How I got kicked out of the band...

I know what you’re thinking. No one would ever kick you out of a band Chris. You have the voice, the presence, the talent. They wouldn’t kick you out…would they?

Oh it happened. In the most brutal way it happened.

I was in school and the band I was part of was just starting to take off. We’d done our first proper gig as “This way up” (a band name carefully selected after 6 months of biology lessons debating band names) and a few more gigs were on the horizon. We’d rocked the school music event, a small battle of the bands and a couple of local gigs with other school bands. We decided shortly after that gig as “This way up” that we needed a different name (of course!). After much debate (again) we landed on “It’s a Riot”. I can’t say I felt it was much of an improvement but I didn’t have very strong feelings about it. We spent an afternoon drawing on bedsheets with anarchy symbols and writing “It’s a Riot” in big black and red letters. All in time for our next big gig, a proper battle of the bands was happening in Reading in a venue called Face Bar.

We arrived and the running order had not been agreed (a common occurrence at the gigs we did in those days). We stood around awkwardly as the organisers looked to all the bands to work it out amongst themselves. We took the hit and made everyone else happy. We played a great show and thanks to our generosity landed another gig in a month or so with the same organiser. The trouble was, I couldn’t make that gig, I was away on holiday with my family.

So obviously we couldn’t do the gig right? Right? Well…it wasn’t that straight forward. A mutual ‘friend’ had been sporadically joining us for rehearsals. He fancied himself a singer and would occasionally start singing in songs, sometimes with the mic (that was for me). I wasn’t happy about it but he was just the kinda guy that liked to mess round a bit so that’s the spirit in which I chose to take it. Anyways, a week or two go by and I’m told that this singer will fill in for the gigs (yes gigs, there were two now) that I was away for. this didn’t feel good.

I did my best to keep ti out of my mind, my family had organised a lovely holiday in Scotland and we were going to spend 2 weeks away doing cool stuff and exploring. This was before the days of emails on phones. Besides, where we were staying there wasn’t much signal anyway. I had a sense something was up but I couldn’t do anything about it or even check to see if anything had happened.

Then, we stayed in a youth hostel that had a computer in it. for 50p, you could use the computer for a little bit and access the internet. So, one evening I did just that, logged into Hotmail and opened up my emails. There was one from my band leader. I opened it. It didn’t take long to see, it was all my fears come true. I’d been replaced. It was over. I got kicked out of the band.

I spent the rest of the evening munching on a whole pack of biscuits and playing cards with my family, trying to pretend nothing was wrong. I think maybe someone asked if I was ok and I shrugged it off, probably said I was fine or tired or something. But I wasn’t fine, I was hurting.

I wouldn’t be part of band again for a long time. One off’s and playing with other musicians, sure but not a ‘band’. Not a band that wrote songs and gigged. I suppose it gave me the urge to go do it myself, make my own way and eventually get a band together for myself. It was probably best for my school band, I didn’t want to swear in our songs and I had some other reservations that made me less cool. This way they could do what they wanted without being held back maybe.

Now, I’ve got the best group of people around me willing to give their time to make music I’ve written sound great. And now, no one can kick me out…