Ruth Radelet, Adam Miller, and Nat Walker have announced the breakup of Chromatics.
“After a long period of reflection, the three of us have made the difficult decision to end Chromatics,” the trio said in a joint statement. “We would like to thank all of our fans and the friends we have made along the way – we are eternally grateful for your love and support. This has been a truly unforgettable chapter in our lives, and we couldn’t have done it without you. We are very excited for the future, and look forward to sharing our new projects with you soon.”
Curiously, neither the statement nor a press release announcing Chromatics’ breakup make mention of their longtime bandmate Johnny Jewel, who also released the group’s music through his Italians Do It Better record label. Consequence has reached out to Jewel for comment.
Update: In a statement, a representative for Jewel said that “Johnny is extremely proud of his work with the project over the years and he’ll continue making music and supporting great art and artists through his label Italians Do It Better.”
Miller initially formed Chromatics as a 4-track solo project in the early 2000s. Over the next few years, he collaborated with a variety of different artists before officially welcoming Radelet, Walker, and Jewel to the fold as permanent members. The quartet soon adopted a synth-pop sound and found success with the release of Night Drive in 2007. Notably, the album track “Tick of the Clock” brought the band mainstream attend due to its presence in the films Drive and Taken 2.
Chromatics found even more success with the release of their follow-up record, 2012’s Kill for Love, which we later named as one of the 100 best albums of the decade.
In 2014, Chromatics announced plans for a new album called Dear Tommy, but as of today that record remains unreleased. In 2017, it was revealed that Jewel had destroyed all physical copies of Dear Tommy — 15,000 CDs and 10,000 vinyls — following a near-death experience while swimming, with the intention of making a better version of the album.
Even as Jewel continued to tweak Dear Tommy, Chromatics released other new music, including their 2019 album Closer to Grey, as well as a pair of one-off singles which surfaced in early 2020.
