Just as with many a relationship not every band goes out with a bang, those big blowouts are actually most often the exception and instead bands die of other more mellow things, like members moving away from each other, or often just that the inspiration kind of drys up along with gigs. However it happens it is a regular pattern and when things go sideways however it went down, there is a tendency to lay the breakdown of a band on to people or individuals. Often when a single person is to blame the band will manage to carry on without the rotten element, but if things go south and you are call it a day try not to:
Say it was your band.
This is especially difficult to do when you were the primary songwriter, but a band is a by its very nature a collaborative engagement and every member is as important as the next. If you don't feel this way then you have a bad band and that should be addressed. As I said bands can continue without certain people if they are not pulling their weight. But bragging that it was all you and you did everything just heaps more failure onto you. If you feel that the rest of the bands were just tools for your blinding brilliance then again you fail all by yourself because a good workman never blames his tools. The worst is when several people are all having the same conversation. When you hear people arguing about who was the most important part of a band then all that goes through a persons head is "well I see why they split up".
Talk shit about the others
When you split up with a girlfriend nothing makes you look like more of a jackass than airing every quibble you had with their lifestyle and personality. Being in a band means spending excessive amount of time with other people and part of making it work is finding a way to co-habit while being accepting of the others life. This sort of thing can be seen in student houses. When a person has never had to live with other people before and then gets chucked in a small house/flat with six other people in a bad house each of those people will see themselves as superior and hate the living habits of the other. The same can be said of bands. listening to someone hate on another members timing or inability to tune properly or whatever just means there was no communication in the band and it was doomed to fail. Once more if someone really is a poisonous influence and whatnot then they should not be in that band. That should not have been a reason the band split up forever.
Keep the songs
One of the biggest difficulties when deciding to call it a day for a band is the fact that you have put so much effort into those songs. Literally years of your life could have been spent perfecting the tune you love and when things don't work out then the effort is wasted. Thing is though that song was something that a group of you created and it's not for anyone to take away and keep on rehashing with other people. At best it shows that you have no regard for the previous band and you start falling in to the "it was all my band" territory, at worst it paints you as a one trick pony who you doesn't have the creativity to do something new with a brand new group of people. There are clear exceptions here, if you have a solo side project then you may have reworked a band song to be solo/acoustic and One off performances of popular songs by previous bands when audiences demand it are of course reasonable, but treat them like you would any other cover, something to pull out the box every now and again when you know an audience will appreciate it and don't just create <yourOldBand.0.2>. I knew a guy once that created the same band THREE times. Every time the songs (which were totally his) were the same and he was the only common factor. The band failed every time and still the man can't accept that the only thing constant in each iteration of his group failing was him. That's an extreme case but members from each iteration have other bands now that are successful so there you go. If things change then so should the songs.
I write a lot of words on this blog but they can almost always be concluded with a short soundbite quote. This time that quote is "have respect for the people you put all that time in with". Ex members of bands are something a little different and something I might cover another time, but yeah, you spent all that time making something you all loved. when it doesn't work out just let it go the way of the buffalo and above all don't be a dick!
Postscript.
Bands I have been in and how they failed:
The Harmaniax - We all went to college and stopped hanging out
Open Ending - Didn't have the guts to tell our lead guitarist he was rubbish so just stopped playing shows
CJD - were too drunk to write new songs/got barred from most venues in Brighton
Another Day Lost - Guitarist fired drummer in a fit of drunken rage, I walked out with him, others left soon after to form successful skapunk band.
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