Modern Baseball’s Jake Ewald took to Facebook today to announce that the band has cancelled their upcoming US tour in addition to any planned festival appearances. In his note, Ewald explained that the entire band has been dealing with heightened levels of anxiety due in part to their near-relentless touring schedule. Ewald wrote that it’s time for Modern Baseball to take a break:

Hey everybody, Jake here. As much as it pains me to say this, we have decided to cancel our upcoming U.S. tour dates and festival appearances to take a break from Modern Baseball for a little while. If you already bought tickets for the tour, refunds will be available at point of purchase.

Over the past few months the band has become an immense source of anxiety for me, and it wasn’t until I opened up to Sean, Ian, and Brendan about it that we realized we were all feeling the same way. The project we started as a source of joy and positive expression had become something that was slowly eating away at our mental health and our friendships. We have been championing the importance of mental health for a while now, and we recently realized that it would be wrong for us to ignore our own health any longer. Please know that we don’t take a tour cancellation lightly, and under any other circumstances we would not even consider it an option, but in this instance we have to put our health and friendships first. You’ve supported us unconditionally throughout this crazy ride and we could never thank you enough. We never really learned how to do this whole “rock band” thing the right way, but you kept coming to the shows and talking to us and assuring us that we’d figure it out sooner or later. We could not have done any of this without you. Be honest with those you love and don’t be afraid to lean on them when you need to. Odds are they’ll need to lean on you pretty soon too.

With all the love in the world,
MOBO

More US & International Hotlines @
www.buddy-project.org/hotlines/
Or google search “crisis hotlines”

The text was accompanied by a photo of the Holy Ghost album art with several crisis hotlines written across it. Back in January, Modern Baseball’s Brendan Lukens announced that he would be taking a break from the band to focus on his mental and physical health and wouldn’t be able to join Modern Baseball on their European tour.

UPDATE: Sorority Noise, who were supposed to tour with Modern Baseball, voiced their support on Twitter. The band will still tour in the spring.

Modern Baseball has announced that they will be taking a break to focus on their mental health and we hope for truly the best for them

— Sorority Noise (@sororitynoise) February 21, 2017

Regardless, we will be on the road in the spring, and hope to be able to announce our plans within the coming weeks.

— Sorority Noise (@sororitynoise) February 21, 2017

Please stay tuned as we’ll need your support and your ears. thank you always.

— Sorority Noise (@sororitynoise) February 21, 2017