The Mighty Mighty Bosstones Break Up, Will Ska No More
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones will ska no more: The Boston band announced Thursday that, after nearly five decades together, they are breaking up.
“After decades of brotherhood, touring the world and making great records together, we have decided to no longer continue on as a band,” the Mighty Mighty Bosstones said in a statement on social media.
“Above all, we want to express our sincere gratitude to every single one of you who have supported us. We could not have done any of it without you.”
The band did not reveal the cause of their sudden breakup. As their Facebook page notes, they were scheduled to perform at the Slam Dunk Festival this coming June, but the split comes just days after it was revealed that a song that promoted Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-vax rally in Washington, D.C. was apparently produced by Bosstones frontman Dicky Barrett, according to the song’s credits.
As Rolling Stone reported this weekend, Graham Nash threatened legal action against RFK Jr. for the unauthorized interpolation of his 1971 song “Chicago (We Can Change the World)” in the RFK Jr.-written song “Heart of Freedom,” which was used to promote the Sunday march.
A rep for Mighty Mighty Bosstones did not respond to Rolling Stone’s initial request for comment — following news of Barrett’s apparent role in “Heart of Freedom” — but said on Friday that “this is a really private matter that is no one’s business except ours.”
The Mighty Mighty Bosstones had performed together since 1983, with singer Barrett, saxophonist Tim “Johnny Vegas” Burton and bassist Joe Gittleman serving as band members for the entire duration of the Bosstones.
Beginning with 1989’s Devil’s Night Out, the Boston group released 11 albums of ska punk, and notably appeared in the 1995 film Clueless (and its hit soundtrack) to perform their hit song “Where’d You Go?” In 1997, amid a ska revival sparked in part by the Bosstones, the band scored a Top 20 hit with their most enduring track, “The Impression That I Get.” The Bosstones released their swan song, When God Was Great, in 2021.