Many were surprised when the Daffodils split in summer 2006.
“Ben [Jerman], the singer-guitarist, who unfortunately is also my neighbor for another week or so, suddenly decided that he just wasn't ‘having any fun anymore,’” said Daffodils bassist Jaye Furlonger at the time.
“First, Ben told [keyboardist] Berkeley [Kent Austin] that he didn’t want to play with him anymore, while I was out of town for a week. He had previously complained to me a little about Berk’s playing, which seemed crazy but not serious. When I got home and Ben told me what he had said to Berk, I told him that I didn’t want to play without Berk, so suddenly the band was off altogether. He may not have expected that reaction from me; breaking up the band completely might not have been the plan.
“Everything was going great,” she says, “we were playing the Casbah every other month, [and] we had a live radio broadcast lined up on 94.9 in a month’s time…Now, he [Ben] has some young kid drumming for him, and they’re just basically reworking our old songs, basically sucking all the energy out of them and making them sound really awkward and amateurish. I’m glad I’m moving soon. It’s painful to have to listen to him practicing all the time, on so many levels.”
Former Daffodils singer/guitarist Ben Jerman spent the next three years playing guitar and writing dozens of songs in his North Park home, delving into twangy Americana sounds with a hint of Kinks-inspired rock. In 2009, with guitarist Alex Jones and bassist Bianca Batti (both of Monsters from Mars), he cofounded the group Little Fowl. John Commune, singer and guitarist for the John Foothills Band, joined on drums, and Andrew Geldmeier, former guitarist for the Apes of Wrath, plays organ for the band.
Furlonger and Berkeley Kent Austin -- aka Beezeley -- went on to form Nautical Disaster. After that band split, Berkeley co-founded Heart Beat Trail, while Furlonger (who married and changed her last name to MacAskill) co-founded Pony Death Ride.