Yikes…
If you were a fan of mainstream country music in the 2010s, The Band Perry is sure to ring a bell. Coming off firing right out of the gate, the trio scored not one but five Top 20 singles from their self-titled debut album from 2010. This, of course, includes their #1 hits, “You Lie” and their signature song, “If I Die Young,” which has since become one of the few country songs in history to be certified Diamond by the RIAA.
They’d follow that up with another successful outing in 2012 upon the release of their sophomore album, Pioneer, which contained another string of hits, including two #1s, “Better Dig Two” and “DONE,” as well as two Top 10s, “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely” and “Chainsaw.”
After that, however, everything seemingly fell off the rails for the group that was well on its way to superstardom throughout the rest of the 2010s.
What followed was multiple odd stylistic/image changes, an odd venture into pop and EDM and an eventual hiatus. During the hiatus, we saw the front woman, (for all intents and purposes) Kimberly Perry, try her hand at a solo career in 2023. This was highlighted by her only solo album as of today, which contained a reimagining of their biggest hit, “If I Die Young, Pt. 2.”
Last year, however, The Band Perry “returned” with a brand new iteration of the group upon signing with Big Machine Label Group (BMLG). Instead of the lineup consisting of siblings, Kimberly, Reid and Neil, now it’s simply Kimberly and her husband, Johnny Castello. Upon the return, it was announced that Castello would be directly replacing Neil as a backing vocalist, while Reid departed the band in pursuit of artist management.
Since their return, the new iteration of The Band Perry has released a plethora of new tracks throughout 2026, including “PSYCHOLOGICAL,” “Buzzards,” “Kill It” and a duet version of “You Lie” featuring Kaitlin Butts. Additionally, they were featured on the secondary stage at Nissan Stadium during this year’s CMA Fest, where Kimberly and Castello performed “If I Die Young” together.
It goes without saying that the band’s “return” without two-thirds of the siblings has always felt a bit strange, and it looks like there was a LOT of drama behind the scenes during all of it.
If you recall, Kimberly has been on a bit of a press tour since the return announcement, most notably going on the likes of Rolling Stone and Bobby Bones’ podcasts over the past year. During these interviews, she’d claim that both brothers were completely on board with the current state of the band.
In fact, she’d tell Rolling Stone that both of them gave her their blessing to continue The Band Perry without them:
“Yeah, absolutely. I think they are very interested in The Band Perry getting landed as well. We are so proud of the past that we shared, and I think it’s just been about where does it go in the future. This was really my family band in the living room before anything else…
It’s just so cool to feel that love and support and to know that, ‘Hey guys, I’ve got this. Everything that we built was so magical and so beautiful. And I’m gonna go land this with the same integrity that we started it with.’ And of course, there’s always an open seat for a brother if they ever want to tour.”
According to Neil, however, that’s not the full story in the slightest… quite the opposite actually.
Yesterday, Neil took to Instagram to drop an absolute bombshell. In a post including a scene from the television show Succession talking about uncomfortable family dynamics and two contradictory answers from Kimberly on the aforementioned Rolling Stone and Bobby Bones interviews, he would tell his side of the story in the caption.
As Neil explains, in June 2024, Kimberly was the one to initiate Castello replacing Reid in the band, something he made “equally clear” that he was against. Because of the push-back, Neil was then fired from The Band Perry by his sister just a day after his birthday.
Noting that he felt the situation had become “far more than the lineup,” he claimed that he lost all access to his family’s band’s platforms and resources as a result of the firing. Additionally, he’d directly call out Kimberly’s narrative, noting he “watched a story emerge that didn’t resemble” the one he watched.
“June 2024 took something from me. Something I had spent my entire life building. A band. A business. A family. A name.
My sister wanted her husband to become a member of the band, taking my brother’s place. I made it equally clear that I was not okay with that. By then, the situation had become about far more than the lineup. I had witnessed instability and broken trust that fundamentally changed my ability to move forward.
Weeks later, I was terminated. The day after my birthday.
I never expected that my decision not to participate under those circumstances would also mean losing my financial interest and access to the band’s platforms, resources, and audience I had spent my life helping build.
Then I watched a story emerge that didn’t resemble the one I lived. The anger became music. The grief became songs. The loss became freedom. June 2024 took the old life.”
He’d follow that post up with a snarky reel calling out Kimberly with the caption reading:
“Preparing for my Netflix documentary about how The Band Perry went from three siblings to my sister and her husband.”
As of now, neither Kimberly nor Reid have yet to respond to Neil’s claims, but it appears that Neil has channeled the anger and frustration of this situation into a new musical endeavor called Wolves of June.
Check it out:
