You Me At Six announce split after 20 years

You Me At Six have announced they’re splitting up after two glorious decades together.

The Weybridge quintet - Josh Franceschi, Matt Barnes, Max Helyer, Chris Miller and Dan Flint – will honour all their 2024 touring commitments and then split up for good once they’ve completed a farewell tour in 2025.

“When we started YMAS we were kids,” says frontman Josh Franceschi. “We only ever wanted longevity, to travel and to experience life as a group of friends.

“We feel like on the eve of our 20th anniversary as a band, now is a good time to call time. We’re in a fortunate position where our fans still want to see us live and come celebrate the life of this band. So that is what we will do for 2024 and 2025. We can’t wait to see our fans on the road.”

You Me At Six play a sold-out UK tour in February that culminates with a BRITs Week 24 War Child show at Brighton Concorde.

Following this, they will play their last ever festival appearance at Slam Dunk Festival on 25th and 26th May at Hatfield Park and Temple Newsam.

Their last-ever shows in 2025 will be announced in due course.

Josh Franceschi chats to Kerrang! Radio about You Me At Six split:

You Me At Six vocalist Josh Franceschi has spoken to Loz Guest about the split and why 2025 is the right time for the band to call it a day.

You can listen to the full interview with Josh Franceschi on Kerrang! Radio from 3pm on Thursday 1st February, and read what Josh had to say below.

Listen to Everything That Rocks on Kerrang! Radio. Download our free app, listen online and via your smart speaker (“play Kerrang! Radio”).

Josh told Loz: “Our biggest collective fear was to watch the thing that we built - and the thing we love the most - sort of burned down to the ground. I think we are in a position where our last tour of this country and actually the world was the most successful tour we've had in a very long time. We don't want to be the last ones at the party. I think sometimes to move away from something and to give something up is to really redefine what it is that it means to you.”

“I don't think the band will come back. As of right now, it's definitely where our heads are at is that we want to enjoy one more year of touring right up until March and April 2025 is when our UK tour ends. We want to truly enjoy that and we want to celebrate this band with the people that are essentially the heartbeat of it, which is obviously the fans, and play as many great live shows as we can.

“Also, that's why we chose to make Slam Dunk our final UK and European festival because we wanted… it was all just starting to come together like it was all tying itself up really nicely and Slam Dunk was the first festival we ever did back in 2008. To end there as headliners, I think it's our third time headlining, it just felt (there was) something quite romantic about that.”

“We always internally made a deal that as long as we felt that we had something to offer and somebody to say with our music and we were kind of moving forward, then we would want to continue being creative together and continue touring. But I think we love it so much and we care about it so much that we don't want it to turn into Groundhog Day or worse. I think we're kind of being as candid as possible and I feel like we're on the precipice of that. So it's very important to us that we take care of the thing that matters the most to all of us, which is each other, but also what this band is and what it represents.”

He continued: “I just think going out with bang rather than fizzling out (is ideal). There's something about going out of the bang that just feels more aligned with all the craziness and all the years of You Me at Six sort of like punching above their weight and achieving things we have no right to do. It’s like, ‘let's not be the catalyst for our own downfall. Let's take care of it and just celebrate the life of this band and play tours where we can curate and carve out sets which are mirroring sort of all of the eight albums and all of the turns we’ve taken.’ Yeah, it’ll be a vibe.

“I think it's a good time (to split). 20 years ago, that's exactly what we wanted. We always said that it was for us. It was longevity. It was never about money or fame or being the biggest band in the world. To us it was like, ‘we just want to be able to do this for as long as possible and also be able to say that we did that with our lives. And it wasn't just like a quick flash in the pan moment, it was literally was our life for two decades, which is very rare.’ We're all very at peace with it and all very happy about it and we're just looking forward now to off a Slam Dunk and announcing the tours we're going to have over the next 12/15 months and celebrating it with our fan base.”

He continued: “It’s like we're full. We've been sitting at a table for a long time. At this point it would be pure gluttony (to continue). We’re so in sync and aligned with what it is that we wanted this crazy and ambiguous band to kind of go after and achieve and we've done it. It does always come back to that which is like I don't want to be on the other side of the conversation for the sake of another 5/10 years or whatever. It would be like pushing people to do something that they feel like they've closed a chapter on that part of their life. I never want to be on stage and feel like we're just turning up, especially for a fan base that’s given us so much. I don't want to give them anything other than 100%. I think we have a story that has an end and not one that just drags on. I think for us to be able to be the curators if you like our own… I don’t want to say ‘destinies’ as it sounds like Zelda or something like that. Just to be completely in control of how this story is going to land and how it's going to end. We never thought we'd even have been that privileged to have that as a position. The fact that we can get on our terms and at a level that we think we can go and put an incredible show in amazing venues, iconic venues all over the world, we're very, very happy with that and very lucky. So yeah, it's good.”

Looking ahead to the final shows in 2025, Josh added: “Imagine being on your last tour and not knowing it was your last tour?! It’d be horrific as far as I'm concerned. Our final show is going to be, Max (Heyler)was telling me the dates, it’s the same day 20 years ago that we had our first ever band rehearsal as You Me at Six. So it's just like weird stuff like that which is lined up so poetically and effortlessly. There’s too many things happening here to make it feel like it was right. I mean, what an opportunity to go and celebrate. We're gonna be playing the longest we've probably ever done on the road. We're looking at sort of two/two-and-a-half hour sets and just going through the band and all the songs we’ve got and mix it up every night and playing as many amazing cities around the world we can. So that's the goal and the plan.”

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