel and Swervedriver and Chapterhouse — is showing itself a lot more on this record. It absolutely feels and sounds like a Beach Slang record, but I wanted to evolve a bit too.

"I don’t wanna become a Xerox copy of ourselves. I don’t wanna write one song for my career. I’m hoping it’s intelligent evolution. We’ll see how other people feel when it comes out."