It is with great sadness that we write you today. Pela’s collective journey has come to an end.

Over the past 2 years we’ve faced tremendous obstacles.  We recorded an album twice, had a falling out/legal battle with our old label, fired 2 managers, had a big record deal fall through, and Billy had a hand injury followed by a foot injury.

We’ve worked tirelessly to get our music out of ourselves and into your ears.  We worked endlessly to make the music and our live show the best we could.  At the end of the day we had to start dealing with some realizations.

We will never be able to thank you enough for your support. For those of you that drove and flew hours just to see a show, we thank you. For those of you who wrote us and gave us the opportunity to get to know you, we thank you. For those of you who told us to keep soldiering on, we thank you. Words can’t really describe how we’re feeling about this difficult decision, but we want you to know that it’s the healthiest decision we could make.

Your lovely faces are etched into our memories.  Looking at the Crowd Project videos says it all.

Please keep in touch, we’ll promise to do the same.

xoxo- Nate, Billy, Tom, and Eric

Videographer Matteo Bava has created a new video of  the lads performing backstage, before the show at Neumos in Seattle.

You can see more of Matteo’s work at his website.

NPR has posted a live stream of the Lads performance on KEXP in May. The stream features a number of previously unreleased songs. If you missed the live show on KEXP, here’s your chance to hear it now.

NPR’s Live Stream

photos by Bob Sanderson

Never Mind the Mainstream has posted an interview with Billy and links to lots of media on the web including several unreleased songs. You can read it on their blog.

KEXP has launched their podcast of our in-studio performance. You can listen to it here.

There’s also of video of the lads playing Juarez on the Eartaste website.

Hello everyone,

We have been invited to share the main stage with Sonic Youth at The Capitol Hill Block Party, Saturday, July 25, in Seattle. The full schedule is at the Block Party website.  Tickets are on sale now.

Saturday 25th :: Main Stage :: All Ages
2:00 – Hey Marseilles
3:15 – Moondoggies
4:30 – The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
6:00 – PELA
7:30 – The Thermals
9:00 – The Gossip
10:30 – Sonic Youth

This one kind of says it all

photo by Brittney Bollay of threegigs.com

There’s lots more on the KEXP site.

Front Row at JITMAN ‘09 with Pela, United States of Electronica, Iran and Throw Me The Statue – A review by Jason Kinnard.

photo by Alex Crick