First, they split with their record label, Reprise, which wasn’t much of a surprise. But within days, the band confirmed it had also parted company with guitarist Jay Bennett, which seemed like a much bigger deal even though the remaining four group members said they knew it was coming.

Frontman Jeff Tweedy told the Chicago Tribune, “Jay has been a huge part of the last three records, but it just became more obvious to us that he didn’t have the same enthusiasm for being a part of the band. It took a lot of bravery on both parts to make this happen, and we moved past any hard feelings really fast.”

Even so, Wilco seems little worse for wear despite the shakeup.

Though Reprise had released the band’s three studio albums, the group retained the rights to the upcoming disc, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and are angling to get it released soon.

Wilco reportedly had a dispute with the label over the record in June. When the band refused to make changes asked for by Reprise reps, the two sides reportedly began negotiating to terminate their contract.

Wilco had been pegged as an alt-country act for some time, but recently has made moves into the pop/rock genre – and Summer Teeth, their last album, had decidedly dark pop overtones.

Despite the exit of Bennett, the band is preparing to launch a fall tour and will hit the road as a four-piece, according to Wilco’s Web site, “the idea being … to strip things down a little and open up a bit more space in the songs.”

Wilco’s fall outing launches September 21 at the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas, and moves through at least 10 additional cities, including New Orleans, Atlanta, New York City, Boston, Toronto, Detroit and St. Louis. They’ll be playing songs from Yankee Hotel Foxtrot along the way.

“A lot’s changing, that’s for sure,” bass player John Stirratt said. “But the fact is none of this is really new news to us. We’ve been dealing with it all for months now and we’ve been rehearsing as a four-piece for a good while as well. It’ll be fun playing the new songs … and digging out some old songs from the catalog.”