It's kind of a bummer seeing all of these bands that a decade prior were considered "up and comers" slowly burn out. It happened earlier this year when God Forbid announced they were done and the same fate is being presented to Bleeding Through, who are calling it a day after their farewell tour.
Frontman Brandan Schieppati posted a new blog entry in anticipation of the tour and to say he sounds fed up is an understatement. Schieppati looks back on all the time he put into a band and what he got out of it. It's a worthy read to see the point of view of a musician in a band that was poised for success but didn't quite "break through," and I don't mean that as an insult. Here's the entry in its entirety:
Why did I start Bleeding Through in 1999? I recently started asking myself that question as I start getting ready to leave for our first leg of the US farewell tour. Did I start this band so people can scrutinize the music and our image? Did I start this band so I could see die hard supporters turn into die hard haters when a new trend came through? Did I start this band so I could create jobs for my friends only to see the actual members of the band struggle to pay our bills? Did I start this band so I could be faced with business decisions and to lose friends? Did I start this band to have competition with other bands and fight for the same scraps off the table? Did I start this band so I lose touch with my family and friends because of the amount of time spent on the road? Did I start this band so I could become bitter at the music industry? Did I start this band so I could sink into depression and battle being Bipolar which led me to hide my emotions from the ones closest to me and often times think about erasing myself? Did I start this band so we could pour all our emotion into our music and be so proud of it so people can go out of their way to tell you they hate it? Did I start this band so we could starve and eat off of other people tables and dumpster dive and spend all of our money to make it to the next show only to have it canceled? No No No! Did I start touring to sleep in a Van without heat in the middle of the winter and sleep on bathroom floors and truck stops cause it was warm only to be called a "rockstar" the first time Bleeding Through stepped off a tour bus? The answers are all FUCK NO!
I'll tell you why I started this band. I was a 19 year old kid that hated his reflection in the mirror and hated himself. I had major emotional issues that I hide from everyone and music was my release and together with my friends we got to create music for each other and expel all of our emotional issues through that music. I was lost and depressed with no way out. It was either write my issues on paper and scream them into a mic or expel my life with a bullet through my head. That is why I started this band!
Now getting ready to embark on our first leg of the US farewell tour it seems what we are doing is still not good enough. Even though we are 100% doing this tour for the ones that have supported us through out the years we are still getting backlash. I understand that we may not be playing your city on this tour and we apologize. We are playing the places that we could find promoters to book us a show. Plain and simple. In response to not playing certain towns on this tour we have gotten comments like "you were my favorite band but now I am going to burn your records", "thanks for letting your fans down" and "you guys are probably just going to the places that you make the most money". Seeing comments like this really put things into perspective to me now. My response to those comments is FUCK YOU! If we aren't worth it to drive a few miles away from your city to see Bleeding Through one more time then so be it. We are going to play the cities we are booked in in front of people who give a shit about our music. We are going to play hard and fast like it's our last time on that stage because guess what? It's going to be our last time. Hope to see you at the shows. If not I refuse to lose sleep over it.
I'm going to end this with a quote from Paul Rudd's character in the movie Forgetting Sara Marshall "when life hands you lemons say fuck the lemons and bail"
Schieppati has moved on from music, opening up Rise Above Fitness, a gym in Huntington Beach, CA, so at least he has that to fall back on. A lot of musicians aren't that lucky.
This is the type of thing we see far too often in metal, most recently with the guitarist of Aeon quitting because he couldn't afford being in a band anymore.
[via Lambgoat]
