Every Time I Die Singer Keith Buckley gave a lengthy explanation about the band’s break-up. He said the band’s problems have been ongoing for “decades” and the split was “inevitable.” “There is absolutely no hate in my heart when I say that whatever is going on with the guys from now on is between them and their God,” Buckley wrote. “Any emotional/ mental connection I had to them was thoroughly severed when I got that letter on Dec. 20th. That was where our paths finally diverged completely.”
“This was inevitable. In all of its ugly confusion and negativity and rumor, our own deep familial dysfunction manicured it perfectly. Our problems with each other go back decades. We should have broken up in 2014 to be honest. But we didn’t, for our own reasons.”
Every Time I Die singer Keith Buckley
“I need it to be crystal clear that after their Twitter statement (then deletion then retraction) on Dec 3rd, the letter I received on Dec. 20th was the only correspondence I received in reply to a request made for a conversation with them on Dec 7th. They did not reach out to me to resolve the issue before Tid The Season. After TTS there were no attempts at contact from anyone in the band (nor our management) until Dec 17th when our manager unexpectedly quit. Still, no group conversation transpired. On Dec. 20th I was sent a legal document stating I was no longer a member of Every Time I Die, but the other 4 members were. That’s a factual order of events as I observed them and I need to establish this before going any further. This is MY Truth.”
Buckley said he heard the band talking about their plans to replace him backstage at a show in Asheville, North Carolina. “I played the show (angrily) and immediately left the tour,” he wrote. “You all know that. What you don’t know is that as soon as I got home, I made multiple attempts to talk to them about their problems with me, since up to the day before the Asheville show I genuinely thought things were better than they had been in a very long time. If you saw me perform then you would know I felt that was true.”
Buckley then tweeted that he was taking a break to work on his mental health, and the band announced “without informing” the singer that they were continuing their tour “karaoke style.” “Additionally, they quoted me as if I condoned or was even aware beforehand that it was something they were going to do. I found out on Twitter, the same way you did. They then retracted that statement and posted a message of support, claiming I was a ‘crucial member’. Despite all this, because of their public announcement of support for me, I thought they wanted to make our resolution a priority. However, after days of being dismissed or outright ignored, my hope then became to try at least make TTS civil.”
Buckley said the rest of the band offered to give the band name to him and to continue without them, an offer the singer declined. “There are a lot of reasons this break up happened, but it could not have resulted in any other conclusion,” he said. “This was inevitable. In all of its ugly confusion and negativity and rumor, our own deep familial dysfunction manicured it perfectly. Our problems with each other go back decades. We should have broken up in 2014 to be honest. But we didn’t, for our own reasons.”
Four of the five members of Every Time I Die, which featured guitarist Andy “The Butcher” Williams of All-Elite Wrestling, announced earlier this week that the group was calling it quits. “Every Time I Die was these 5 members, and we were never budging or accepting any changes. Simply, there is zero truth about the band continuing on with a new singer,” read part of the statement issued by the majority of the band.
Every Time I Die’s ninth studio album, “Radical,” was released in October on Epitaph Records.
