Greg Dulli On Afghan Whigs’ Split

While working on their follow-up to ‘1965’, the Afghan Whigs surprised everyone in February 2001 with the sudden announcement of their amicable split, citing distance as the main reason — guitarist Rick McCollum lived in Minneapolis, bassist John Curley resided in Cincinnati and singer Greg Dulli had recently made his fourth move back to Los Angeles. After 11 years, was it hard to walk away from the Whigs? “You know what? It was sad as fu**, and I was the saddest,” Dulli told Sean Rhiney of Cincinnati CityBeat. “Of the Whigs, I was the emotional one. We got together and started working on some stuff. Some sounded good, but it didn’t have that ‘boom’ that it always had, and we said when we were kids, when it’s not fun anymore, we’ll stop. And we sat down at the table and I said, ‘You know what, guys? I don’t know about you, but this isn’t fun for me.’ And every other guy said it, too. I didn’t break up the band. Everybody just said it’s over, had some drinks, played poker — I took all the money like I always did — and we split. And they’re still my boys.”