I’m back to square one: My solo material.
Between extreme musical differences (where they said “we don’t care about theory. Theory puts music in a box” which is pure BS), homophobia (two weeks before I quit I was told about how the bass player got with a friend and destroyed all their Judas Priest records when they found out dude is gay–and he somehow wanted me to make him feel vindicated for his actions even though he blatantly knew about my sexuality), my graphics and web work not even being worth $20 when I had to pay band dues of $100 a month (they wouldn’t give me even ONE discount for ONE month, no matter how much work I did), and me becoming utterly tired of the whole metal scene (I’m completely bored with the genre now) and trying to sing “harsh with emotion” all the time to where I was damaging my voice, I quit the band. Oh yeah, and the fact that the entire time I was with them, they SAID they would work on one or two of my songs, and whenever it came time, they’d say “If we do any new songs, they need to be ones that the band works on together” and then would turn around and work on a new one from one of the other members–that happened at least 9 times–THAT was frustrating.
I had spent almost all my time doing things for the band. Lots of hours there mixing (ProTools) because their idea of a good mix is all midrange and mono. All my time was taken up, I hadn’t gone out to anywhere just for my own enjoyment the entire time–almost a full year, I missed 3 major gatherings of friends in other states, and I had become moody towards EVERYBODY. I’m sorry that I had come on here all pissy about the MED thing. I didn’t realize how bound up I was. And then they had the nerve to tell me I had barely done anything for the band.
Anyway, hopefully my future messages here will be much more pleasant now that I’m not doing something that I should have never done in the first place. I suppose I had to learn somehow that metal TRULY isn’t for me.
Here’s a clip of one of the songs (I don’t want to deal with any more problems with the band if I were to post the whole song)–the only one I have a decent recording of:
(EDIT: This line was edited because I had to remove that clip because of the contract with the label. It does show up as a quote in a later post, but I have replaced that file on my server with a sample of me stating that I had to remove it.)
Anyway–I’m back to my solo material, but this time I’m continuing the live performance aspects. I have a 70’s Wurlitzer electric piano, a Roland Juno-60, a Roland JD-990, and a Roland JV-2080 that I will be using for my shows. I’m hoping to have a full set together by the end of November.
One thing though–I don’t regret the things I learned while in the band. I know what I really need to do now, and I’m on my way.
Thanks everyone for putting up with my crap a few months ago.