NAILD

For those of you that followed our band NAILD, for all practical points and purposes it no longer exists. As of Monday 07/23/2007 I officially stepped down. If you are looking for dirt and rants it won’t be found here. I have no hard or bitter feelings toward anyone in the band. As for my explanation for leaving, after eight years of playing with Julio and Greg, first in Holy Cross, then in Naild, I guess I slowly got burnt out in driving the 80 plus miles a week, (sometime twice a week while we recorded.) I enjoyed hanging with the guys but the drive and the lack of steady gigs continued to wear me down until basically I had nothing left to give. For more background knowledge and no dirt, due to not having a steady drummer and other band members having commitments (which I totally understand) we were sidelined most of 2005 and 2006 without playing many shows. I think we played four shows in two years) but we continued to push on. Julio and I wrote new songs and recorded them…I had a lot of great times hanging with Julio, sharing a beer or two and hitting the record button. The songs Julio and I turned out where some of my best work to date. It was a challenge to create solos and stuff like that for me. In the past it was easy to ask Greg to rip out the solos in a heart beat. One or two passes thru and he would be done. It always amazed me that he could pull those out of thin air and they would be perfect for whatever spot we needed one in. I, on the other hand, would look down and see that I was on the twentieth something pass thru a four second lead spot and still not be satisfied with what I had done…but Julio continued to challenge me to rip them out, and it made me a better player. I still remember we were recording one night and I was trying to rip out a solo and I said something about how great Greg would be in the spot but he wasn’t there to record and Julio said that I was a good guitar player too and could do it. It made me feel accepted because most of the time I felt like a second fiddle, but only because of my own short comings, nothing else. Anyway, in November of 2006 I got an e-mail from a friend that was considering quitting his band and they needed a guitar player. They played out a lot, something that I desperately wanted to do. They had original songs but played a lot of cover music. I haven’t played covers since 1988...so I’m telling my age…I went over to his house and worked up five of the songs the band did. I went to the audition and got the job, pending only if my friend actually quit the band. Well, he didn’t, so that’s how it goes. No big deal. At that time NAILD was still without a drummer, (Julio played drums/bass/guitar/vocals on the recordings though) and NAILD was in the waiting position again, we recorded but no gigs or drummers in sight. So I got to thinking, that since we (NAILD) were basically in record mode and I could start my own side band to play around here in my hometown when NAILD wasn’t doing anything to keep myself busy and pick up some extra cash. I called some friends of mine and started rehearsing. Now I was up to rehearsing twice a week with the new band and running to Sturgis once a week to rehearse with NAILD. I had spread myself thin but was excited abou tplaying out. Around January NAILD combined forces with two of the guys from the Electric Tooth Syndrome band, Brad Linzy and Colby Townsend. They had a great bunch of songs too. So we started to melt these two totally different balls of wax together. At first I thought we were too different to work but I did stick it out. Brad’s guitar playing was far different than how I played or how Greg played. Brad brought something different to the table. He is a far better guitar player than I will ever be even if I picked it up today when I went home and practiced non stop until I was 85 or so, I could never match his skills. By the time Brad and Colby joined NAILD the side project of mine was already playing in a local dive on the weekends. I had every intention of keeping my main focus on NAILD as my main band and keeping the side project as a side project. At that time NAILD was only interested in playing maybe once a month. I figured I could play the other three weeks in the side project. Well, the side project seemed to take off on its own. Clubs in Evansville got wind of it and soon we were playing all over Evansville and Henderson. In the mean time, my commitment to NAILD started to suffer. I had every intention of making the practices but couldn’t make them all. They rehearsed on Friday’s but I had shows scheduled to play on Fridays’ so I would have to skip the NAILD practice and go play. And it showed. It wasn’t fair to the guys in NAILD...I had two things in my hand, a band that was playing and making money, I mean I could easily make at least $ 200.00 myself for 6 hours of playing a weekend or I could rehearse in Sturgis and that drive would cost me around 10.00 to 15.00 dollars in fuel.. I loved the original music they played but I also loved playing in front of crowds and getting paid for it again. So I struggled with what to do. I had many conversations with my wife Denise over it. I wanted to do what was right, I felt loyal to Julio, Greg since they were like brothers to me. But I also felt good about myself while playing in front of a live audience. Being a musician is a bitter pill most of time. You’re either up or down. All of this came to an end when I/we asked an agent to represent NAILD. He had asked us to play at a river camp gig with is band. I brain farted the start time and had already booked a show a couple of months before with the side project the same night. I signed a contract and could not back out of the side project gig. Besides that, it paid very well. I had to miss the river camp gig. After that, the guys in NAILD had probably come to the conclusion that it wasn’t going to work having me play in another band and I too had came to the same conclusion. They carried on without me. I knew they could and would and never miss a beat. They are great musicians. So basically, Julio and I got together Monday night to just go over the details. No hard feelings. I’ll miss hanging with those guys but they have moved on. I totally understand. I have moved on too… In closing, the guys are getting away from the name NAILD; they will be using “The Electric Tooth Syndrome”. They have a Myspace page in the NAILD top ten. They have some killer music so please head over that way and sign up as their friend. They also have a website..electrictoothsyndrome.comhttp://www.myspace.com/ele ctrictoothsyndromeIf you wish to keep up with me, I can be reached here.http://www.myspace.com/themetalmascaradeballI will repost this several times for the next week and check the mail. I got to know a lot of the people in the NAILD friend list by reading your blogs and bulletins and when you asked, I prayed for you. It would be great if you jumped over and keep in touch with me. If not, I understand. I will be handing the NAILD Myspace account over to Julio and the guys at the end of the week and it will probably either set idle or be shut down. In closing, Bands come and go; it happens every day. It was, overall a great run. Take care and God Bless. Sincerely Chuck Gee
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