Earlier today, Black Veil Brides bassist Ashley Purdy made an appearance on a live episode of Another FN Podcast, which has since been deleted, and said the band’s eight date run on this year’s Warped Tour will be the “last time” to see them. Now, frontman Andy Biersack has commented on the situation saying the following: “As far as I know, there are no plans to break up the band.”
Purdy initially said the following:
“We start Thursday at Warped Tour in Pomona and we’re going to do eight dates through the southern California area. And that is where you are going to see Black Veil Brides for the last time ever in your entire lives. So, you better fucking go, because that’s gonna be it.”
He went on to add “You better see us before you don’t see us.” He also said the following earlier in the chat, while answering a fan question about the next Black Veil Brides album:
“To be honest you guys already know that Andy Black is doing his fucking next thing so the rest of us are going to do something separate and easy. Nothing more, nothing less.”
After Purdy’s comments surfaced on multiple sites, Biersack issued a statement to Alternative Press:
“This is the first I’ve heard of any ‘break up.’ As far as I know, there are no plans to end the band after Warped. Or, at least if there were, I was not made aware of them.
We are in the early stages of work on a big 10 year retrospective release. And my personal focus as it relates to BVB are on that and these upcoming Warped Tour shows.”
He later added:
“I would also like to add that any additional musical projects from any of the members of BVB will always be encouraged and while I was aware that there was interest in starting something new from some of the members, similar to my Andy Black side project or Jake’s band Aelonia, I was unaware that there was a plan to end the band entirely and therefore I can’t comment on it.”
The singer then discussed things further with Loudwire. He in part said:
“As far as I know, there are no plans to break up the band. I spoke to the band this morning, and that seems to be echoed by everybody. I can’t really speak to any comments about the band breaking up, because I was never aware of that. As far as I know, that isn’t the intention, and it certainly isn’t my intention.”
He also added:
“For me, anytime you hear an idea that you haven’t heard before, it can be jarring. As I said, that was never discussed with me. But I’m packing up suitcases and headed to Pomona this evening.
I have a show to play, as do the other members of the band tomorrow, and that’s really the only thing that you can think about. If we were in a situation where we were listless or didn’t know what the next move was, or didn’t have any plans, then maybe there would be some cause for concern.
But we just recently signed a deal for a really exciting 10-year anniversary package that we’re doing for our first record. And we have shows planned. Hell, even after these Warped Tour shows, we have Aftershock planned for the fall, and there’s also been discussion about some other shows that we were going to try to do in the fall.”
He continued:
“I wake up in the morning and I think about what we’re going to do next. If someone comes to me and says, ‘We’re unhappy, we don’t want to be in the band anymore,’ then it has to be treated seriously.
But until that happens, I just have to assume [Purdy‘s interview] was something that was floated out there in an open forum discussion that he was having, or just something that was said in passing and wasn’t meant to be serious.
So I don’t know the full thought process behind it, but I’ve known him, and I’ve known all the members of the band my entire adult life, and I can trust them when they say to me that this is not the intention of the band.”
He also said:
“I have texted with everyone in the band, and everyone’s on the same page. Ashley said it’s not his intention to leave the band. Or, at the very least, he said to me that that [comment] wasn’t representative of his feelings. And that’s kind of it. Look, at the end of the day, it’s five grown men with five different opinions on things. We’re not the Monkees. It’s not a situation where we all live together in a house and share all of our meals.
People have differing opinions on things, and people might feel one way in one moment and another way in the next and that’s life. Maybe at the time, that’s what was felt, but I can’t fault someone for thinking or saying something that they felt differently about later. I think we all do that. The truth is, unless I’m made aware otherwise of plans to end the band, I will just move forward with the intention of being the same guy in this band that I’ve been since I was sixteen years old when I started it in Northern Kentucky.
It’s been my entire adult life, and I’ve been very lucky to meet the four other members of the band when I moved to Los Angeles, and we turned it into this thing that it is now, and now it’s very much a living breathing band with opinions and ideas.”
Biersack went on to say the group are planning to re-record their 2010 debut album “We Stitch These Wounds” and release it with new songs as well as a previously unreleased DVD that was filmed in 2010.
Guitarist Jinxx has since commented as well:
