Firstly, that track is a splendid bloody journey, sir. The ending is lip smackingly good!
Secondly, that is a bloody tragic tale, but I don't think you should feel guilty. Not to be brutal, but Stuart didn't want to gig or practice, so what could you have done, march him to rehearsals with a gun to his head? On one hand, it's a shame because that track clearly shows you were great, on the other hand: PFG fo' life, man.
So yeah, what's your story of heartache and boys being casually horrible to each other?
There in lies a tale...
... Not much of one, though.
Basically, we were all childhood friends and in bands on and off for years. As we got older we started to take it seriously... Well, in our heads. We'd mostly just get smashed and talk about what we were gonna do, rather than do it.
One New Years, I said: let's actually do something rather than just talk shit. So I essentially took the reigns: booked gigs (making sure everyone was available well in advance), wrote a shit ton of songs, organised recordings, got us on a little indie label (Small Town America. It was mostly off the back of - NAMEDROP - Zane Lowe picking us as a single of the week - mental) etc. etc. I changed my job to a temp sales position which allowed me to take off any time I needed (unpaid, of course).
So, in a year we'd seen massive turnaround and managed to generate the littlest sliver of a grain of buzz... and it was awesome.
Anyways, the boys started to complain about the quality of the gigs (a lot of the time at the gigs, in front of the promoters) and that STA weren't helping us enough. The reason we were getting shit gigs was A) we were unknowns (gotta earn those stadiums, boys) and B) we ended up cancelling a significant number of them a few days before. This was mostly because one of the boys just wanted to write and record, not bother gigging at all, so he would drag his feet about everything. He was working long hours as a sparky, too, and would arrive at rehearsals literally saying and contributing nothing; just not having fun. It didn't help that I was so picky about the songwriting process too. Being the charming chap that he is, his attitude started to affect the rest of the band, especially his little brother who was our drummer/driver.
Eventually, we started cancelling gigs more frequently... at the last minute; like literally a few hours before we were meant to be there. I'd get shouted at down the phone by promoters that I'd spent my evenings emailing, glad ragging and organising with. Our rep on the circuit only got worse and it became harder to get gigs. I still managed to fill our time until, after SIX of these occurrences in a row (and the subsequent six promoters screaming at me for fucking them about), I said "If you guys do this again, I'm out."
Had a couple of nifty gigs set up in Manchester with a guy I met at one of our gigs... and they did it again. I told them I was out. They went: "okay". I tried to meet them to talk about it but they all said they were too busy... and that was that.
We're still friends, not nearly as close as before, but it's like four years ago now, Bridge/water etc., but if I'm honest I'm still gutted about it (it was a very significant and important part of my life and I put a meteoric fuck ton of work into it). It can sometimes still colour the times we do hook up (mostly my fault, though).
So, yeah. That's my rather bias view of events that I should really just get over.
You asked...
Man, he flat out insulted me. Said he doesn't want me as a reader. That really stung, I love his stuff and look up to him immensely. But I also like Morrison. And Moore reacts to that like I'm stupid, and he doesn't want me as a reader. Shit, when only like 5 people in the comics industry are actually making literature rather than soap opera, it's galling to have the most well respected one just shit all over the best one.
Me too, man, but I read the whole thing in his voice, so it's hard for me to take too much personally when the guy insulting you sounds like a stoned, Northern Dylan from Magic Roundabout. XD
I'm looking at the whole thing as the comic writers version of Biggy and Tupac.
