Monty Brinton/CBSFun. assured fans this week that they are not breaking up, but the group's members are pursuing other ventures for the time being. That includes frontman Nate Ruess who is working on a solo album. In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Nate discusses his new project and explains why he needed to break free from fun.
"People were expecting a lot out of the next fun. album,” he tells the magazine. “Everybody wanted to squeeze every last drop out of it, but those things are hard to duplicate. The smartest way to look at things is to know they're never going to happen again. People thought I was f**king nuts, but I'm not out to chase something. I'm out to be happy.”
And part of the happiness included falling in love. Nate’s been dating fashion designer Charlotte Ronson -- Mark Ronson's sister -- for nearly a year and he credits the relationship with sparking his solo songwriting. He said the songs started pouring out of him, but instead of bringing them to his band mates Jack Antonoff and Andrew Dost, he decided to keep them for himself.
"You get a little selfish about the songs that you write, and it's really hard to do that in a group setting, where there are two other people, and you have to think about everybody else's feelings," Nate says. "I'm writing and singing these songs about myself. When you work with producers versus band mates, that line becomes a lot less blurry."
He does admit that when he told his band mates his plans, they weren't exactly thrilled. "I handled things poorly,” he says. “It was a sloppy, long, kind of 'Guys, I've got something that I really want to do, and I need the opportunity to do that.’”
Still, he insists there is no bad blood among them. He refuses to say fun. is over for good. “No, that would be speaking in definitives, and we don't do that," he says.
Nate's debut solo album reportedly will be released this summer. One of the songs on the new album, “Nothing Without Love,” will be the first single.
Follow @ABCNewsRadio Copyright 2014 ABC News Radio