The band didn't know he was thinking along those lines while they worked on upcoming covers EP Anthems during their last European tour.

"It wasn't until after the tour ended and we started having conversations. To put it in a nutshell, he just needs to do his own thing at this point in time," Ian tells MTV Hive. "We knew he had a record that he was going to be doing, possibly. We had already told him, 'If you need to take a hiatus, that's fine.'"