Pioneering prog-R&B outfit Issues have broken their nearly four-year silence to share a farewell statement to their fans and announce a string of three final shows this January. The run will include shows in Anaheim, Chicago, and the band’s hometown Atlanta, and will mark their first shows since 2019. Tickets will be on sale today @ 10am PST and can be purchased here.
Official statement from the band:
Issues has been a central figure in our lives since 2012. We’ve played countless shows, toured almost every continent, met thousands of people, and made so many friends in our peers and travel companions. The importance of this band to our lives cannot be overstated. So many of you were right there with us.
2020 hit us as hard as it could possibly hit a band. Tours canceled after we paid the deposits, new album cycle cut short, and the last any of you guys heard from us was when we fired our singer. All of these were incredibly traumatic experiences, not only for us, but also the fans to whom our music means the most. Life changed for the three of us after 2020 in significant ways that made making Issues our full time job impossible, but it doesn’t feel right to end our story in tragedy. We feel very strongly that the legacy we want to leave be a positive one.
These shows are the final chapter in a long history of pushing the limits of composition, musicianship, and culture in every way we could. We want them to contextualize our body of work over the controversy and member changes and gossip and bullshit and to stand as a monument to the 3 real muffuckas still standing, the music we’re so proud of, and the fans still with us. If this band has ever meant anything to you we want you to be proud of being a part of this too. Proud of the gigs you’ve seen, the tattoos you got, the friends you made. So we’re putting this shit to bed in true Issues fashion. Very, very loudly.
Adored by fans across the globe, Issues have spent the past decade+ breathing much-needed life into a scene that had gone stale in the wake of emo’s second wave. According to Kerrang!, Issues is one of the 22 Artists Shaping the Future of Rock, alongside Foo Fighters, Twenty One Pilots, and Fall Out Boy. Artist of the Year, Best Vocalist, Best Live Band (AltPress ), and Best New Talent (Revolver) winners and nominees, the celebrated Atlanta quartet never failed to deliver on the swelling momentous hype throughout their tenure. Soulful R&B hooks, neo nümetal bounce, prog-rock smarts, and active rock are swirled together in passionate ceremony, bridging the gap between the theatrical shimmer of The 1975 and the heavy syncopation of Meshuggah with energetic ease. Hints of classic funk, jazz fusion, and modern pop swagger weave between pulsating rhythmic punch and guitar driven riff rock, without a moment of incoherence. Issues have mastered the art of the mashup, a genre unto themselves. Roughly three years before the release of their final album Beautiful Oblivion, Headspace was the Number 1 Alternative Album in North America, following the success of the band’s self-titled debut, which cracked the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 in February 2014.
Fans can expect more surprises from the band and special guest announcements leading up to their final shows.
Will you be catching them at one of their final shows?
