so I'm leaving the band

[MotiDave]

Well, got through the album release and final three shows and everything went pretty much as well as possible. I'm very pleased. Although we didn't make any official announcements at the shows or online yet I was able to be open about it with our close friends and biggest fans at the shows, and it felt really good to be able to tell a select few people in person what was going on before they found out through facebook. The shows themselves went amazingly, we had 600 through the door the first night (in Denver), 400 through the door in Boulder, and a somewhat disappointing less than 100 in Fort Collins, but we also had the most direct competition that night. The first two were some of the worst sound nights I'd had with the band, but it couldn't really phase me at that point. The last night the sound was phenomenal though, and I was able to really play like I wanted to.

 

One of the coolest parts of the run though was having one of our good friends and a much older more experienced established musician sitting in with us for them, Chuck Morris from the band Lotus. He's played with us a bunch of times and its been really cool to go from a huge fan of his when I was in highschool to a friend. Getting to talk to him about leaving the band and hearing his perspective on it was great and a conversation I'll probably never forget. It was great to hear from someone who's been touring for the past 14 years and basically done it all (including sell out Red Rocks).

 

Things are great with the band too. I basically gave them their space for most of last week after an understandably somewhat hostile response to initially hearing about it, and they really did come to terms with it well. The morning after the last show I had a great conversation with a couple of the guys and was able to truly let them know my full perspective and hear theirs as well.

 

All in all, I'm happy and excited for the future. Its gonna be a challenge starting over from pretty much square one again, but thats what I signed up for.

 

I googled up a couple live concert tracks of your soon/already-ex band for giggles. very nice work, congrats. I don't get how they replace you with a second guitar, but they'll sort it out.

 

one lesson you're already starting to learn (younger than I did, I'm afraid) is that if you assume a personal responsibility for others, whether its a band you don't feel is for you or other individuals, you will eventually hurt both yourself and that external entity. its best for the band that you move on, even if the initial transition requires extra work for them.

 

I imagine you now standing in front of a bright new white canvass ... you can paint anything you can imagine ...