American thrash metal band Nuclear Assault have broken up. The band – featuring bassist Dan Lilker, drummer Glenn Evans, and guitarist/vocalist John Connelly, and guitarist Erik Burke – played their final show at the UK Deathfest in London in September, just weeks before the group updated their Facebook page in November with a photo of a tombstone reading, “Nuclear Assault: John Connelly, Dan Lilker, Erik Burke, Drew Burke 1985-2022.” That cryptic post immediately sparked plenty of speculation, with Burke later confirming to a fan, “Nuke is no more,” confirming that Nuclear Assault disbanded after 37 years together.
The group has since deleted its Facebook page and remains inactive on other social media platforms. The November split came after the band, which first formed following Lilker’s exit from Anthrax in 1984, marked just the latest for Nuclear Assault. The band previously split back in 1995 before ultimately reuniting in 1997. They again split the following year, per MetalSucks. The band again reunited in 2001, split in 2008, and then came back together in 2011 with Lilker, Evans, Connelly, and Burke. According to Lilker, the most recent breakup had been a long-time coming and was mostly due to the bandmates getting older and reaching different stages in their lives.
“We’ve been trying to hang it up for a while, but people won’t let us go,” Lilker explained in an interview with That Metal Interview Podcast earlier this month. “I know that people wanna see Nuclear Assault and everything like that, it’s just that… We’re getting a little old, and – I don’t know – it’s different. I just don’t enjoy touring like I used to. Flying isn’t what it used to be. You get fucked around at airports all the time. And I don’t really have patience. If my flight’s delayed or if [my] bass didn’t make it, for some reason, that s-‘s getting old.”
Lilker continued, “it’s hard to explain, because some of it’s stuff that we don’t really discuss outside the band or anything.” He noted that Connelly, their frontman, is a high school teacher, which makes touring around his schedule “hard…. Obviously, he could get school vacations in the summer, but he’s also got a family. Just because it’s summer and he doesn’t have to teach doesn’t mean he’s gonna run away for a month and not be able to just go do normal vacation s— with his family and everything.” Lilker added, “It just gets more complicated like that…So that alone is a big reason that it’s really hard to do it.”
Metal Band Confirms Breakup
