The Goon Sax Have Broken Up

After three albums and nearly a decade together, Australian indie-rock trio The Goon Sax are calling it quits. The band announced their breakup via social media Tuesday morning, saying, “After nine years of giving it our everything we’ve decided to draw the curtain on this band,” with no further explanation. The band will no longer play their previously planned fall U.S. shows alongside Interpol, Spoon and Pavement, but will “play one or two more shows in Australia before we finally say goodnight,” they say.

Reached by Paste, a rep for The Goon Sax had no further detail to add to the band’s statement.

Close friends who formed The Goon Sax in high school, Brisbane’s Riley Jones, Louis Forster and James Harrison made their debut with 2016’s Up to Anything, when they were just 17 years old. After that came We’re Not Talking in 2018, and the band’s Matador Records debut Mirror II in 2021. They released a deluxe digital edition of that album in April of this year, expanding it by adding four previously unreleased songs.

The Goon Sax spent this spring supporting Snail Mail in the U.K., Europe and North America, and had planned to join Interpol and Spoon on their co-headlining Lights, Camera, Factions Tour this fall.

“god speed goon sax thanks for the records,” tweeted Australian rock duo Good Morning.

Enjoy a highlight from each of the band’s albums and find their full statement below.

To all friends of the Goon Sax we have some bittersweet news…after nine years of giving it our everything we’ve decided to draw the curtain on this band. It’s taken us places stranger, more beautiful, and far beyond anything we could have imagined, and brought us to meeting and working with so many special and incredibly inspiring people. Our gratitude to everyone who’s been with us and allowed the madness of the last 9 years to happen is far beyond anything we can palpably express.

Although this means we won’t be doing our US tour anymore, including the Interpol & Spoon tour and the Pavement shows, we promise we will play one or two more shows in Australia before we finally say goodnight. For us it feels like a happy ending. We love each other and we love you! thank you for everything

Riley, Louis & Jim