MACHINE HEAD: haben sich von Bassist Adam Duce getrennt

MACHINE HEAD und Bassist Adam Duce gehen ab sofort getrennte Wege. Bereits am vergangenen Wochenende gab die Formation die Trennung von ihrem Gründungsmitglied bekannt. Was zunächst als einvernehmlicher Schritt angekündigt worden war, entpuppte sich nun als Maßnahme zur Rettung der Band: In einem ausführlichen Statement erklärt Bandkopf Robb Flynn, dass es hinter den Kulissen schon seit einiger Zeit brodelte, da Adam die Leidenschaft verloren hatte, für einen persönlichen Schlussstrich jedoch zu stolz gewesen war. Am 11. Februar 2013 entschloss sich die Band schließlich, sich von ihrem Bassisten zu trennen. Als Dreiergespann arbeitet die Gruppe nun an einem neuen Album, das Ende 2013 erscheinen soll. Zum ausführlichen Statement von Robb Flynn im Original:

MACHINE HEAD und Bassist Adam Duce gehen ab sofort getrennte Wege. Bereits am vergangenen Wochenende gab die Formation die Trennung von ihrem Gründungsmitglied bekannt. Was zunächst als einvernehmlicher Schritt angekündigt worden war, entpuppte sich nun als Maßnahme zur Rettung der Band: In einem ausführlichen Statement erklärt Bandkopf Robb Flynn, dass es hinter den Kulissen schon seit einiger Zeit brodelte, da Adam die Leidenschaft verloren hatte, für einen persönlichen Schlussstrich jedoch zu stolz gewesen war. Am 11. Februar 2013 entschloss sich die Band schließlich, sich von ihrem Bassisten zu trennen. Als Dreiergespann arbeitet die Gruppe nun an einem neuen Album, das Ende 2013 erscheinen soll.

Das Statement von Robb Flynn im Original:

As much as I do not want to write this journal, I promised you I´d write them at least once a week. Good, bad, happy or sad… so this is what has to be done.

2-11-13.
That is the date we fired Adam Duce. That is the day that I had to tell Adam that after 21 years of being in a band together, I just couldn´t take it anymore.

That is the day I said My hope is that this can be amicable.

The words sounded like someone else had spoken them.

It was like being outside of my body watching someone else deliver these painful words.

But, it was me saying it.

And we all said it.

We had our say sitting in our jam room in Oakland. Dave said it. Joseph (our manager) said it. Phil said it. We all said that we couldn´t take being in a band with him anymore. That if this didn´t happen, we were going to break up the band.

It was hard. One of the hardest moments of my life.

It was also a long time coming.

We may have fired Adam on 2-11-13, but Adam quit Machine Head well over a decade ago. He just never bothered to tell anyone… but we all knew it.

Contrary to popular belief, being in a band is tough. Really fucking tough. It´s the toughest sonofabitch you´ll ever come across in your life and it will beat the living shit out of you 80% of the time. Many times it feels like one big rollercoaster, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. There are wins and losses seemingly every single day. Being in a band is one of life´s strangest gambles.

But when you do win, when you win that 20%, well… it truly is salvation. It´s what makes eating the other 80% of that shit sandwich bearable. It´s where “those” stories come from. It can be the best job you´ll ever have and unquestionably one of the hardest you´ll ever have. But until you´ve done it for 20+ years, you have no clue. Until you´ve held a band together for 20+ years, you really don´t know jack shit about it.

You think you do.

You don´t.

A band is a dysfunctional family. A brotherhood, a family business, and a Renaissance-era court. You´re roommates in a studio-apartment-on-wheels for years at a time, 24 hours a day. Plus you´re in the pressure cooker of the spotlight, every move analyzed, read into, or attacked. Everybody wants something from you, everybody wants to be your friend, everybody loves you, everybody can do so-much-better-for-you-than-the-people-you-have-now. Some people try and turn you against each other, and everyone wants to take credit for your success.

Oftentimes you´re enemies. At odds and fighting about something, but pretending everything is fine onstage.

But it isn´t…

You just wear a mask that looks like it´s fine, and after 20 years, we know that mask so well, it slides on way too fuckin´ easy.

Adam hasn´t been happy in this band for a long time. But how do you leave? To a guy like Adam everything is either winning or losing. A stunning victory or the ultimate failure. There was no in-between. And while that sounds great for a TV show or an interview sound bite, or even a John Wayne movie that wraps up in 90 minutes… life just isn´t like that.

And life certainly isn´t like that for a band like Machine Head. A band who operate in the upper-middle tier. For us, there are no stunning victories, only respectable wins. No ultimate failures, just better-luck-next-times. We carved a niche, we OWN that niche, but it´s still just a niche. Nothing wrong with that.

No matter how unhappy or fed up he got, quitting the band would be seen as losing or a failure. Truth be told, he was sick of it. Sick of touring, sick of recording, sick of practicing, sick of looking at album artwork, sick of being-on-a-team-but-never-getting-the-ball, sick of yearning-for-the-honeymoon-to-resume when 20 years deep it never does. Sick of never quite hitting the big-time, sick of carving the niche… sick of caring.

I don´t blame him. It´s hard to keep the passion.

But he just wouldn´t quit.

We wanted him to quit. We were hoping he would quit, guys, my heart isn´t in this anymore, it was a good run, later dayz. We didn´t want it to come to this…

But he wouldn´t.

I didn´t feel anything as I drove away from the jam room that night. When I awoke the next morning I didn´t feel anything either. I wasn´t numb, I still felt, was just kinda blank. But three days after the meeting, an argument broke out in the jam room about how conflicted I felt about it. Then I cried.

I cried and cried.

I´ve cried every day since. I´ve been an emotional wreck. I cried writing this. I was sick the day that we announced it (11 days and 2 General Journals after actually doing it), walking around about to vomit for hours.

I met with him for a couple hours last Wednesday, met with him yesterday. It´s civil.

I don´t know what else to say.

I don´t have some inspirational quote to end with here. I´m not gonna sit here and tell you everything is gonna be all right, or that´s it gonna be the same. At this moment I can´t even bring myself to say that it´s going to be better.

Why?

Because it sucks.

It fucking sucks.

It sucks for everyone who tried to save this.

It sucks more than you can imagine…

It´s a horrible relief.

-Robb

Total
0
Shares
WordPress Cookie Hinweis von Real Cookie Banner