Fear Of Music

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Hi everybody,

the following is a message I wrote way back in June, and which, for reasons beyond our control, has been on standby for a painfully long time. We're pretty unhappy and frustrated that it's taken four months to get to you, but better late than never, I suppose. Ideally it should have gone out when it was written, but we had to delay posting it for reasons too boring to go into. We would like to say a big, fat "sorry!" to all of you for the massive delay, and I also must apologise to anybody whose messages I've ignored over the past few months. I have been awfully rude and not answered various questions, and I'm truly sorry. Anyway, enough of the sombre tone - you may have already guessed that the following statement is an announcement of our disbanding, but I should add that we're all doing just fine. Rick asked me to mention that he's been playing with the Lead Balloons (who I can assure you are quite superb), so do check them out. If you do have any questions, comments, messages, anything, then don't hesistate to get in touch on the MySpace, or via our band E-Mail address, fear@nettwerk.com

Lots of love, Mike, Fear of Music



Dear fans,

Mike here, and I'm afraid I have bad news. The long and (sometimes) glorious relationship between Fear of Music and our record label has come to an end. In other words, we have been dropped. In light of this, we have decided to disband rather than make a vain attempt to continue on our own. In other words, we're splitting up. I know that this will come as a big shock and a big disappointment to most of you, and I hope that none of you is too crushed. I remember how upset I was when Easyworld split up, and I hate to think that we've made any of you feel like that. I'm not saying we're as good as Easyworld, but y'know.

Anyway, there it is. After a whopping six and a half years of existence, Fear of Music is no more. Our last gig was at the Cockpit in Leeds, and it was pretty brilliant, certainly a great note on which to end. Redfest unfortunately has been cancelled due to disappointing ticket sales, so unfortunately you won't be seeing us again. I feel I must apologise to anyone who never got the chance to see us play. I hope you can find it in your hearts to forgive us.

As for Jo (or Joe, as I like to spell it), Ali, Rick and myself, well, don't worry about us, we shall most definitely live to fight another day. We certainly took the news about the label's decision as a shock, but once it had time to sink in we actually handled it pretty well, and we mutually agreed that it would be best to call it a day rather than continue our journey as a band without a major label backing us. That's not say that we naturally equated being in a band with being signed to a major, or that we thought it beneath us to do things any other way - the band, I'm sad to say, was in a difficult place anyway, and it just made sense to use this as an opportunity to end whilst in our prime, instead of carrying on and watching the group slide into a slow and steady decline. The good news is that the break up is an amicable one, in fact since this has happened we've never got along better, which is great; the pressures of being in a band do unfortunately put a strain on personal relationships, and so believe it or not, we weren't always the best of friends 100% of the time. With the ways things have happened now though, we can put an end to the band in a much more healthy and happy way than if we'd carried on and split up in a year or two. Basically, we're all very good friends now, which I think you'll agree is good news.

So yeah, we're sad, but happy at the same time. I can't speak for the others, but personally it's actually kind of a relief - being in FoM just wasn't as much fun as it should have been any more and, what with the last few days of the band's existence being such happy ones, and the awesomness of the final gig in Leeds, this actually feels like the best way that things could have ended. However, I know this is probably little consolation to those of you that are upset by the news. I'm truly sorry - I know how much the band meant to some of you, and I just hope that this news doesn't hurt you too deeply. I'm sad about it too, naturally, but hey, we've all gotta move on.

Okay, I feel like I've rambled on long enough. I'll end this by saying a very, very big THANK YOU - to all of you reading this; to our uber-hardcore fanbase, i.e the ones we know by name and talk to regularly either in the real world or on the message boards and MySpace and stuff; everyone who's ever been to any of our shows; anyone who's ever listened to or bought any of our music and enjoyed it; the good, good people at our record label (no hard feelings guys) and our management; anybody who's ever helped us out, driven us around, served us a drink, played us on the radio, given us a friendly smile, written a good review of a gig or a record, given us a gig, shaken our hands, engaged in conversation with us even though we were strangers, given us money or guitars or anything, played drums for us (cheers love), provided any assistance or moral support of any kind or, well anything. Thank you to all of you. Thank you especially to our families, friends and loved ones. And pets (Pebbles, Peak or however you spell it, Darwin, Rick's tortoise, the late, great Franny and Zooey, and whatever Jo's newer Guineas are called). Thanks. Perhaps I might do a blog or something at a later date to thank people more specifically, but you all know who you are.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and again, we're very sorry; but don't worry, the future's bright.



Lots and lots of love,

Michael Ward



PS - chances are we'll all keep doing musical things in the future - if you're interested in hearing about what we get up to, then keep hold of us on MySpace (better yet, subscribe to the blog so that if we post one you'll know about it), stay on the mailing list, keep us alive on Facebook, any of that. Hopefully you won't have heard the last of us. Ciao!