Noughtie: Where are They Now?

Overall Favourite Artists | Best of 2000 | Overall Least Favourite Artists | Best of 2001

Where Are They Now? | Best of 2002 | Best New Artists | Best of 2003 | My Guilty Pleasures
Best of 2004 | My Favourite Riffs | Best of 2005 | Underrated Artists | Best of 2006
 My Favourite Albums | Best of 2007 | Best Videos | Best of 2008 | Most Important Artists
Best of 2009 | 100 Favourite Songs of the Decade | 100 Most Important Songs of the Decade

Hey there, Part 5 is here, if you haven't counted there's 22 parts to the Noughtie series, with the last two being very long. Don't you just get all nostalgic, when you reminisce about artists of yesteryear, that just disappear, then you remember them again? I hope that some of these artists you remember, some more than others just because they were more popular. Below are 10 bands that have disbanded since the previous decade. They all had different amounts of success and decided to pack it in for different reasons. Let's go through them now.

10. The Darkness

This is definitely one band I'm happy that have gone, although there have been rumours they may get back together. This band is probably the most popular on the list, for frustrating reasons. I hated The Darkness, yet so many people loved them, they loved their stage antics, their apparent charm, their Queen-thieving guitar riffs and their catchy songs. However their gimmick ran short, their second album was a major flop. Since then they have disbanded, and ex-lead singer Justin Hawkins has attempted and failed to stay in the mainstream music eye, with his attempts at Eurovision and newer band Hot Leg both ending with little success. Personally, I hope they don't get back together but I'm sure a lot of people disagree.

9. The Distillers

It's arguable that The Distillers were a band as lead singer and main guitarist Brody Dalle pretty much wrote every song and there were consistent line-up changes. The Distillers were a punk and hard rock combination, that had some decent success with such hits as "Drain the Blood" and "City of Angels". Brody's harsh vocals were the distinctive element in the music. As time went on from the sounds of things Brody Dalle just got fed up and disbanded her own band. She then formed a relationship with Josh Homme, lead singer of The Queens of the Stone Age, and had a child. Not long afterwards she formed a new band called Spinnerette, a band with a completely different sound and direction (I prefer Spinnerette to The Distillers by the way).

8. The Ordinary Boys

Indie band The Ordinary Boys fronted by Samuel Preston rose to fame in the mid noughties with their hit "Boys Will Be Boys". They didn't really follow that up with anything and Preston resorted to appearing on Celebrity Big Brother to keep interest in the band. It worked, as they re-released the song afterwards and it got to #3. They had a few other singles that got relatively high up in the charts, before disbanding in 2008. No reason has been given for the disbanding, but you can imagine it's something along the lines of the band getting fed up of Preston's consistent obsession with the media life. He's apparently releasing a solo album sooner rather than later.

7. Zwan

When Billy Corgan disbanded The Smashing Pumpkins, he wanted to go in a new direction with a new band. He decided to take artists from a load of different bands and make a band that played softer, less dark music. Zwan released their first and only album in 2003 with very little success. They finished their tour and immediately disbanded. Zwan unfortunately were more popular after their disbanding than before, only because of the constant bickering between band members after the split. Billy Corgan hasn't held any punches, calling the ex-members "dirty", and accused certain members of doing sex acts with each other in public, and with the producers girlfriend. Where are they now? Well Billy Corgan has reformed The Smashing Pumpkins. The other members have split into different projects too.

6. American Head Charge

American Head Charge was part of a huge melodic metal surge from the late nineties, including other bands like System of a Down, Slipknot, Mudvayne, Rammstein, Kittie and Static-X. Their biggest hit is arguably "Just So You Know", a decent song from 2002. They released a lot of material and toured with a lot of successful bands. In 2005 the guitarist died of what seemed like an accidental prescription drug overdose. After that, they released one more CD/DVD combo of live an unreleased material before officially disbanding in 2009. The reasons were that the lead singer didn't have the heart to continue his music career. It's not confirmed that this is because of the death of the guitarist mind. Very little information is around about the other band members and what they're doing now.

5. Wolfman

Remember Wolfman? No? Remember the song "For Lovers"? Possibly? The main chorus was "this is for lovers... running away..." Remember now? If so, I bet that brought you back a bit. The song was released in 2005, by Wolfman and it featured Pete Doherty of The Libertines and Babyshambles fame (as well as many drug-related crimes). The song got to #7 in the UK charts and was very well received by critics. It even won an award for the songwriting. But who is Wolfman? I can't find anything about him anywhere. He doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. The song "For Lovers" does, but there's nothign about him on there at all. When I do a Google search, I find nothing, as there are many music related search results to do with the term Wolfman, either songs with the word in, a soundtrack for a film, and this song in music video and lyrics form. But nothing on the man. Or is he a man? He might actually be a Wolfman for all I know. Where is he now? Haven't a fucking clue.

4. Ikara Colt

Ikara Colt were a little indie/art rock band that released two albums in the early Noughties. Their two most popular songs were off their second album "Wanna Be That Way" and "Modern Feeling" (two songs I really like). They had some minor success with these hits and had a cult following. They disbanded in 2005 however, very abruptly. They have said that the reason they split is because they want to end their music career young so they aren't remembered as a band that went too far and got old. Fair enough, but it's a shame as they had some talent.

3. Death From Above 1979

Death From Above 1979 are a two-piece band that released some EPs, one album and a remix album in the early Noughties. They were a unique act, with no lead guitar, they depended on the noise of their base and synths. And what a noise it was. The noise made from this band was huge, it was a really loud sound, hard to describe really. Their only major hit was "Romantic Rights", and all I'll say about this song is that it's one of my favourites of the Noughties. But there were problems, and they disbanded officially in 2006. These problems seemed very serious, as the man behind the bass and synth, Jessie, claims that they only finished their final tour for financial reasons for the good team behind the band.

Note: A very frustrating note too, a few weeks ago they announced they are reuniting. I compiled this list before the news came out. Apparently they are doing a festival gig in April. I don't know if it's a one off appearance of if they're officially reuniting to make more music. I hope the latter, although for the purpose of this listing it annoyed me!

2. Jerk

Jerk are an Australian band that my ex-girlfriend got me into. They're not too dissimilar to Marilyn Manson, but that being said I still like them. They only released the one album in 2003 that did okay in Australia. God knows how my ex knew about them because they never broke the UK and barely touched America. They had a song (Sucked In) on the video games NHS 2004 and Need For Speed: Underground, so fans of those soundtracks might have heard of them. Other than that they didn't get that far out of Australia. They disbanded in 2004, but some of the artists reformed into another band named Ink, that have barely surfaced.

1. The Union Underground

This band is the reason I'm writing this listing. I loved this band. A lot of metal fans loved this band. I got their only album not long after its release. It's still one of my favourite albums. Their two most popular songs are probably "Turn Me On Mr. Deadman", which is still played in clubs sometimes today, and "Across the Nation", which was the main theme for WWF/WWE Raw in the early Noughties. After releasing their only album they released a live album and disbanded.  There's no news about why they split at all. The band has now split in different directions, the most successful being the bass player John now playing with Disturbed, one of the most successful metal bands of the decade. It's just a shame because I really loved this band, and wish/wished that they would bring out more material. But it's not the way of the world unfortunately!

So there we go, 10 bands (or 9, thank and fuck you Death From Above 1979!) who have disbanded in different ways, for different reasons. All bands that were a part of the last decade. Will any of them reunite? Are there any other bands that you'd like to mention that you wish got back together, that disbanded in the last 10 years? Comment below if you want. Have a good night.