Shouwang Speaks Out on the Carsick Cars Split

Carsick Cars' announcement of their split from the stage of Yugong Yishan on Tuesday came as a shock to many, but band leader Zhang Shouwang revealed to theBeijinger.com today that the band has been struggling with this for months. There is, however, a silver lining – Shouwang is reforming the band with a new lineup.

Before Tuesday’s gig supporting the Raveonettes, the last time Carsick Cars had played together was in August at Jing Lang Music Festival. Apparently it was then they started thinking about a split. It's simply been a matter of time, but nobody wanted to make the final decision.

Zhang Shouwang told theBeijinger.com earlier today:

"They (Li Qing and Li Weisi) have Snapline and Soviet Pop, that’s the kind of music they are more interested in working on. They will now focus on those projects. People have limited energy, and at the moment Carsick Cars needs a lot of time to record, practice and tour. They have talked about this before – that they don't have enough time to do what they really wanted to do. In that situation we were not able to continue producing new work, so the break up is probably good for all of us."
"It is a sad thing for all of us – we have been together for five years after all," Shouwang added with a note of regret. "It would be less painful if we had had a big fight. This is like a boyfriend and girlfriend breaking up – it hurts, but I think it's also kind of a relief."

In their statement published after their final gig, the band mentioned that they will probably "work together on a freer music project in the future." Regarding this, Shouwang said today, "The three of us will probably form another band together – we haven’t started yet, but there might be a plan. It will likely to be more electronic. My solo project is kind of electronic and their style is kind of old school electro, so we will probably come out with some freer electronic music."

It seems Carsick Cars will now continue with a new lineup: Birdstriking singer/guitarist He Fan will pick up the bass, and another singer/guitarist, Lin Banban from the band Boyz & Girl, will sit behind the drum kit.
Shouwang says he is looking forward to something new: "The old lineup has been together for five years, we felt like we couldn’t move any further. I hope we will have a freer artistic mode and we will create something new with the new blood."

You can check out the new Carsick Cars on the last night of 2010 at D-22, or the first night of 2011 at 2-Kolegas. Anyone for a Zhongnanhai?