Once I got over the immediate wave of anger and hurt at being told I was out (anger and hurt because I don't agree that the specific incident cited warranted such a severe action), I felt an odd and unexpected sense of relief and freedom.
I had to be talked in joining the band in the first place - I don't remember the time of year but it was not far either side of my 40th birthday, I'd been balding and about 40 lbs overweight for several years, and considered myself "done with that stuff." I certainly wasn't thinking any longer of chasing stardom in music. Kit and Iari gave me the story I had heard so often before: "This is the one, man. This band is gonna go places, and fast." I was genuinely intrigued and excited by the specific magic that happened when the three singers harmonized. It truly sounded like sibling harmony. And they had written some very catchy songs that were easy to imagine licensed for TV or on Radio Disney (they weren't edgy or dark enough, I didn't think, for mainstream radio).
I signed on, making my skepticism known, and they were OK with that.
At their behest I started doing some pre-production work for several of their songs. Each time I played my work for them, they were quite excited. I learned that they had been working with a producer who was unable to devote a lot of time to the project and they were growing a bit frustrated; the flood of work I was showing them was the most movement in some time and it galvanized them. As the line in the Tom Petty song Into The Great Wide Open goes, "The sky was the limit."
Gnawing at the back of my mind was the need for me to be primarily a guitar player in this band because up until that time Iari had been accompanying the three of them on guitar. I'm primarily a keyboard player; they knew this. I knew this. Why was I morphing into a guitar player? I got much better at it and it was fun but I never felt completely genuine at it. Always felt like a bit of a poseur.
A bit later the band went to the West Coast Songwriter's Conference (I couldn't make it that first go-round after I'd joined) and won the attention of Larry Batiste, a songwriter and mover/shaker in the music biz with ties to the Grammy organization who was coincidentally looking to get into artist management. He wanted to sign the group. They came back really excited.
Fast forward a few months and the other producer re-entered the picture. We played my pre-production work for him. With the exception of what I had done for a cover of Hotel California he hated it. It was "too loopy" and "too programmed" for him. The enthusiasm the other three had had for my work had instantly evaporated in an amazing display of butt-kissing and no one stood up for me. We would not be using any of my tracks, instead hiring live musicians for arrangements that were apparently supposed to be generated on the fly by the session musicians.
I turned to the band's manager and wondered aloud why I would be needed, and suggested that we do whatever paperwork needed to be done in order to write me out of the management contract. They talked me down off the ledge.
When I later told the band I felt betrayed by their failure to defend me and my work, or even just say how much they had liked it, instead of apologies I got explanations of how I was thinking about it wrong.
Another few months went by and the group's halting progress under the producer had come to a complete stop. Sessions were averaging about six weeks apart. The producer was preoccupied with entirely legitimate "bigger fish to fry." The guy that owned the building that housed the studio had passed away, the heirs were looking to cash out and walk away, and the producer was trying to figure out how to avoid having to move his business; it's a very good facility and moving/recreating it in another location would be prohibitively expensive if it could be done at all. If he couldn't get the heirs to consider selling to him, and then raise the funds to purchase the facility, he'd be finished and the Bay Area would have lost an institution with a great history in the music business. Even not liking him very much didn't stop me from seeing that it'd be a bummer.
It's worth noting here that this place has a large number of gold records on the wall. I now think the band was dazzled by this and assumed that because Producer owned the place, all those gold records were somehow related directly to him. In truth he has mostly engineering credits to his name, with a few credits as a percussionist. They had all been done in the studio before and during the time he owned it, but he had produced none of those gold records. I did my homework; I had looked him up on All Music Guide.
He provided a set of rough mixes that we all thought sounded like records from the 70's, and not necessarily in a good way. We told him of our dissatisfaction. Producer told us that he'd never had an artist who wasn't delighted - DELIGHTED - by his work. Although I never heard it from his lips, my hunch that he thought this had been all my doing had deepened.
We eventually decided to produce ourselves, using the methods I had used in the pre-production work. Our manager signed off on the idea, making his reservations known. "Vindication!" I thought. We got to work and the next couple of months were incredibly productive.
In the process of making that decision, I wrote an email to the band expressing my concerns for how it would go down. Since Producer and I hadn't seen eye-to-eye I was worried that he would think I'd been campaigning for this change. Since he had a fair number of studio hours donated to the project I expected he'd wanna hang on to the group, since he obviously saw profit potential. I was ready for a fight that never came, but the email somehow made Iari nervous. I had said I was worried that Producer would think I had poisoned the other members against him. Iari thought this was strong language and was concerned enough about it that we had a conversation about it. To this day I'm puzzled at how he could read a comment about my perception of how a third person might interpret my actions and be offended by it.
That began what was later explained to me as a "pattern of abrasive emails." Now. I'll admit, some of them WERE abrasive. At times I was frustrated with a situation or an outcome and I spoke my mind. I am direct and blunt. What's to be gained by sugarcoating things? Iari in particular was often offended. We finally, I thought, reached an understanding - Here's how I remember it:
Iari: "You know, I'm sorry we don't communicate well."
Ken: "Me too. I think in some ways we're so much alike that we rub each other the wrong way."
Iari: "Yeah, you might be right."
After that the two of us didn't seem to have any problems.
The latest bad communication/misunderstanding/incident of my abuse of my bandmates/whatever it might be called occurred after Megan got frustrated with the band's failure (and this extended to me as well as the band's managers) and expressed her displeasure that even after setting up a calendar for us, she still saw our family events, which she put on the calendar, getting stepped on by band activities.
The gist of Amanda's response was, "I understand your frustration but this is the way it is with a band sometimes." Now, Amanda really stepped in it, because she didn't remember that Megan's dad was in bands all her life, and I've been in bands the entire time she's known me. To use the expression Megan used, "It isn't her first rodeo." Naturally, Megan and I were both incensed by what sounded like Amanda presuming to lecture Megan on the finer points of what it means to be in a band. And this after having lambasted me on a previous occasion for lecturing her in an email.
Kit's response was similar in tone, and contained a phrase that Megan and I both interpreted as possibly implying that Megan's upset was partially as a result of her pregnancy hormones.
Anyone that has paid any attention to who I am knows I'm for my wife. I'm for her and against anything that opposes her, hurts her, or gets in her way. The same extends to anyone I care about, including, at that point, the band members. Anyone outside the band trying to mess with or hurt them within my sight would have gotten an earful or more from me in addition to whatever they got from that band member.
Nonetheless what I should have done was ask them about their comments rather than assume I understood them properly. But I went all red-eyed at the thought that they had condescended to and patronized my wife.
But rather than respond in white-hot anger, I decided to wait a day, re-read their emails, and respond a little more coolly.
So here's what I wrote:
I wanted to let a day go by before I replied to this because I was enough pissed off by the way my wife was spoken to in this thread that I was inches from just walking away without a word. That wouldn't honor Jesus or our friendship, though, so I decided to sleep on it and cool down. But the fact is, she was disrespected and patronized and I can't just let that pass. Kay lectured her about the way a starting-out band works (Megan knows more than Kay does about the subject, truly) and Kit kind of insinuated that pregnancy hormones might have something to do with her feelings.
The kindest explanation is that both of you blundered into this honestly and that you had no intention of schooling her, talking down to her, or discounting her feelings as hormonal. Fair enough. But it sure read as condescending, patronizing, and disrespectful. (And we each sought reality checks from level-headed others: "This rubbed me the wrong way - am I just being too sensitive?" We each heard back that there was reason to take issue.) It was clumsy, at least.
Something you need to know about me is that someone can kick me around and I can deal, but mess with people I love and I'm like Bruce Banner on a bad day. This goes way beyond our bandmate status and into our friendships. It will do serious damage. And it cuts both ways, too - someone outside the MT family does something untoward to any of y'all in my sight? Stand back. "They send one of mine to the hospital, I'll send one of theirs to the morgue!"
I want you both to apologize to her. And not via email.
One big way to honor her is to faithfully use and check the calendar she set up for us. She checks it as family, work, and other stuff comes up 'cause she's trying to interfere with band stuff as little as possible. Iari's been really good at putting his stuff in there, but I think we've all been lousy at checking it for each other's conflicts before we accept an engagement or make plans. Larry and Tracy were given all the access info to the calendar and obviously they're not checking it, or they'd have seen a conflict on the 9th, cuz it was there. We need to fix that too. Larry and Tracy can further honor her by making sure anything they ask us to do that puts a significant burden on her has sufficient upside. Ya can't tell me that Larry has no nose for upside.
Another way is to recognize that, in her words, this isn't her first rodeo. A person underestimates Megan at his/her own peril.
I've asked Larry and Tracy for an offline convo regarding communications and expectations, so I hope that'll fix the nuts-and-bolts issues, but Kay and Kit need to clean up the mess they've made. If we all want me to continue (and for my part I want to continue), we can't afford to lose Megan's support for my being in this band. I would quit in a hot minute if she or the kids ever had any reason to legitimately resent the time I spend on band stuff. Unhealed relational blunders don't lead to good things, blah blah blah. Now I'm lecturing, and I'll shut up. But while we're on that subject, if there's anything I need to clean up with any of you, let's get it done.
Love,
Ken
This venomous screed was "too much" in Kit's words. It caught him off guard. It made Amanda "start bawling." So: court of public opinion. Anyone who reads this, lemme know what you think. Y'all were invited here, you have my email addy. Was that email purely offensive and attacking? I'm not entirely convinced.
But I'm taking ownership of it. I've always said that the burden of communication is on the communicatOR. I intended to leave an out for the kindest possible explanation and offer suggestions on how Megan's frustration could be avoided in the future, but instead I reduced one band member to tears and caught another "off guard" (I confess myself baffled: For what truth is that expression standing in? I'm caught off guard by lots of things but ending my association with people is not the first reaction that comes to mind). So, I get the Fail here.
I have an unseen anger problem that comes out in words I don't intend to be hurtful. I've done it to the band here, I've done it to pastor Mark Averill, I've spoken to Megan in ways that I didn't mean to hurt but did. Mark and Megan have extended more grace.
Never saw myself as one to see a counselor. I always thought I had enough tools to deal with whatever came my way. I also never envisioned a span of 6 or 7 years with as much change as these past years have held for me, most of it not positive. No wonder I'm angry somewhere deep down. I thought the way to deal with grief and loss and hard changes of other kinds was just to keep walking. Feels like a bit of a defeat to admit I need help dealing with it, but the eventual cost of not doing so seems like it might be too high. Better do it.
So what's the sense of freedom about? Well, I'm not posing as a guitar player anymore. I don't have the uncomfortable and never-answered question of "Am I just the guitar player or am I a full member of the band?" (Their mouths said full member, not all but lots of their actions said guitar player.) And I'm free to do whatever I want with music again. Most of all, though, I don't have the band and my family pulling in opposite directions. That was eventually going to come to a head no matter what else happened.
