Beth Ditto says her band Gossip broke up to deal with their lives.
Beth Ditto says her band Gossip broke up to deal with their lives
The singer and her bandmates Nathan Howdeshell and Hannah Billie have gone 11 years without releasing a record, but have now reformed for upcoming album ‘Real Power’, out 22 March.
Beth told NME when she was asked to detail the reasons the group split: “It got really hard to get people to care about it, people are going through their own things.
“It’s hard to change and become a person on your own. When you’re in a creative relationship like a band, bands do feel like marriages.
“Gossip is the longest relationship I’ve ever had and the longest job I’ve ever had. And it’s the reason why I’ve ever travelled, it was the only band I was ever in and everything.
“So it’s hard to let yourself grow and be independent and you really become co-dependent on people because everything that you do is based on other people. We needed space to deal with our shit.”
Gossip’s last record was 2012’s ‘A Joyful Noise’, and after the band split Nathan moved back to his and Beth’s home town on Arkansas.
During that time, he became a born-again Christian, Beth divorced her childhood friend and wife of five years Kristin Ogata and her dad died.
But in 2019, the band reunited for a 10th anniversary tour of their Rick Rubin-produced record ‘Music For Men’, and Beth started to make a solo record in the producer’s home studio in Kauai.
After Beth asked Nathan to play on the album, it began to feel more like a Gossip record and the group have now reformed.
Beth also told NME about her personal issues: “When you go through a divorce, and especially because she and I were friends for so long, we were best friends, and all of a sudden, that person is gone? That’s the saddest part of it. “That whole history is gone – if you’re on the terms that we are, we don’t speak. That sucks.”
She added about how her ups and downs led her back to Nathan: “You go through these cycles in life every few years where you start to really look at who your friends are and what trust really means to you and what you need out of a community or relationship.
“It made me realise how special Nathan and I were, even if other people don’t see it.
“We speak a language all our own, and it’s beautiful because we will not talk for months and we’ll just text each other stupid (stuff.)
“Nathan’s love language is jokes. You know he’s thinking about you when he just sends you the dumbest (stuff.) It’s great!
“People don’t always understand that about him, I think he’s a very, very weird person. A naturally weird person. I could talk to people, Nathan? I’ve seen him do the most hilarious (stuff.)”
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