When bands take a hiatus from music and return years later, the original roster of the band is, more often than not, different, due perhaps to bad blood between bandmates or the members having moved on to other projects or phases of life.
Chapel Hill-based indie rock band Archers of Loaf is an exception to this trend. After deciding to take a break from releasing music as a collective, the band has announced that it will be touring and putting out new music this year.
At the end of 2019, the band performed as a special guest at one of the Cat’s Cradle 50th anniversary shows and played a new song titled “Raleigh Days,” later releasing the single on February 20, their first new song in over 20 years.
The band performed to a sold-out crowd at the Cat’s Cradle on February 21 and started the rest of its tour from there. The band played over 25 songs, including new unreleased tracks, rare B-sides and popular songs like “Wrong” and “Plumb Line.”
“I think the new songs went over really well, and it’s exciting to play the new material we’ve been working on live,” drummer Mark Price said.
The band has kept in touch after taking their haituses in 1998 and 2011. Lead singer and guitarist Eric Bauchman started the band Crooked Fingers, as well as a solo act. Matt Gentling began to play bass in the Band of Horses, and Eric Johnson played guitar on Bachman’s solo albums.
“It’s been great to play music with some of my best friends on the planet again, and I can’t wait to go on tour and travel the country with them this year,” Price said.
The band performed with high energy the whole set and fed off of the excitement from the crowd, as everyone jumped around during “Might” and “Harness in Slums.”
The Cradle was filled with old and new fans enjoying the enthusiasm of the reunited indie rock legends. The band is sticking to its noise pop roots but has also evolved its sound in its new songs.
The Archers of Loaf spent the winter practicing new songs and recording at Overdub Lane in Durham, North Carolina, with sound engineer John Plymal.
“It was nice to work with John Plymal because he knows what he is doing and wants to make this album sound as strong as possible,” Price said. “When we were younger, we would just push all of the instruments up in the recording and call it a day.”
The Archers of Loaf announced four shows in the beginning of December, including one at the Cat’s Cradle. The show sold out in less than a month, and some tickets were being sold online for over $1,000.
Since then, Archers of Loaf have added multiple shows to the initial tour around the country and their record label Merge Records announced on December 7 that the band had been recording new music all winter.
On Record Store Day, June 20, the band will be releasing a seven inch with “Raleigh Days” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ song “Street Fighting Man.” Fans can expect more new music this spring, along with more tour dates that the band has yet to announce.
