Newcomers Home frontwoman Katie Herzig copes with her band’s imminent breakup.
Two nights ago I didn’t sleep.
I was in bed all night trying not to think, a task virtually impossible for a girl asked to describe the end of an era. The era I speak of is that of Newcomers Home, my band, of which I was the lead singer. Weird to say “was,” because we still have one show left. I’ve essentially been married to the band for the last eight years of my life. I am Mrs. Newcomers Home, and I am going through a divorce.
When a band breaks up, it’s like a relationship breaking up. There are tons of reasons to stay together, just not enough. After telling our fans Newcomers Home would be ending, I was shocked at how many people responded with all the feelings I should have been feeling but wasn’t. Sadness, grief, mourning. People did cry.
How did it happen? By surprise. For the last year, we had been working on The Album, the project that finally would launch us into the Superstar Galaxy, where all of our problems would disappear. The problem is, that world doesn’t exist.
Tim (mandolin) and Laurie (fiddle and vocals) Thornton asked me to meet up for dinner. We met in Lyons for a meal that ended with them telling me they didn’t think they could do the band anymore. This was a few weeks after the release of our fourth album, which we borrowed $15,000 to make. I knew eventually it would happen, I was just surprised at how relieved I felt, with the exception of the list I was instantly building in my head of all the people who believed in us.
I am one voice of four in NH. Andrew Jed (guitar) and I decided to spend the rest of the summer touring with our bassist and drummer, without Tim and Laurie. We noticed it is much easier to make decisions when half the band is gone. Costs went down and profit up. But not as many people came.
The first big show after Tim and Laurie’s departure was in Nashville, a place where we’d played many showcases for “industry cats.” The show was amazing. I couldn’t help but remember the lightness I felt when I first heard Tim and Laurie tell me they were done, when I felt that maybe I, too, was ready to move on, ready for less compromise and the ability to go and do whatever I please.
I expect to mourn this divorce later in my life in those times I feel particularly lost. But right now I’m just celebrating the time we had. I’ll never forget how special this band was, that our music has left an imprint in people’s lives. It’s more than any of us imagined for ourselves, on that warm night in 1997 on the lawn of CU-Boulder’s campus, when we decided to become a band.
Newcomers Home plays its final show Thursday at the Boulder Theater. Tickets: $10-$13 via bouldertheater.com.
