in the blue light.

Today, I found an old cassette in my car that's been hidden away for god knows how long. It wasn't labeled, and it was one of many mix cassettes that have seen the insides of my car stereo at one point or another. Many of the blank cassettes in my car are/were horrible recordings of songs that were "under construction," from quite a few different projects. The point of them was that I could have a recording of the songs sans vocals so that I could listen to them and be able to write to them at my leisure. Often times the outcome was me singing at the top of my lungs while driving to any destination.

I threw it in and pressed play and was surprised to hear what was probably one of the last practice sessions of my old band. We had recorded instrumentals of some of the newest songs we had written so that I could write to them; 3 songs in total. Right away the notes that I had in mind for certain parts jumped out of my subconscious and into my throat, and before I knew it I was humming the tentative vocals I had once written to the songs. It was both exciting and somewhat mournful as well. It made me think about that point in time in my life, what I was going through, and how important that period was for me.

After releasing an EP, a full-length CD, writing a multitude of various other songs that never saw the inside of a recording studio, playing both tiny and huge shows (in our eyes, anyway), going on east coast tours a few times, and signing to a small indie record label, I made the decision to part ways with them. There were quite a few reasons why I felt the need to do it, but the one that overshadowed everything else was that my heart just wasn't in it anymore. I remember the last few months leading up to my decision felt so awkward and uncomfortable; I loved the band, but I was bored and disenchanted. I felt then and still feel now that I'm far from the typical "band dude." By nature I am a fairly introverted, closed-off type of person. When I had first met the guys that became my bandmates, I couldn't even sing in front of them, much less in front of an audience. Public speaking was definitely NOT my forte, and I thought I was going to perform music with a crowd watching? What was I thinking? If it wasn't for the patience and persistence of those guys and their surprising belief in me, I could never have gotten over that fear.

Playing in a band and touring is by nature a very social activity. You're always meeting new people, jumping from one conversation to another, traveling, bonding with your bandmates. It was this aspect that never sat right with me. I don't know why. I had nothing against anyone involved, in fact I really liked most of them. For some weird reason I just couldn't successfully combine my musician side with my social side. It was like I felt the need to keep the two separated. I wasn't in it for the "cool" factor. A lead singer with a fear of attention? Come on. I needed it as an outlet, as a vehicle for my creative drive and my emotions. I never felt the urge to use it as a way to gain friends, or sex, or ego boosts. And I'm not saying that all people who are in bands are in it for that, or that the guys I made music with were, just that it wasn't my thing.

Maybe I ended up leaving because I knew it wasn't what I thought it was, or that it turned into something different over the years. But I still miss it terribly, and I always wonder what I would be doing now if I had stayed.