If you’re a millennial, it doesn’t matter what your music taste was like back in the 2010s. You definitely remember the indie folk song “Home” by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. It was the neo-psychedelia outfit’s biggest single, and it was all over the radio for a solid few years after it debuted in 2010.
Jade Castrinos, the memorable lead female singer of the band, is one of the most iconic members of the outfit. To be honest, when I think of that early 2010s indie sleaze that reached back toward the 1960s and 1970s, I think of her.
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That’s why when she announced her departure from the band in 2014, I was in shambles. Other millennials who loved Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros were shocked as well. And even today, it isn’t entirely clear what really happened.
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros was formed in Los Angeles in 2005 by lead singer Alex Ebert. Like Jade Castrinos, he was one of the most recognizable figures in the band. Despite the group being made up of a revolving door of members for the better part of a decade, Ebert and Castrinos were the two faces that fans recognized the most. So, when Castrinos announced her departure, there was quite a bit of controversy.
Jade Castrino’s Departure From Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes Was Quite Controversial
Castrinos took to Instagram on this very day in 2014 with a simple yet heavy message for her fans: “For seven years i sang and wrote music with edward sharpe. they voted me off of tour a week before they left, via email. Lol.”
Fans noticed that Castrinos had not been present with the band for about a month before the message dropped, and she didn’t appear at the group’s Shaky Knees Music Festival performance in Atlanta.
From there, the circumstances of her departure have been rooted in mystery and drama. Jade Castrinos made it seem like she was booted from the band suddenly. The whole of the band, however, claimed on Facebook that “anyone on here who thinks the story could be as terribly and flatly painted as Jade conveniently did has no idea what this band has always been about.” The Facebook post also addressed Castrinos directly, saying that how she framed her departure was “beneath [her] and it is grotesquely damaging.”
Castrinos and Ebert were dating when the band first formed, and they co-wrote the song “Home” together. It’s clear that a breakup happened at some point. Still, in 2015, the band would return to Facebook to tell fans that “you should know Jade quit.”
“We didn’t kick her out,” the post read. “We asked her to take off one tour. So she quit and told you she was booted.”
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros broke up in 2016.
Photo by C Flanigan/Getty Images
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