In May 2010, arguably one of the best bands in metal called it quits. Isis, active from 1997 to the aforementioned date, simply dissolved citing that as a collective, it had accomplished everything that it had set out to do, which is by far one of the most respectable reasons to call break up. Everyone in the group went on to a variety of other projects, but Isis fans have, and probabaly always will, pine for another tour or another new song.
MetalSucks recently got a hold of guitarist and vocalist Aaron Turner (Sumac, Old Man Gloom, etc.) for one of its podcasts, where he discussed being self-aware, bettering yourself as a person, and what it really means to be an artist. The question of Isis finally came up, and Turner essentially said it's not completely out of the question, but he doesn't see it happening anytime soon.
Will any of this reflection lead to revisiting past collaborations? Y'know, the already-desires Isis reunion and that sort of thing?
Hard to say. I haven't made a, how can I put this exactly… I've seen a lot of people say that they're not gonna do "such and "such" again and then they go and do that very thing again. I'm talking in terms of domestic behavior, but also in terms of bands reuniting, and so I'm not one to say "I will never do this again," because I think for me at least, that's a naïve statement. It also closes off a lot of possibilities in terms of what could happen in the future.
That said, at this point I'm not really interested in revisiting the past creatively-speaking. I've always been a person who's driven toward making new things and really most energized by what's happening in the current moment. In that sense, I'm trying to live my life according to those principles, like doing what feels right in the moment and purposefully choosing activities I know are going to be really engaging and toward a goal of making something new, rather than recreating something that's already been done.
In that light, it's hard for me to imagine wanting to go back and revisit, at least on a really-involved work-oriented level, what I've already done. Then again, there may come a time where for a variety of reasons it seems like a good idea to go play shows with Isis. I can't see any reason why that would happen anytime soon, but that music was very meaningful to me at the time it was being made, it's still very meaningful to me now and all the people that were involved in that are really important, central figured in my life one way or another.
I definitely haven't abandon that or disregarded its importance either.
Turner also says that the band's members are still pretty creatively different, and while those differences made Isis what it was, the differences eventually became constrictive due to a narrowing common ground.
Realistically though, would you want to see an Isis reunion where everyone in the group wasn't entirely stoked on it?
