The Dead Girls fade to black

Lawrence garage-pop group the Dead Girls celebrated a decade together in April. There was no hint then that the Girls were headed to their graves. Then in November, weeks after releasing a new album, the band announced that it was calling it quits. But the split is amicable.

Lead singer and guitarist Cameron Hawk plans to be out of the country in 2015, and guitarist JoJo Longbottom, drummer Eric Melin and bassist Nick Colby are going their separate ways.

Of course, they’re not splitting up without a few tender farewells. Friday at Harling’s Upstairs, the band says goodbye with its last Kansas City show. We called Hawk to get the details.

The Pitch: The Dead Girls’ breakup seems so sudden. Walk me through this.

Hawk: I got an opportunity to teach English in China for a semester, and I’m gonna go do that from January to August. It’s like this eight-month stint, and we’re all just really busy anyway. It just seemed kind of dumb to be like, “Well, Cameron’s moving across the ocean, and we’re not gonna be doing anything for eight months, but maybe when he gets back?” It just seemed like we should put a wrap on it.

We’ve been at it for 10 years, and we’ve put out four albums, and we’re not like big dramatic people or anything. We’re all best friends, and we love playing together, and we love going on the road and doing shows together. But a couple guys in our band are a little older, and they have more demanding lives. I’m pretty sure we’re all going to play together again. I don’t know if it’s going to be as the Dead Girls, but I feel like if we’re all in the same area, we’d never break up. It’s just a matter of whether we can do it consistently enough. But after being together for 10 years, it’d be weird to be like, “I don’t like playing together with you guys anymore.”

You released Noisemaker just a few weeks before you announced your split.

We had this last album, and since I’m leaving in January, we don’t have time to tour on it. And we just wanted to get it out. We all think it’s our best album. I know people always say that, but songwriting- and recordingwise, I think everything came together effortlessly, which is odd for us. And when we started working on it, we didn’t think we were going to break up. But then we thought we’d make it a farewell gift of sorts, and I think it’s cool to go out with brand-new music. A lot of bands break up, and it’s like, “Well, that’s it,” but doing it this way, I think it’s indicative that we’re going to make music together again in the future.

I know that while I’m doing my teaching thing, JoJo is going to be making music, and Eric has a million other things that he does, and I know Nick will keep doing it. We’ll keep rocking. I’m going to put out a solo album in the spring while I’m there [in China], and I’m hoping to have that be more of a thing when I get back.

Tell me about your solo album. Is that part of what prompted the disbanding?

No, I’ve always done solo stuff, even before the Dead Girls. It’s always been home recordings. I’ve self-released a couple solo albums. It’s usually an acoustic, slower, mellow sort of thing — a different vibe from the Dead Girls.

It’s not like I’m all, “I want to be by myself!” I just love working on music in any capacity. I love collaborating with other people, and I love sitting in a studio and getting to tinker with shit by myself.

Ten years is an awful long time for a band to stick together. What have you learned from this band in that period?

Countless things. One of the main things I’ve been thinking about recently is that it’s really helpful to be in a band where everybody understands that each person should have a clear role to play, and that everyone should understand how collaboration works. I’ve been so lucky to be in a band like the Dead Girls. It helps to be in a group of people that understand the flow of ideas and have patience with one another. I feel really lucky to play with guys like that for so long. I feel like a lot of people don’t get that chance for a decade.

You have all these final shows lined up. Is this going to be like Cher or something, with a million farewell gigs? Will the band be back next year, saying goodbye to us all over again?

[Laughs.] I hope not. Personally, I don’t really like it when bands do that. I know I’ll be back here at some point, and I know I’ll play music with those guys again. That’s just how it goes. There are so many bands that come and go in the span of a year or less — not just around here, but in general — and we had a really good run.