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If you guys want the full detailed account, here it is.
Wintermask consisted of myself, our drummer Jeff, our bassist Daniel, our guitarist Dan, and our lead-guitarist Kyler. For those of you who are unaware, Jeff is one of my best friends. I'm close to all of the guys in the band, but I've known Jeff for years, and we've always connected a lot more personally than any of the others have.
Six or seven months ago, Jeff and I were talking and really observing the outcome of this band's possible future. Our plans with Wintermask were to move out of this town once Daniel graduates from highschool and head for either Austin, Texas or Seattle, Washington. However, getting there was going to be rough. We realized a few very tough obstracles that lay before us. First, Dan lives in Salt Lake City, Utah. He has a wife, two kids, a nice house and a great job. He's got two other bands down there already, and so the chances of him uprooting his entire life for us were slim and none. Second, every time that the idea of moving with the band was brought up to Kyler, he always seemed lukewarm about it. He never really seemed too interested in continuing with the band after highschool, and as such, we assumed that most likely we were going to have to replace both guitarists at some point.
Then there was Daniel. He has, for about the last year or so, been seemingly distancing himself further and further from us. He would still rock out at shows, he would still get pumped to write new stuff. But, he was spending less and less free time with us, was listening to less and less of the same music that he used to and was just generally changing into somebody else. Daniel was a shaky bet, but certainly a hell of a lot steadier than Dan or Kyler were.
Looking at this rather grim picture of our future, Jeff said to me, "Well, it looks shitty, dude. But, no matter what, you and me are gonna stick together. I love this band, and I'm gonna do anything to keep it going." I was comforted by the fact that amidst this sea of uncertainty, Jeff was a place of solidarity. I was confident that he'd never change, because he never really has. I've known him since he was 13, and he's the same basic person he was back then.
So, fast forward to now. For the last three months or so, Daniel's commitment to the band had been slipping more and more. He was missing practices, he was making excuses and he was just generally pissing everybody else off. About two months ago, Jeff, Daniel and two friends of theirs (a guy named Austen and a guy named Andy) started a hardcore side-project named Cordite. That's all it was. A side-project. They don't even have a bassist. However, as time went by, we were seeing that Wintermask practices were becoming harder and harder to schedule, while Cordite practices were becoming more and more frequent.
I'd had fears in the back of my mind for the last month that this was going to happen. I kept telling myself that Jeff would never abandon me. He was one of my best friends, and to just leave me behind like that would be completely against everything he stands for.
About a week ago, I'm sitting at work. It's 2am and I get a phone call. It's Jeff, and immediately an alarm starts to sound in my head because he's always asleep by this time. He asks me if I want to go to dinner with him the next night and that alarm starts sounding off even louder. We never plan this shit. He just shows up and we grab something to eat. So, I agree, and the next night we head out for food. As we're waiting for a table, the waitress asks how many people are going to be with us and Jeff says "three." Now the alarm is splitting my head open because I know the third person is Daniel, and I know what they want to talk about.
So, we sit down and eventually Daniel joins us. They proceed to very slowly explain the situation to me and the course of the conversation goes like this. First, Daniel tells me that he's sick and damned tired of working with Kyler. He's sick of Kyler having so much control over the writing process and he's sick of Kyler's prima-donna attitude. I respond by saying that it's bullshit. If Daniel wanted more say in the wiriting process, all he needs to do is speak up. But he doesn't. He just sits there and lets Kyler take the reigns. So, that's excuse number one that I've shot down.
Then Daniel proceeds to explain that Kyler has apparently been talking a lot of shit about Wintermask lately, and that he's more dedicated to his new blues band anyway. I respond, that it's bullshit because Kyler has made more practices in the last three months than both Jeff and Daniel. Plus, I know the shit-talking argument is bullshit as well, because the next day, Kyler called me and proceeded to tell me "I can't believe that it's over. I loved that band." He then offered to start a new band up with me anytime I desired, and I might just end up going with him on that one. So, that's two excuses that I've shot down.
So, after hearing all of Daniel's complaints about Kyler and not wanting to play with him anymore, I try and come up with a solution. I tell Daniel and Jeff that they need to start asking around for a replacement. They know more people than I do and would be more easily able to locate a replacement. While they're taking care of that, I'll talk to Kyler and try to either defuse this situation and smooth things over, or I'll try to talk him into teaching his replacement all of our unrecorded songs. I explain this plan to them in very thought-out, detailed fashion and then ask them if they're okay with doing it. Jeff says, "no, I'm not okay with that."
I then decide to just cut through the bullshit and get to the fucking point. I say to them "you guys just want to fucking quit, don't you?" I ask Daniel why and he says "I don't want to quit, I'm just uncertain as to the future of this band. I'm 16, and over the next few years of my life, what I want now might not necessarily be what I want later. I'm just saying that I don't know what future there is for this band right now." That's a reasonable answer. It makes sense, and I can't be angry at him for it.
Then I turn to Jeff, the one person who was supposed to be a rock of solidarity in this whole mess, and I ask him for his explanation. He tells me that he doesn't want to play metal anymore and that he's having more fun in Cordite. He tells me that he's grown out of our style of music and doesn't want to keep playing. He's dead set on leaving this band, and nothing is going to change his mind.
After that I just got up and left. I walked home, three miles, through the snow, by myself and I haven't seen either one of them since.
Have you guys ever been cheated on by a girlfriend? You know how horrible that feels? To not be able to get the mental image of her and ther other man out of your head? That's what this is like. I've been dumped for Austen Adamson, and right now, Jeff is having a blast playing with his new band. I've been cheated on a few times by previous girlfriends, and I can tell you now, this is so much worse. Friends aren't supposed to do this to one-another. You aren't supposed to dump your friends for other people. Who the fuck am I supposed to turn to in this situation? Had it been a girlfriend, I would have turned directly to Jeff. He's one of my closest friends, and now he's the axis of everything that's tormenting me.
The worst part is my grim view of the future. Dan has a life in Salt Lake. The breakup of this band has certainly upset him, and I know, because I've talked to him at great length about it. However, he's got a future with his wife, kids and two other bands. Kyler is literally a musical prodigy, and absolutely has a life of music ahead of him. And now, Jeff and Daniel have a new band and new friends to make a new future with. I'm the only one without any idea of what to do next. I'm 22, and for the last two and a half years, I've poured every ounce of my creativity, willpower and focus into Wintermask. It was my plan, and now Jeff and Daniel have wiped that plan off the board.
That is what upsets me about this. I have no idea where to go or what to do now. I'm heading to Dallas sometime in the next few weeks to see my dad and to get the fuck out of this place for a while. I need to figure out what the hell I'm going to do now, and I can't do it with the weight of this separation crushing me from above. I'm going to continue to move forward, and I'm not going to let this trap me. It just sucks to think that you have to start over from scratch, and that's it's one of your closest friends that's responsible for it.
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