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Joined: 19-Apr-2004
Zodiac: Vine
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Received this message today from 'Enter the Haggis' and a decision by their drummer James to leave the band.
Today I overheard an old Irish doctor exclaim "You only travel this path once" - same could be said of all of us - follow your dreams, no matter how crazy they are as we really do only travel this path once.
"Hi everyone; your friendly neighbourhood drummer James here. It is with a great deal of sadness that I must take this opportunity to announce to you my upcoming retirement from the world of professional music, and more importantly, from Enter The Haggis. This is a very difficult thing for me to do, and it was not an easy decision to make, but it's something that I feel is a necessary decision at this time in my life.
I hate to be that guy who removes a critical component from a well oiled machine; I never thought I would be. I've loved every minute of performing in and working with this band; indeed I still love it, and I wouldn't trade any part of that past experience for anything in the world. A few times I've watched as band members changed in a band I followed, and I know I've always wanted to know the truth about what happened, so I'd like to share with you here the reason for my departure because A) you deserve to know after years of supporting me/us and  to keep the rumor mill in check as much as possible. So here goes:
I've loved music for more or less as long as I can remember, and I still love it, but really I should say that what I really love is performing. I love to play with great musicians (as I've had the opportunity to do with Enter The Haggis), and if there's a big crowd there who's paying attention and who cares about the music, that only enhances the experience. Truth be told, I could care less about a lot of the other aspects of the music industry. I'm not interested in booking, management, record label work, producing or engineering, for example; I just love to play. Now, it's been a long and difficult road to get where I am today, and we [the band] have all had to make sacrifices in our personal lives to do this for a living. We do that with smiles on our faces of course, because the trade off is that we get to work at a job that we love year round. While it has been completely worth the effort, and I would do it again in a heartbeat if I was 19 again, I know myself well enough to know that I'll never again be ready and willing to embark down that road from the beginning. It's too long, too hard, and it requires more than just skill and determination: it takes luck. I was incredibly lucky to be picked up by a band early on into my musical education, far luckier to have the chance to play with such fantastic and dedicated musicians who are such great people, and luckier still that that band has had so many loyal and supportive fans all across the world who have allowed me to do what I love for a living. Without you, there is absolutely no way I could have done it; I owe you [the fans] everything in my professional life for the past eleven and a half years. The chances of me ever being that lucky again are close to the "none" side of slim and none.
That said, professional music is about as engrossing a job as you can work, and it makes it very difficult to do much in the way of any other work on the side. There are however a few other things that I'd still like to do in my life that I regrettably can't combine with a full-time professional career in music, and I'm getting to an age now where more and more of the doors of opportunity are going to start closing to me. So, as much as it pains me to leave my friends [you], my band mates, and a career that I love and have worked hard for, I've decided that I need to make the prudent decision and go after some of these other things before the doors close forever.
You may be wondering what it is that I'm going off to do, if not music. Well, as "out of left field" as it may seem, I've decided to pursue a career in Air Traffic Control: the job my father worked and loved for his whole life until he retired a couple of years ago. It's one of the only jobs that I can see myself enjoying almost as much as I've enjoyed music for all this time, and it simply won't be available to me anymore in a few years; I'll just be too old for them to waste their time training me. The training program is tough, and reasonably long. There are several tests and interviews from which only the best of the best applicants are chosen to even be permitted to BEGIN training, and then about two more years of distilling down trainees before the top people are offered jobs. In short, it'll be a tough road and there are no guarantees, but hopefully with a little luck, if you fly over Ontario's airspace in a couple of years time your aircraft might pass through my proverbial hands.
I imagine that this likely comes as a shock to most if not all of you. After all, this is a somewhat unusual reason to leave a successful band. For those who might speculate to the contrary, let me assure you that no other reasons exist. I'm not upset with the creative direction the band has taken, I'm not tired of the road, I'm not bored with playing tunes we've been playing for years, I'm not having difficulty getting along with my fellow band mates. It will be nice to see my friends and family a lot more often, but that's about the only "up" side that I can think of. If it were possible to have my cake and eat it too, I wouldn't be leaving the band, I'd just do both, but sadly that isn't possible.
I could go on all day listing the things that I will miss about this life that I'm leaving behind; I honestly wouldn't even know where to begin. Music has filled my life with such joy and delight that I have trouble imagining what my new life will be like. I think though that what I will miss most will be my band mates: my brothers in this business. There simply are no words sufficient to express what it's like to be part of this kind of team for this length of time. I imagine that it's like what people who've been to war together must feel; the incredible weight of shared experience that goes back so far and so deep that it's safe to say there are details from your history together that you've ALL forgotten. We've been through a few lows and more glorious highs than I could list together over the past 11 years, and there's simply no substitute, no way to replace that kind of experience. It will be like a part of myself will be missing in more ways than I probably realize yet, even though I've given it a tremendous amount of thought before committing to this decision.
Let me assure you that this in no way means an end, or really anything more than a bump in the road for Enter The Haggis as a whole. I know that I will be missed, as I will miss all of you, but I will be leaving you in the more than capable hands of my old friend Bruce McCarthy. Bruce, Mark and I all went to Humber College in Toronto together, and he's no stranger to music in any and all of its forms. Bruce's experience is far more diverse than my own, and he has proven himself to be an invaluable asset to more bands in the last few years than I've played with in my entire life. His presence in the band will be one of the things that will make me feel a little better about retiring, as I know you will all be left in the best of possible hands. I envy him the experience of getting to know all of you for the first time, and I have no doubt that you will all show him the same kind of unwavering support that you've always shown me. You wouldn't believe how much easier it is to play for a crowd when they really care about what you're doing. That level of caring that you've always shown me has been something that I will never forget for the rest of my life.
For those who may be curious, I will not be "hanging up my drumsticks" for good. I love music as much as I ever have, if not more with time. I'll always play; I just won't be traveling the world to do it anymore. I don't know what adventures music will have in store for me in the future as it is reduced to the status of "side project" in my life, but rest assured that I'm going to find out. If you're in Toronto on the right day at the right time, maybe you'll see me on stage, and if that ever happens, please let me know you're there, because I would love to see you again.
I hope you won't resent me too much for rocking the proverbial boat in a band that means enough to you that you're reading this; I would hate to leave you after all this time on bad terms. Suffice it to say that I'm doing what I feel I must, and I can only hope I'm not making the wrong decision; only time will tell. I'll never be able to thank you enough for all your superhuman support over the years. My friends and family can hardly believe the stories I tell them of what wonderful, supportive people I've met in my travels around North America and Europe. As I said before, I could never have lived this dream if all of you hadn't made if possible for me. From the bottom of my heart, thank you; you and your role in this time in my life will never be forgotten. Until we meet again...
- James (Enter the Haggis Drummer)"
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Enter The Haggis
