Morning all!

This is take two for this blog. I tried to write on Monday evening about my departure, and what the band has meant to me, but it all got a bit too introspective for my liking and a bit - well, uncomfortable. Never show vulnerability! Rule of thumb is, always has been, always will be, when truthful or sincere, always follow it up with a glib remark. For example - leaving the band is the hardest decision I have ever had to make, but Kylies cancer? Karma isn't it. She's a cunt.
Ooh, a bit controversial there. Shouldn't mention the C word (that's Cancer...not....cunt. I can say that all day cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt. I love it!)

Anyway, I detract. I know that to some people the official word on the website is a little confusing and contradictary - its the trademark flippancy that creeps in whenever I try to be serious about anything. Maybe that's been my problem down the years. Maybe I should start to take things a little more seriously sometimes. I've tried it many times, but it just isn't right for me. I guess it stems from insecurity and childhood neuroses and such like. The very fact that I ever had the confidence to join a band was a big deal for me in the first place. I know I'm not the worlds best drummer, hell, I'm only just the best drummer in Pearly (though Bruce is catching up pretty fast!) but ever since I was a kid, all I ever wanted was to be part of the whole band thing.

I had a very romantic vision of being in a band, and desperately wanted a slice of it. I tried playing nearly every instrument under the sun, but was frankly rubbish at nearly every one of them. Then, after my acting career floundered I decided that this was it, this is my dream, this is what I should be doing, so set about learning the drums. So what I was rubbish for months, it was finally something that I loved doing, so no matter how many times I was told by a supportive father that I was rubbish (something that I've been told throughout my life when I'm pursuing things that my dad doesn't approve of. Well thanks dad, you did it again, I hope you're happy.) I stuck with it, slowly got a bit better, then came that leap of actually joining a proper band. That's where Bill, Brown and Bruce came in.

First off, I want to say how much these guys have changed my outlook on life, and what a sincere pleasure it has been being part of something that could have potentially been huge. The past four years have been the happiest of my life. I know that sounds exaggerated, but believe me, that is a modest way of saying how brilliant it has has been.

To anyone that has never been in a band, its difficult to explain the satisfaction that it brings. Not just gigging, but the stuff that no one ever gets to see. Working as a unit to get new songs sounding the way they should, the glances on stage between band mates that signal changes or an end to a song - the sheer fun that it is, its all magical.

In these four years, I have grown up, changed, settled down and life has kind of taken over. Especially in the last few months - especially for me - maybe I think to a certain extent the others too, the band has slipped from being our highest priority. Not through a lack of wanting to make it - that is still there, but as I have already mentioned, life takes over without you noticing.
Now, its not one thing that has spurred my decision to leave the band, its the little things. And you all know that its the little things that niggle away and build up. Indeed, it would have been so much easier if there were a huge blow up, a walk out, an acrimonious split, because there would be no sentiment and no guilt - just an overwhelming drive to show that motherfucker and be determined to be even better without him.

The truth is that it just isn't the case. I've been agonising over this for weeks certainly, maybe months. The main reason has been that I simply don't like London anymore. I think if you can't afford to enjoy the city, then it is possibly the loneliest place you could possibly wish to be. Its a city where, if you can't ride the crest of its wave, it will suck you under and wash you up devoid of any humanity or compassion you ever had. Without roots you are aloof - and my roots have all but disappeared, replaced with anxiety, wondering where the money is going to come from to pay the next bill, to buy the next meal - all that.
The only thing that has kept me here for so long is the band. But the time has come where I have had to be selfish, to put myself first for the sake of my sanity.

The Stu that joined the band is very different from the Stuart who now leaves. When I joined, I craved the rock n roll life - the adoration, the praise, the wrecklessness and late nights - all that. It's all I ever wanted. But really, all that goes well against my natural disposition. I always have been a very introverted person, quite solitary and always hated attention. I don't tell people when my birthday is because I hate the fuss, the pressure and the expectation. After gigs, I prefer to go straight home rather than to talk to people, because I find it very difficult to do so. I can't even phone people I don't know, because I get stricken with a sense of fear, that's the level of insecurity you are dealing with!
So to do things as extroverted as getting up on a stage, I have always created a character in a way. treating it as a role. And the role that I have taken on in this band is an exaggeration of one of my most annoying traits, a polarisation - seen most obviously on this blog for example. And that's great, it has allowed me to be as controversial as I have liked, as annoying as I have cared to be without any recrimination or guilt, because I know that what I say here I don't actually necessarily mean, but it comes to the point where a character consumes you, and even I have become a little confused as to where my natural self ends and where this odious monstrosity begins.

I am a very different person now. I am growing acutely aware of my limits as a drummer. I hate soundchecking my drums. Othe drummers check their sound and then show off their skills with a fantastic solo, and if I was as good as many drummers out there, so would I! At soundcheck, other bands are sitting around, listening to only you doing what the ypresume you have studied for years - and expecting you to be excellent. I am not. I am only a drummer until another drummer steps up, then I am just a bloke who has learnt two or three beats.

I no longer need the attention or kind words, and with that my desire to do this for the rest of my life has - if not totally gone - then has diminished considerably. I want nothing more than to live the life that as a teenager I would have balked at. I want a regular job, I want to live in my own house in the country and I want to get married. All of the things that are on offer right now are what I truly want.

I've always said that after Pearly there would be no more bands for me, and right now, I really believe it. Of course, I can't predict what I'll be doing in Norfolk in six months or a year, but if another band comes along that shows as much passion, talent and friendliness that Pearly has shown, then maybe I'll be persuaded to pick up my sticks again. But to find a band like that twice is like lightening striking again in the same place.

It has been an honour, and I would like to thank you all who have shared in this madness for so long.
- posted by pearly @ 3:27 AM