The @mountain_goats bassist Peter Hughes is leaving the band after nearly 30 years https://t.co/Q0lPMZWKcw
— Pitchfork (@pitchfork) August 20, 2024
The beloved independent band The Mountain Goats, fronted by John Darnielle since 1994, is losing one of its most loved and longest-tenured members. Bassist Peter Hughes posted on Instagram that he was leaving the band after 28 years of recording. Hughes has been a central figure to the band, with in addition to his musicianship, his harmonies have enriched multiple Mountain Goats songs, including the concert favorite “This Year.” The band posted a farewell note to Peter on Instagram, and Peter has made his own post explaining his reasons for leaving involve “health and sanity.” An upcoming tour that was originally supposed to feature John and Peter as a duo has a new lineup featuring other Mountain Goats members Jon Wurster and Matt Douglas along with John.
Peter’s post:
[text]My first tours with the Mountain Goats were in Europe in 1996. I’d known John for several years at that point, we’d made cameos on each other’s records, and he needed a bassist on short notice. I knew (and loved) the material and was available. Five years later we recorded Tallahassee together. That album came out in the fall of 2002 and in the decades that followed we toured and made records at a pace that made all but the tiniest handful of our peers look like loafers. The fact that I can’t even tell you offhand how many studio albums we recorded in that time kinda says it all. I’m insanely proud of every one of them. I’m also proud and deeply appreciative of the devoted and ever-growing community of fans that developed around the band through all those years of touring, and especially of its ridiculously inclusive and welcoming nature – looking out into the crowd every night and seeing smiling faces representing every age, gender, color and creed imaginable, from the most (seemingly) buttoned-down normies to beautiful weirdos of every description, every night felt like a celebration of humanity in ways that brought me more joy than I can begin to express.
It’s been the ride of a lifetime, but I’m sorry to say that for a tedious multitude of reasons involving health and sanity blah blah blah, the time has come for me to step off. Not an easy decision, obviously, but a necessary one.
I need to thank so many people. John Darnielle first and foremost, for the opportunity and for the songs that will outlive us all. Jon Wurster, who made everyday feel like rock and roll fantasy camp, no joke. Matt Douglas, who elevated our game immeasurably in addition to being the best tour hang ever. Brandon Eggleston, our indispensable tour manager and front-of-house engineer of nearly 20 years, of whom my wife once said after watching him in action for five minutes, “Brandon is going to heaven.” Isa Burke, another gifted player, who helped make the last year of shows the best we ever played, and Erin McKeown, who showed us how much better a fifth Mountain Goat onstage could make us; Yuval Semo and Perry Owen Wright before them, who first taught us what we could accomplish with a fourth. Our long-suffering and ever- helpful crew down through the years: Avel Sosa, Travis Hendricks, Garrett Burke, Ben Loughran; our merch people who consistently performed the miracle of somehow managing a pop-up store with more inventory items than a freaking Wal-Mart: Trudy Feikert, Maythe Santos, Eva Claycomb, Nikki Ricci.
Dennis Callaci, who started putting out John’s music and mine on his Shrimper label long before anyone else in the world knew or gave a shit who we were, and indeed was the reason we even met in the first place; Chris Sharp and Ed Horrox and everyone at 4AD, who lifted us out of the underground; Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance and everyone at Merge, who gave us a home for the last 15 years. Our manager Ryan Matteson and his incredible team at Ten Atoms, who helped guide and sustain us through the most difficult years any professional musician has known in living memory; Alyson West and Juan Carrera at Ravenhouse, who got us paid and grew our careers before that. Adam Voith, the booking agent who took us from dank tiny rooms to palatial theaters.
All of the wonderful and talented producers and engineers who helped bring our songs to life and preserve them for posterity: Bob Durkee, Tony Doogan, John Vanderslice, Scott Solter, John Congleton, Erik Rutan, Brandon Eggleston (yep, him again), Owen Pallett, Matt Ross- Spang, Alicia Bognanno, Shani Ghandi, Trina Shoemaker (a fucking murderer’s row!); and the countless studio ringers we brought in over the years, who graciously lent their talents to help those recordings shine even more brightly: (to name just a few) Franklin Bruno, Christopher McGuire, Alex de Carville, Erik Friedlander, Annie Clark, Owen Pallett (him again too), Matthew E. White and his brilliant horn players, Thom Gill, Bram Gielen, Johnny Spence, Chris Boerner, Reverend Charles Hodges (!), Spooner Oldham (!!), Kathy Valentine (!!!), Alicia Bognanno (her again too), so many more (forgive me if I left you out). And all of the innumerable and inspiring artists, far too many to list, with whom we toured and shared stages over these many years; the camaraderie of the road might’ve been my favorite thing about it. It’s been a terrific joy to watch so many of the people who’ve opened for us grow and blossom as artists over time, and become what I think of as true lifers; as for the many more who burned brightly before their paths took them elsewhere, know that you and your music left behind indelible memories. An honor to have worked alongside every one of you.
Above all, my family, for enduring my frequent absences without complaint, and for being a source of bottomless love and support without which I would be utterly lost.
Finally, to everyone who ever came to a show, bought a record, or otherwise pitched in to make this entire, improbable journey possible: the deepest gratitude of all. What an extraordinary privilege. What an extraordinary privilege.
p.s.,
♥
Not dying and not disappearing btw. Honestly not sure what’s next but I’ve got a few ideas and am confident that we’ll all be fine. So don’t worry. I’ll see you down the road!
All I know is the line “twin high maintenance machines” is never gonna sound the same again.
