The music industry is at an interesting juncture where bands that have been around for a number of decades are embarking on farewell tours. Count X in that category.
The storied California punk band is not only releasing Smoke & Fiction, its ninth and likely final studio album, but embarking on their last road trip. But if you ask founding member/vocalist Exene Cervenka, the idea of a farewell tour is less about ending on a specific date and more about slowly retreating from that aspect of being a rock band.
“The final tour means we’ll play until we can’t play anymore,” she said. “That might be 2025 or that might be 2026—I have no idea. The thing is that we’re booked until the end of 2025 and then we’re booked until the end of May 2026.
“Everybody does these farewell tours that last for years — Elton John, Cher, The Go-Go’s. Everybody does these farewell tours and what it means is we’re getting older and it’s getting harder. People think we’re going to play five more shows and then we’re done. We have never ever stopped touring. We play ALL the time. Plus, you can’t retire from music, you can only quit.”
The decision for X to pack it in following Smoke & Fiction comes at a curious and rather productive juncture of a band that’s been active since 1977 when Cervenka, vocalist/bassist John Doe, guitarist Billy Zoom and drummer D.J. Bonebrake came together. Back in 2020, the band released its eighth studio album, the Rob Schnapf-produced Alphabetland, the group’s first studio effort since 1993’s Hey Zeus!
But before they had a chance to hit the road, the pandemic hit. And while they may have avoided the recording studio up to that point, X had consistently been on the road. For the quartet, not recording was a matter of economics, especially given the changing state of the music industry.
“We didn’t think we were going to make Alphabetland,” Cervenka explained. “I’d been badgering them to make a studio album for 15 years and everyone always said no. And that’s because we’d lose money because we didn’t own our records and Spotify doesn’t pay anything. It would just be free on the Internet, so why bother to spend $50,000 making a record just to give it away?
“But then we got possession of our old records and hooked up with Fat Possum. We have the licensing and own everything so it made it that we could do this now. Then we did Live in Latin America and it proved to them that we could make a record and people would buy it.”
With a passel of new songs to draw from, X will be dipping into a deep canon that’s led to trimmed-back set lists due to aging fan demographics.
“We’re going to play different old songs different nights because we have two new albums really so we can’t play only the old songs,” Cervenka explained. “We’ll play six or seven songs from the last two records—this one and the one before. In the old days, we’d get two or three encores, because kids wanted more. Now our audience is older and they kind of want to go home.
“We put on a great show. We play for an hour and 15 minutes and we’ll do an encore. But if there’s something people want to hear, we hope we’ll play it but we can’t always. We’ll give it our best, as always, to play a great show. I enjoy that time on stage more than anything. The stuff around it is a little harder than it used to be, but I don’t really care. You get dressed up and sing. What more do you want out of life?”
With X winding down after Smoke & Fiction, Cervenka remains amazed that she and her musical ride-or-dies have notched four-and-a-half decades-plus under their belts. At the same time, she has gratitude for the bond she and her bandmates have forged with the group’s loyal fanbase.
“The fact that we’re still together is beyond belief and definition,” she said. “What it comes down to is that if you work really hard on something for a really long time, there are rewards for it. In life, it’s really easy for me to give up and that’s something I learned. Whether it’s going to the gym every day or something like that, you just have to make yourself do it. If you’re in a program for alcohol, drugs, Debtor’s Anonymous or whatever—you have to go to those meetings and you have to work that program.
“You can’t do anything in this world part way. You have to do it to the best of your ability and I think X is proof of that. I am not the world’s greatest singer and I was not born to be a singer. I never wanted to be a singer, but look at what I’ve accomplished. Desire and hard work is what I look at X and see. As for our fans, I think the X thing is kind of a Deadhead thing, but more personal because it’s not a stadium—it’s a club.”
X will be appearing on October 2 at the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts, 71 E. Main St., Patchogue. For more information, visit patchoguetheatre.com or call 631-207-1313.
