Charles Calls It Quits

Two days later, I got a call from Charles. I asked him what it was about, and he told me he had made a decision to leave Avalanche. The words cut me like a knife. I started to try to talk to him...but then decided it would be much better to have this conversation face-to-face. While I waited for him to arrive, I realized that this dream I had worked so hard to make happen was crumbling. I thought of all the work we had all  done...the staggering  investment in time, energy, sweat, money, and spirit...and the truly amazing things we had already accomplished in such an incredibly short time. There have been very few bands that I have ever heard of that had been able to do what we had done..without the benefit of major label support...and we had done it very well. In the three years since I had first conceived Avalanche, I had spent over $100,000.00 on equipment and studio time, and had amassed a warehouse full of state-of-the-art gear that rivaled that of some of the world's best bands. I had hand-picked a group of musicians and crew that I would have been comfortable working with for many, many years. I had created my own record label, and my own publishing company. As a group, we had written nearly four albums worth of excellent original material, and nearly all of those songs were potential hit records, or at least very strong album cuts...and we had done that before ever playing one gig. Most groups struggle to produce follow up material to a strong debut album, but Avalanche had eliminated that concern by producing so much first class material before ever recording, that we would have had years to make sure we could have written new material that would have shown growth and depth...without the pressure from a record label to crank out a mediocre product, just because another record was due. We had consistently sold out live concerts on the strength of our material and our show, and in support of nationally known headliners that we had always held our own with...and all of those gigs had happened in the first eight months since our live debut. And as I contemplated all these facts...I couldn't believe that a close friend who had been a part of it all from very early on...was about to end it all. There was no reason I could find that made any sense of it...and I kept hoping against hope...that I could change Charles' mind.