How post-rock heroes This Will Destroy You split into two separate touring lineups – and rediscovered themselves in the process
On a fall Nashville evening, This Will Destroy You are minutes from performing 2014’s classic Another Language album in full. Backstage in the green room there’s laughter, small talk, and the familiar pre-show rhythm. But underneath it all, there’s something heavier – the quiet awareness of a band rediscovering itself.
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Back in 2024 the band made what was certainly an unconventional announcement. The statement said that founding guitarists and the band’s only constant members, Chris King and Jeremy Galindo, were ending their working relationship to “pursue their own creative endeavors, focusing on solo, collaborative, and compositional work”.
So far so normal, bands break up all the time… but there was a kicker. Rather than call time on This Will Destroy You as a touring act, the King and Galindo announced plans to share the name for the foreseeable future. Each would have their own distinct line-ups, tours and setlists, but both would remain officially This Will Destroy You.
It’s a unique and rather equitable approach to a band breaking up, by any measure – but one that has certainly left outsiders somewhat bewildered. To try to get to the bottom of what this might mean, for the band and for the individuals involved, we sat down with King and multi-instrumentalists Jesse Kees to talk gear, new music, and the strange beauty of finding your way back through one of the worst moments of your life.
Image: Jason Mays
Drama Minor
When we ask King about the events surrounding the unconventional dissolution of his creative relationship with Galindo, it’s clear he doesn’t want to go into too much detail or air too much dirty laundry in public, but the emotion is clearly still raw.
“I was kicked out of my own band… and it broke me,” he reveals.
“I was sticking up for someone really close to me, and it resulted in me being kicked out of my own band,” he repeats quietly. “It took years to get back on social media and sort my head out. But now, I feel lucky. The energy’s different. I didn’t enjoy touring for a long time — and I finally feel things again.”
He smiles when he says it, but the words still hang heavy. Sitting beside him, Jesse Kees – a longtime bandmate but also a friend – nods in agreement, but he doesn’t add anything. It’s clearly not a tale that anyone really wants to get into, and maybe that’s fine.
Because today, King, Kees, Robi Gonzalez, Masaru Takaku, and multi-instrumentalist Emily Xander are having a great time representing the heavier, doomgaze-centric side of This Will Destroy You – and clearly they’re having a blast.
When questioned if the dual-lineup setup is permanent, King replies, “For now, that’s not up to us…We’ve been playing together for a while – this is how it’s going to go until it changes. The only thing I care about is that fans are happy.” King replies.
Kees adds, “We’re prioritizing mental and emotional health on tour. That’s not something we’ve always done. It feels good to finally make that part of the work.”
Image: Jason Mays
No Backing Tracks, No Shortcuts
Part of what makes this version of the band so vital again is how alive it sounds. Another Language is a dense record – layers of drones, sub-bass, and reverb-drenched delay that would usually demand a laptop to pull off. But this lineup refuses to fake it.
“After the [2009 LP] Tunnel Blanket run, I was covering two roles on a Bass VI,” Kees explains. “This time, we wanted every sound performed in real time. No backing tracks. That’s why Emily’s here. She handles synths and keys, and on the heavy parts, she’s on another Bass VI. When everything hits — bass, Bass VI, and sub — the whole room shakes.”
“Memory Loss feels like an airplane taking off,” King laughs. “People up front do that hair-blown-back face. It’s the best part of the night.”
For a band that helped define post-rock’s dynamic extremes and then spent years trying to outrun them, this moment feels like a reclamation of sorts.
Image: Jason Mays
The Sound of Feeling Again
If you’ve followed This Will Destroy You, you know the gear isn’t just aesthetic – it’s the architecture of emotion. King’s main guitar these days is a stripped-down Jazzmaster fitted with a Fishman pickup and a single knob. “No frills,” he says. “Heavy strings, almost a baritone feel. I got the idea years ago while tracking with John Congleton – he had this Thurston Moore Jazzmaster with just one knob, and it stuck with me.”
On the subject of gear, King doesn’t shy away. His pedals of choice have become a museum of TWDY textures and sounds: a Strymon El Capistan, a Vongon Polyphrase run in a feedback loop (“total game-changer”), a Pittsburgh Downward Spiral, and a vintage EHX Memory Man with the Japanese-chip mod that gives it a three-dimensional sheen.
Kees’s setup revolves around the Expandora. “It’s my secret weapon,” he says. “It’s not distortion — it’s how I shape touch and clarity. That crisp, fingerpicked attack that still feels human.”
The set thrives on drones, the band’s secret language since Young Mountain. “When people say ‘doomgaze,’ I think of drone plus emotion,” Kees says. “It’s closer to what post-rock originally meant — a hundred different ideas living under the same roof.”
Solo Ventures
One quirk of the This Will Destroy You split is that both band members agreed that the future music they produced would be released separately as independent new projects – not under the TWDY banner.
For King and Kees, that new thing is Dreamage – a project born of necessity but also friendship, that released its first album last year.
That first record felt intimate – made in a cabin, mics propped on stacks of toilet paper, the sound of the room bleeding into every take. “We didn’t even know we were starting a band,” Kees says. “We were just making what made sense to make in that moment.”
The next release, already finished, is bolder: full-band arrangements, real drums, vocal harmonies. “It’s the same DNA,” King says, “just a wider lens.” Dreamage doesn’t chase post-rock tropes; it lets them dissolve into ambience, electronics, even pop. “If This Will Destroy You is the cathedral,” King says, “Dreamage is the side chapel – smaller, but maybe closer to the heart.”
They’re also collaborating with Shed Project, the New Mexico collective founded by chef Johnny Ortiz, where meals and music intertwine in ritual. “It’s not really a venue,” Kees says. “It’s a living piece of art. You eat food grown on the same land you’re sitting on, served on plates made from local clay. We’re playing unplugged sets there – filmed, one-of-a-kind. It’s about connection.”
There’s no doubt that This Will Destroy You’s new two-band phase is novel, and fans will understandably wonder why they didn’t just call it a day and start fresh. But bands aren’t companies, they’re groups of people – and nobody involved was quite ready to put This Will Destroy You to bed.
“More than anything, there’s unity again,” King says of the new era. “Intent. The stuff that actually matters when you play music. Every show, I’m excited. I don’t take it for granted.”
Kees nods. “The past was heavy. Now it feels lighter. We’re chasing something honest.”
And for now, that’s enough — because no matter who’s on stage, This Will Destroy You is still an auditory experience that more than delivers on its namesake while remaining unequivocally steady and human. That’s all fans can really ask for.
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