X announce final album and farewell tour
X have announced they will be disbanding following a farewell tour and the release of their final record ‘Smoke & Fiction’ later this year.
The announcement follows a cryptic post on the band’s Instagram earlier in the month, which showed a billboard on Hollywood’s Sunset Boulevard that read ‘The End Is Near’. The billboard included a phone number that the band encouraged fans to call and leave a message.
It also follows their announcement yesterday, (June 26) where the band confirmed that their ninth album ‘Smoke & Fiction’ will be their last. The record will be released on August 2 via Fat Possum.
Alongside the announcement, X shared a new single ‘Big Black X’ – check out the single and the tracklist for ‘Smoke & Fiction’ below:
The ‘Smoke & Fiction’ tracklist is:
1. ‘Ruby Church’
2. ‘Sweet Til the Bitter End’
3. ‘The Way It Is’
4. ‘Flipside’
5. ‘Big Black X’
6. ‘Smoke & Fiction’
7. ‘Struggle’
8. ‘Winding Up the Time’
9. ‘Face in the Moon’
10. ‘Baby & All’
The Los Angeles post-punk band’s departure comes only four years after their 2020 reunion, which saw the original line-up – comprised of vocalist Exene Cervenka, vocalist-bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer D. J. Bonebrake – reunite for the album ‘Alphabetland’.
The record marked the first time the four musicians had collaborated since 1993, and was produced by Rob Schnapf — most famous for working with the late Elliot Smith.
X will embark on a farewell tour of the US, beginning on July 6 in Kansas City, Missouri, before wrapping up on October 30 in Columbia, South Carolina. Tickets are available here.
X’s 2024 farewell tour dates are:
JULY
6 — Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, MO
9 — Delmare Hall, Saint Louis, MO
12 — Varsity Theatre, Minneapolis, MN
16 — Cathedral Theatre at the Masonic Temple, Detroit, MI
19 — Vogue Theatre, Indianapolis, IN
25 — The Regent Theater, Los Angeles, CA
26 — The Regent Theater, Los Angeles, CA
28 — Pacific Amphitheatre, Costa Mesa, CA
AUGUST
22 — Knitting Factory, Boise, ID
23 — Knitting Factory, Spokane, WA
25 — Aladdin Theater, Portland, OR
28 — The Depot, Salt Lake City, UT
30 — Summit, Denver, CO
SEPTEMBER
23 — The Wilbur, Boston, MA
25 — Empire Live, Albany, NY
OCTOBER
21 — White Oak Music Hall – Downstairs, Houston, TX
24 — Minglewood Hall, Memphis, TN
25 — Brooklyn Bowl Nashville, Nashville, TN
26 — Iron City, Birmingham, AL
30 — The Senate, Columbia, SC
Speaking on their surprise comeback to NME in 2020, Doe said: “[Cervenka] and I talked about writing some songs five to seven years ago together, but we weren’t sure where it would go.” Doe and Cervenka are long-time writing partners and were married between 1980 and 1985. “We were doing other creative stuff, and whatever creative force you have goes into whatever’s in place, right? Whether it’s building a car, making a garden or writing a song,” he said.
Cervenka, however, had her own version of events, saying: “Actually, I’ve been writing X songs for 10 years, and finally everybody decided to make a record. That’s the real story.” In 2009, Cervenka was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, but she has continued to write music and tour.
In 2021, Foo Fighters‘ Dave Grohl joined forces with his daughter Violet to cover ‘Nausea’, a seminal track from X’s 1980 debut album ‘Los Angeles’. Grohl was inspired to take on the song after discovering he may be related to X drummer Bonebrake.
The revelation came following Nirvana’s 1992 world tour, when Grohl came home to find a letter from his grandmother. “I found it a bit peculiar that my not-so punk rock 83-year-old grandmother would pay any attention to X’s tour stop, but upon further inspection I noticed that she had circled the name of one of the band members in the article, DJ Bonebrake, and I quickly realised why this article had caught her attention,” wrote Grohl. “Bonebrake was my grandmother’s maiden name.”
Grohl and Bonebrake eventually met at a Foo Fighters show in 2007. “Long discussions of distant relatives and our historic family tree ensued, and by the end of the night we parted ways feeling a bit more connected to the linenage that bought us to this place,” said Grohl.
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Laura Molloy
NME
