Band Drama: Leave It To The Bands, Not The Fans.

Inner turmoil within a band is something that runs so deep into the past of rock n roll that it is nearly impossible to trace. Let’s start with The Beatles just for historical reference. Its no secret that The Beatles pretty much hated each other and eventually when they couldn’t take each other any longer they parted ways. In doing so, each member went on to produce some absolutely stellar work. John Lennon had such amazing songs as “Imagine” and “Instant Karma.” Paul McCartney went on to form Wings and release “Band on the Run”, George Harrison, in my opinion, released the greatest of all them with “All Things Must Pass” and Ringo… well, he was just Ringo. Obviously any Beatles fan will admit that while saddened by the break-up of The Beatles, they were more than happy to take in all the amazing music that each one put out and not really play a blame game (they blame Yoko Ono) or pledge their allegiance to just one Beatle. Why would you do that and deny yourself the opportunity to have some great music? In the wake of a band’s break-up the fans are the ones that won. Instead of one band, you get 4 distinct artists releasing great music.

I address this topic because of a recent conversation with a friend at a Sepultura show here in Atlanta. He was telling me that a friend of his wouldn’t come to the show because he felt like he would be betraying former singer/guitarist/founder Max Cavalera. Cavalera had left the band many years ago and formed his own band Soulfly. Sepultura chose to carry on without him by replacing him with another vocalist and later a drummer in the wake of Igor Cavalera’s departure. According to guy, his buddy felt he would be betraying Cavalera by supporting the band he left. My first thought on this is, “Why would you feel the need to choose between bands because of an interpersonal rift in said band?” and my second thought is, “Would Max Cavalera really give a rat’s ass if you supported Sepultura as well as his new band?” Well, in my opinion I’d think he probably could care less and if he did care all that much about the issue, again, as fans that is something out of our control. Much like The Beatles scenario, when the Cavalera brothers split from Sepultura, fans won by getting 3 awesome bands: Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy and Sepultura. Even though, as fans, we’d love to see them together creating music in harmony, at the end of the day, it’s not up to us and really none of our business as to what is occurring on the inside. Let them deal with the drama and let us reap the benefits of the artistic release that stems from their own inner turmoil.

As a fan of music and many bands, I find it easy to get sucked into the drama of tension between the members of my favorite band but I still believe that at the end of the day, the more quality music the better. Back when Ozzy split from Black Sabbath, we not only got some amazing solo Ozzy albums but we got Ronnie James Dio in the fold who went on to make some of the greatest metal ever made with Black Sabbath. When Dio split the band we then got all this classic Dio material as Black Sabbath moved on to release a slew of hit or miss albums. In some cases such as with Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, the split might only deliver great music from one side (in these two cases the singer’s solo material).  Rob Halford left Priest and gave us one great Fight album (the 2nd one sucked) and Bruce Dickinson went on to make some of the best music I’ve ever heard even rivaling that of Iron Maiden at times.  Again, we got double the music and double the shows.

I see this drama now in modern metal and so far the biggest I’ve seen yet is from the White Wizzard camp. You have a band of four guys from California who had great passion and a desire to make some great music. When things started to not work anymore the band parted ways with bassist/founder Jon Leon and went on to form Sorcerer who ended being Holy Grail. Holy Grail went on to put out the stellar “Crisis In Utopia” album and Leon went on to put together a new White Wizzard line up releasing the also stellar “Over The Top” album. See? Out of the drama came two great bands and two great albums. Nothing but win for the fans.

For as long as there is music to be made there will be bands and for as long as there’s a band there will be egos causing rifts, feuds and breakups. As fans, all we can really do is just allow these things to happen. We can express our feelings in public forums and even share our thoughts with the bands themselves but at the end of the day, it’s best to remove ourselves from the personal drama and turmoil within these bands. More times than none we end up winning in the long run by getting double and even in some cases triple the music. If we choose to allow ourselves to become part of a bands drama we can choose sides and stand by the side that has been chosen. While this is an option, it’s not expected nor is it really necessary. Let’s let the bands take care of business and in return show our support for all parties involved and reap the benefits of some great music.

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