The Oak Ridge Boys announced plans to retire in 2023, but the country icons are still going strong, with no end in sight.

In a new interview, Oaks singer Duane Allen says the band has no plans to call it quits anytime soon.

The beloved country vocal group announced that they would retire from the road in September of 2023, when they revealed the dates for their American Made: Farewell Tour.

The tour originally had dates scheduled through December of 2024, but the Country Music Hall of Famers were not done yet. The Oak Ridge Boys announced a new slate of tour dates for 2025 on Jan. 14, with shows scheduled through nearly the end of the year — and according to Allen, the sky’s the limit after that.

Allen tells Taste of Country he was in the process of winding down the band’s schedule when the other three band members — William Lee Golden, Richard Sterban and the newest Oak Ridge Boy, Ben James —came to him about two months before the end of 2024, with just a handful of dates remaining on the books.

“They said, ‘We’ve all talked, and we want to keep working. We’re not through singing yet,'” he recalls.

The group had experienced a tremendous amount of loss over the previous months.

First, Allen lost his wife of nearly 55 years, Norah Lee Allen, on the same Easter weekend that singer Richard Sterban’s wife lost her father.

Then, William Lee Golden’s son Rusty died on July 1, 2024, followed by longtime Oak Ridge Boys singer Joe Bonsall, who died on July 9 at age 76 as a result of complications from ALS.

All told, Allen says the group lost 16 people who were either family members, close friends or part of their team around that same time.

“That four months was a very difficult time for the Oak Ridge Boys,” he acknowledges. “But we just kept believing and kept praying, and God has opened up some doors for us.”

Allen set about getting more shows on the books, and the group is currently back out on the road, with their official live schedule showing dates through October of 2025.

They are also talking about recording more new music in 2025, and Allen says as long as things keep going as well as they are, he sees no reason for the group not to continue.

“Right now, I don’t have any end date in sight,” he states. “I just started my 60th year with the Oak Ridge Boys, and I have no one to come home to.

“Singing and the fans on the road, they’re all my family now,” he adds. “And this group of guys I work with, we all love each other, and we love what we do. So I don’t know when the end date will be.”

Allen says that’s out of the group’s hands to a certain extent.

“The fact that God has blessed us for so many years … when He gets His mind made up that we’ve done enough, He will tell us, ‘It is enough. Go on home,'” he says.

“We’ll keep singing as long as God keeps blessing our career.”