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After a gig back in September, our drummer and bassist had a major blow-out that resulted in the bassist leaving the venue and calling me shortly afterward to say that he was leaving in the band. It happened in front of several people, and just barely stopped short of physical violence. This guy's sense of humor and tendency to "one-up" people when discussing virtually any topic rubbed the rest of us the wrong way, and he was always first to point out other members' mistakes in practice, and he finally pushed all the wrong buttons in sequence. Needless to say, when he announced that he was quitting, nobody exactly protested. However, knowing that both guys are pretty hotheaded in confrontations, I waited until I thought things had cooled down to talk with each of them separately, to see if there was any chance of mending fences. The bassist absolutely wanted to backtrack and patch things up, but our drummer said "hell no," which sealed the deal as far as any long-term plans were concerned. We reached a compromise, where the bassist would play one last show with us (last Saturday) and record his remaining parts for our next album.
Well, apparently this no longer is good enough for him, or he thinks the rest of us have short memories, because last night he called to ask if we had any more shows scheduled. When I said that we didn't, he said to make sure to let him know when we did. I pointed out that I didn't think that was going to work out if multiple people (mostly the drummer, but everyone to some extent) didn't really want to keep playing with him, which he didn't seem to grasp, eventually leaving me no choice but to do something I didn't want to . . .
. . . which was to tell him that we would never be able to find a replacement drummer of the same caliber, but that we could gig without a bassist (as we did for two years) and I could record bass tracks for future albums if we didn't find anyone by then. I mean, it took an hour to get to that point, but he just kept using words like "we" and "us" when discussing future plans. He seemed completely dumbfounded by this, and then tried to point out the personality quirks of everyone else, overlooking the fact that he quit in the first place. Admittedly, he is the most dedicated member of the band in terms of practicing and making time to work on things, and he has good stage presence, but his personality just clashes with everyone. Not just band members either, but everyone.
I'm still just shaking my head 16+ hours later, thinking how much easier it would have been to kick him out months ago when things started getting unpleasant. At least I talked him out of spending thousands of dollars on gear over the course of the past three years, sensing that his time with us would end sooner rather than later.
Well, apparently this no longer is good enough for him, or he thinks the rest of us have short memories, because last night he called to ask if we had any more shows scheduled. When I said that we didn't, he said to make sure to let him know when we did. I pointed out that I didn't think that was going to work out if multiple people (mostly the drummer, but everyone to some extent) didn't really want to keep playing with him, which he didn't seem to grasp, eventually leaving me no choice but to do something I didn't want to . . .
. . . which was to tell him that we would never be able to find a replacement drummer of the same caliber, but that we could gig without a bassist (as we did for two years) and I could record bass tracks for future albums if we didn't find anyone by then. I mean, it took an hour to get to that point, but he just kept using words like "we" and "us" when discussing future plans. He seemed completely dumbfounded by this, and then tried to point out the personality quirks of everyone else, overlooking the fact that he quit in the first place. Admittedly, he is the most dedicated member of the band in terms of practicing and making time to work on things, and he has good stage presence, but his personality just clashes with everyone. Not just band members either, but everyone.
I'm still just shaking my head 16+ hours later, thinking how much easier it would have been to kick him out months ago when things started getting unpleasant. At least I talked him out of spending thousands of dollars on gear over the course of the past three years, sensing that his time with us would end sooner rather than later.
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