Good times for a change...
As of today, after playing the last gig at Lumous festival in Finland last week (which was great, btw) I have officially left Voices of Masada; it has been long coming but now it's official.
Why? Well, as the most observant among you will have noticed, the three of us were never particularly close, and time has certainly increased the distance among us rather than decreasing it. Having said that, we have always been very professional and worked very well together, achieving lots of things that, to be completely honest, I don't think any other band in our situation would have come even close to achieving and I'm extremely proud of. For this reason, until now I have been perfectly happy to continue our professional relationship and reap its fruits like we have done so far, in terms of prestigious gigs, personal satisfaction and so on.
What has changed then?
Well, without going into too many details*, the band has now made a decision (which they will no doubt announce soon, and as a now ex-member is not my place to make public before they decide it's time to) that is against my principles and what I think being in a band is all about, a decision I fought against explaining my position but that was nonetheless approved by the majority of the band (i.e. the other two).
And those of you who know me know that principles are VERY important to me - people have said, and no doubt will say, that the easier thing to do for me would have been to go along with it, after all I wouldn't have had much to lose; but I don't do the easy thing, I do the RIGHT thing (or at least I try to) and this is the right thing to do for me.
This is not necessarily a moral judgement on what the other two have decided - it was something that I found wrong, which doesn't necessarily mean anyone else should or would - in fact I'm fairly sure some of you will think I must be stupid (well, even more stupid than you already think I am!) So it's a decision they were perfectly entitled to make, and good luck to them with it, they'll need it.
No doubt, gossip-mongers and various other backbiters will put two and two together and decide that I am leaving because of my involvement with Vendemmian. Well, this is a free country and they can think (and say) what they like, but that simply couldn't be further from the truth - as I'm sure also Rob and Ray will tell you. The process that has ultimately led to my leaving the band had started long before I became Vendemmian's live bass player, and the deciding factor happened much after and is totally unrelated to it. My being asked to play live for Vendemmian has just been a lucky coincidence, since, as it turned out, it will give me the chance to carry on playing live until I'll join another band or start a new one... IF that's what's gonna happen, cos at the moment there are no definite plans.
So, it's over and tomorrow is another day. I might still play 1 or 2 gigs with them (if they need me/want me to), but that's only because it's gigs we had already agreed and therefore I still consider my responsibility to play, especially if the alternative would be cancelling them or letting people down in any other way. Apart from that though, that's it.
The split is amicable, at least for now**. At present there are no particular problems between us and therefore those who hope to see a full blown feud develop will be disappointed - we are still more than capable of being in the same place without problems arising (unlike what happened with the parasitic element of the band we got rid of years ago), relations between us will definitely be warm and most people will not notice any changes in the way we'll behave towards each other in public - Hell, like I said above I could very well end up playing live with them again, do you think that would happen if there were serious problems between us?
What is going to happen now? In the short term, absolutely nothing that you don't know already - I will carry on playing live with Vendemmian; then who knows what the future holds - I might join another band, or become an effective member of Vendemmian, or start a new band from scratch, or become a solo performer/singer-songwriter, or join a fucking brass band, or all or none of the above, or fuck knows what else. I'm not all that bothered about it at the moment, to be honest.
Last but not least, I think some thanks are in order for all of you who supported me (us) and helped in any way during the 6 years of life (with me in it anyway) of this weird, beautiful, total paradox of a band, and contributed to achieving all we achieved (and it's A LOT) against all logic and rational explanations - you know who you are, all of you.
So, out goes the light, down comes the curtain, thank you and good night.
*At the same time it's no secret and I'll be happy to expand on that with anyone who'd like to know, privately and/on here
**I have NO intention to stop it being amicable, nor I believe in the slightest that the other two want that either, but you never know in life, and - again as you will know if you know me - I was never particularly good at turning the other cheeck: attack me and I will hit back, AND reserve the right to determine the extent of my retaliation, that's the only reason I added that 'at least for now' bit - again, anyone intent on reading between the lines and creating fantasy scenarios will be sorely disappointed.