Lyle Lobeck knew his band had drawn its final breath weeks ago. He just wasn’t quite ready to accept it. “This had been my baby for the last five years, and now it’s gone,” says the founder and frontman for popular modern rock band YouInSeries. “It’s a rough thing to deal with. I put it off for a while before saying anything to anyone.”
Last Friday, Lobeck made it official, posting a MySpace bulletin announcing YouInSeries’ demise: “YouInSeries has finally ran its course. We were in the process of writing songs for our second record when I was informed that some of us were not compelled to continue with this lifestyle anymore. It saddens me in such a way that it’s hard to express in words.”
Created in 2003 and originally known as Brown Eyed Deception, YouInSeries played over 350 shows during its lifespan, touring with the likes of Circa Survive, As Tall as Lions and 65 Days of Static and playing a handful of dates on 2006’s Warped Tour. Spin magazine tapped YouInSeries as its band of the day on June 2, 2006, and Equal Vision Records debut Outside We Are Fine was released that same summer to mostly enthusiastic reviews. A critic for Absolute Punk wrote, “I really dig the band’s sound and look forward to great things from them in the future.”
That future grew a bit dimmer in late 2006, when guitarist Logan Lanning and drummer Cheyne Smith left the band mid-tour. “We were going at a really smooth rate, and when they quit it really slowed us down,” bassist Jacob Kirkegard assesses. “We went home, and it took nine months for us to get back out there, so we lost our momentum for sure.”
Still, YouInSeries soldiered on, getting to work on a sophomore CD, most of the new songwriting courtesy of guitarist Chris Davila. After a while, though, it became clear it simply wasn’t coming together. “We’d been writing for about five months, and we had, like, five songs, so it was kinda like pulling teeth,” Kirkegard says. “Going to practice started to feel like a job.”
Soon after the group’s final show—a December 29 Jillian’s date with The Cab—the five members agreed to call it quits. Lobeck’s announcement, which also indicated that the 21-year-old singer still plans to pursue music, drew a mixture of support and sadness from fans. “What are we going to do down here in Austin without you guys?” one inquired. “This is terrible, terrible news. I feel like a part of me has died,” offered another.
“It was cool to see people writing that stuff, but it was also tough, like look what we’re giving up,” Lobeck says.