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And to all involved it was big relief because he was really slowing the band down.
We got to know Ade as a fun guy, somebody who lightened up the mood and who always was in for a laugh or a joke, "Slavantas" was his first proper rock band and he was all too eager to make the most of it. His youthful enthusiasm worked miracles for us to really get going with the band. He and I went shopping for new gear at the massive Music Store in Cologne Germany and it was one of the most enjoyable days I had all year, we tried out Gretsch guitars, we went looking for equipment for stage use and we had a laugh about comic books. With him being Irish and a big Thin Lizzy fan I showed him an Epiphone John Sykes Les Paul which he bought and to this day he expresses his graditute to me showing him that guitar.
But in the duration that he has been with us he showed us that he also has a bad side to him. Ade is somebody who loves a bit of booze and does the odd white line. If he hasn't had his fix prior to doing rehearsals he becomes very hard to deal with. We told him "Live the way you wanna live but don't let all of this bring the band in jeopardy."
Here's the ten things that happened over the course of roughly a year with him in the band.
1. At one of the first rehearsals we did with him, we were cutting our teeth on a very technical and difficult to play song, we were about to nail it when he suddenly stopped playing and walked over to Pascal (our singer) and handed him lyrics that "would fit the song better" Needless to say our singer asked him why he didn't give those lyrics prior to us starting the song. His reply "Well it just popped in my mind that I still had those to show you and figured that this would be as good an opportunity as any."
2. The side project of our Bassplayer folded, their leadsinger stating that she just can't trust Ade one anymore.
3. At Halloween Ade and I went to see Friends of mine who play in a band called "Draztic Lee Zpastik" when I picked Ade up he came out clutching a bottle of brandy and taking huge swigs while we drove to the venue. After arriving there he began to beg everybody to give him beer and more booze. DLS' leadsinger takes me apart and goes: "What's this half-wit's problem, he's totally out of control." When driving him home Ade insisted that I'd drop him off at Pascal's home. I go "It's 3:30 in the morning, do you really think he'd like you showing up?" But Ade was adiment. And so I dropped him off at Pascal's house and quickly left the scene. At the rehearsal that followed Ade and Pascal were not exactly on good terms.
4. I fixed up one of Ade's instruments and he bought a guitar and an amp from me, I still get over 300 bucks from him.
5. Three months ago, our band got in a second guitarist: Andy. Who, like Ade is Irish. So in order to get a bond formed with my two fellow bandmembers I arranged to go shopping with them for new gear, employing my knowlegde of instruments to the band's advantage. Prior to that me and Ade have been over at Andy's to jam and come up with new material, this resulted in our newest song. So with that pleasant memory still fresh me and Andy arrive at Ade's place to pick him up as arranged, there's no reply at the door. We call him up on the cellphone and there's no reply. But at the next rehearsal he goes "Sorry man, I was there but had such a bad hangover that I took some sleeping pills to sleep it off, I meant to call you guys about it but I forgot."
6. Ade and Pascal get into a heated argument over nothing. Our leadsinger doesn't really like songs with busy wordy lyrics so he changes the lyrics around to suit his vocal style. I adressed him about that and he explained his reason and we both agreed that it was the best thing to do. But Ade was going "Man stop screwing up the songs, this band should be a democracy. We all have to have our say about you changing lyrics."
7. Directly after that particullar rehearsal. Our rehearsal space also has a bar and still angry because of the argument with our singer, Ade went on a rampage, copping feels on the girls that were there at that particullar evening, being rude and loudmouthed. Andy and Josh (Our drummer) had to physically remove him from the vicinity. His little freak out earned our band a first "yellow card" which is a formal warning, one more reported case of bad behavior and our band is no longer welcome.
8. Two weeks ago. We have band get-togethers to iron out kinks in our system. We all agreed to call or mail well in advance if one of us cannot make it. We had just been given a prime spot on an important cutural festival stage and we planned to start working towards that gig. We also never start a meeting until everybody is there. We wait for an hour and Ade never showed up. Turned out that he was in London with his Girlfriend. When we asked him why he didn't call he went "You ought to know better than that, I haven't got any range in London."
9. Last week's rehearsal. The song that Andy and I are working on is growing better and better as time went on, we all enjoyed seeing the jigsaw pieces coming together. Josh is working our the drumbreaks, Andy and I are trading off licks making our ideas flow together. Pascal is singing some non-lyrical thing making up the vocal lines while scribbling some words down trying to figure our what he will sing. And even Ade was no trouble effordlessly hooking in with what me and Andy were doing. The magic was there, we were making one of our best songs to date when suddenly Ade goes: "Okay lads, that's enough of that, let's start working on another one." Everybody in the band looked at him with an "Are you kidding me?" look in their eyes, we were all expecting for him to break out laughing and go "Ha, got you there didn't I?" but no he was dead serious, killing off what would have well been one of our most productive reheasals yet in order to start working on a song he wanted to bring forwards, no matter how far we came with Andy's song, his apparently had the higher priority, resulting in an argument between him and Andy. And having Pascal and Josh leaving the room to "take a leak." The girl behind the bar adresses Pascal and goes "Could you tell that red headed buddy of yours..." before Pascal interrupts her by stating "He's not my buddy, he just my bassplayer" Later that night I got a phonecall from Andy telling me: "This can't go on anymore Walt, I really can't deal with him anymore." to which I reply that I agree with him.
10. The conclusion. Things have gone to the hilt, Ade is putting the excistence of the band in Jeopardy. After that last rehearsal Pascal phones me up to tell me that he and Andy have spoken about sacking Ade and want to know my opinion. I tell him that I agree, Ade has to go. When we phoned Josh he wasn't convinced yet, he figured that Ade at least should have a fair chance to clean up his act and to have his say. We all decide that that's fair and so we all meet up at the bar of our rehearsal space and await Ade's arrival. We have since become accustomed with Ade being the last one to arrive so we patiently wait but after an hour goes by, we were all convinced that he wouldn't show up at all. So we tried calling him, no reply at his phone, so we tried calling up his girlfriend who informs us that Ade is in Switzerland once again never calling off the bandmeeting. Of all people, it's Josh our most mild manner bandmember who says "Screw giving him a fair chance, that SOB is out as far as I'm concerned." we took a vote and everybody agreed. Later that night I got a phonecall from Andy telling me that he saw Ade's girlfriend and that she told him that Ade was expressing the idea of leaving the band himself.
And so, tomorrow we will have to face Ade and formally tell him that he's no longer part of Slavantas. Not something I'm looking forward to.
We got to know Ade as a fun guy, somebody who lightened up the mood and who always was in for a laugh or a joke, "Slavantas" was his first proper rock band and he was all too eager to make the most of it. His youthful enthusiasm worked miracles for us to really get going with the band. He and I went shopping for new gear at the massive Music Store in Cologne Germany and it was one of the most enjoyable days I had all year, we tried out Gretsch guitars, we went looking for equipment for stage use and we had a laugh about comic books. With him being Irish and a big Thin Lizzy fan I showed him an Epiphone John Sykes Les Paul which he bought and to this day he expresses his graditute to me showing him that guitar.
But in the duration that he has been with us he showed us that he also has a bad side to him. Ade is somebody who loves a bit of booze and does the odd white line. If he hasn't had his fix prior to doing rehearsals he becomes very hard to deal with. We told him "Live the way you wanna live but don't let all of this bring the band in jeopardy."
Here's the ten things that happened over the course of roughly a year with him in the band.
1. At one of the first rehearsals we did with him, we were cutting our teeth on a very technical and difficult to play song, we were about to nail it when he suddenly stopped playing and walked over to Pascal (our singer) and handed him lyrics that "would fit the song better" Needless to say our singer asked him why he didn't give those lyrics prior to us starting the song. His reply "Well it just popped in my mind that I still had those to show you and figured that this would be as good an opportunity as any."
2. The side project of our Bassplayer folded, their leadsinger stating that she just can't trust Ade one anymore.
3. At Halloween Ade and I went to see Friends of mine who play in a band called "Draztic Lee Zpastik" when I picked Ade up he came out clutching a bottle of brandy and taking huge swigs while we drove to the venue. After arriving there he began to beg everybody to give him beer and more booze. DLS' leadsinger takes me apart and goes: "What's this half-wit's problem, he's totally out of control." When driving him home Ade insisted that I'd drop him off at Pascal's home. I go "It's 3:30 in the morning, do you really think he'd like you showing up?" But Ade was adiment. And so I dropped him off at Pascal's house and quickly left the scene. At the rehearsal that followed Ade and Pascal were not exactly on good terms.
4. I fixed up one of Ade's instruments and he bought a guitar and an amp from me, I still get over 300 bucks from him.
5. Three months ago, our band got in a second guitarist: Andy. Who, like Ade is Irish. So in order to get a bond formed with my two fellow bandmembers I arranged to go shopping with them for new gear, employing my knowlegde of instruments to the band's advantage. Prior to that me and Ade have been over at Andy's to jam and come up with new material, this resulted in our newest song. So with that pleasant memory still fresh me and Andy arrive at Ade's place to pick him up as arranged, there's no reply at the door. We call him up on the cellphone and there's no reply. But at the next rehearsal he goes "Sorry man, I was there but had such a bad hangover that I took some sleeping pills to sleep it off, I meant to call you guys about it but I forgot."
6. Ade and Pascal get into a heated argument over nothing. Our leadsinger doesn't really like songs with busy wordy lyrics so he changes the lyrics around to suit his vocal style. I adressed him about that and he explained his reason and we both agreed that it was the best thing to do. But Ade was going "Man stop screwing up the songs, this band should be a democracy. We all have to have our say about you changing lyrics."
7. Directly after that particullar rehearsal. Our rehearsal space also has a bar and still angry because of the argument with our singer, Ade went on a rampage, copping feels on the girls that were there at that particullar evening, being rude and loudmouthed. Andy and Josh (Our drummer) had to physically remove him from the vicinity. His little freak out earned our band a first "yellow card" which is a formal warning, one more reported case of bad behavior and our band is no longer welcome.
8. Two weeks ago. We have band get-togethers to iron out kinks in our system. We all agreed to call or mail well in advance if one of us cannot make it. We had just been given a prime spot on an important cutural festival stage and we planned to start working towards that gig. We also never start a meeting until everybody is there. We wait for an hour and Ade never showed up. Turned out that he was in London with his Girlfriend. When we asked him why he didn't call he went "You ought to know better than that, I haven't got any range in London."
9. Last week's rehearsal. The song that Andy and I are working on is growing better and better as time went on, we all enjoyed seeing the jigsaw pieces coming together. Josh is working our the drumbreaks, Andy and I are trading off licks making our ideas flow together. Pascal is singing some non-lyrical thing making up the vocal lines while scribbling some words down trying to figure our what he will sing. And even Ade was no trouble effordlessly hooking in with what me and Andy were doing. The magic was there, we were making one of our best songs to date when suddenly Ade goes: "Okay lads, that's enough of that, let's start working on another one." Everybody in the band looked at him with an "Are you kidding me?" look in their eyes, we were all expecting for him to break out laughing and go "Ha, got you there didn't I?" but no he was dead serious, killing off what would have well been one of our most productive reheasals yet in order to start working on a song he wanted to bring forwards, no matter how far we came with Andy's song, his apparently had the higher priority, resulting in an argument between him and Andy. And having Pascal and Josh leaving the room to "take a leak." The girl behind the bar adresses Pascal and goes "Could you tell that red headed buddy of yours..." before Pascal interrupts her by stating "He's not my buddy, he just my bassplayer" Later that night I got a phonecall from Andy telling me: "This can't go on anymore Walt, I really can't deal with him anymore." to which I reply that I agree with him.
10. The conclusion. Things have gone to the hilt, Ade is putting the excistence of the band in Jeopardy. After that last rehearsal Pascal phones me up to tell me that he and Andy have spoken about sacking Ade and want to know my opinion. I tell him that I agree, Ade has to go. When we phoned Josh he wasn't convinced yet, he figured that Ade at least should have a fair chance to clean up his act and to have his say. We all decide that that's fair and so we all meet up at the bar of our rehearsal space and await Ade's arrival. We have since become accustomed with Ade being the last one to arrive so we patiently wait but after an hour goes by, we were all convinced that he wouldn't show up at all. So we tried calling him, no reply at his phone, so we tried calling up his girlfriend who informs us that Ade is in Switzerland once again never calling off the bandmeeting. Of all people, it's Josh our most mild manner bandmember who says "Screw giving him a fair chance, that SOB is out as far as I'm concerned." we took a vote and everybody agreed. Later that night I got a phonecall from Andy telling me that he saw Ade's girlfriend and that she told him that Ade was expressing the idea of leaving the band himself.
And so, tomorrow we will have to face Ade and formally tell him that he's no longer part of Slavantas. Not something I'm looking forward to.
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