It’s been a long time coming...
*there will be punctuation, spelling, tense and overall grammatical errors in this but you are not reading this to be a grammar nazi, hopefully you’re reading this for intention and curiosity and to get more behind the scenes of what goes into being in a local band...actually i have no idea why you are reading this...who am i to tell you???? ON W/ THE BLOG ---------->>>>>
Fire in the Kitchen is no more...
fuck that sounds really dramatic and that’s not necessarily what it’s supposed to be. we’re changing the name of our band because so many things have changed for us...and quite honestly for the better. (fyi there will be ellipsis's in this because i want this to be more of a stream of consciousness. i’d like it to be real and most importantly honest)
so, how did we get here???
for those that have followed FITK for some time might’ve noticed that this last year (2015) didn’t involved a lot of shows, didn’t involve a lot of #hashtags (ironic or otherwise) and frankly didn’t involve a lot of people. we played sparingly throughout the year...hopefully enough to where we weren’t an afterthought but not enough for anyone to care of gain any momentum behind it...
i made an intentional effort to slow things down for our band. i wasn’t happy with where the direction of the band was going and the vibe seemed to be reciprocated by my bandmates PJ, Jason and Wes. i was upset that “the world didn’t stop turning” when our first release ‘The Kingdom is Dead EP’ did nothing on a financial level. (there was a delusional prt of my brain that was really hoping it’d get me out of my student loans...it’d be nice to punch ‘past-Aaron’ in the face and laugh at him for thinking like that) the positives from the release was that it created solid udience of folks to come out to our shows and for that i am thanks. SERIOUSLY THANK YOU TO ANYONE THAT HAS COME OUT TO ONE OF OUR SHOWS NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES!! YOU ARE TRULEY A BEAUTIFUL PERSON AND I WILL SPEAK FOR THE BAND AND SAY WE ARE VERY GRATEFUL!!
looking back now, through the beauty of hindsight, i was writing and creating for financial gain and marketability...i’m not sure there’s anything wrong w/ that necessarily but it’s not fulfilling for me. it made me question what i was doing and ultimately as i went down that existential rabbit hole i came to the question ----->>> ‘WHAT IS ART???’
to me, are is any form of authentic self-expression. in some weird paradox sometimes artists have to create an avatar or alias to reach their peak self-expression. for me, i’m a sensitive dude, i grew up being in touch with my feelings, having a bad temper and a coping mechanism of sarcasm. when i’d write songs in the past it was always to make a hit (i listen to pop music and i still like the pop music formula to this day). i was too afraid to write something shitty and i’d make any excuse to not write. ‘i’ll clean my room’ ’where’s the cheapest place i can drink tonight?’ ’what show can i go to in order to boost my profile of myself and that of my band?’
you know, stupid shit like that ^^^^^ it made me feel unfulfilled. i felt like i was constantly using people for my own personal gain. everytime i’d walk out the door i had an agenda and a brand that i needed to boost. now, there is a part of ‘the game’ that is going out to shows and letting people see you. you gotta get the name of your band out that way and i still do this, i guess the difference is that i don’t feel like i’m up in people’s face about my own shit. i’d like to think i come across with more curiosity for other folks creative process. previously this was how i felt like i was coming across ‘that’s cool bro that you play in that band, y’all are making some real head way, can i piggyback off of your success for my own personal gain???’
that type of thought is FUGGGGED UP! and i felt dirty doing it. if for whatever reason that type of strategy works on a local level please let me know because it seems more and more like everyone is out to go after their own agenda rather than what’s good for the scene as a whole. now if we were able to open for Third Eye Blind, you bet your ass i want to piggyback off of steve jenkin’s success!
on valentine’s day last year i had some sort of creative breakthrough. i’d just left my job, i’d just had my birthday and i was still upset with the direction of my band. that day, i bought a bunch of my favorite gel pens and bought a bunch of legal pads for writing. then i got really fucked up and wrote everything that came to mind. (shoutout to Bulleit Rye, you are the real MVP!)
i do not actively remember much of that day as i drank that entire handle by myself. however when i woke up the next morning i’d written multiple songs. they weren’t good, the voice memos on my phone were basically gibberish. and as i listened to it, i laughed, i was totally okay and no one knew about my fuck up!! it was my own secret and nothing bad happened from writing a bad song.
something about that day changed me. i began to be more open to being creative and started writing more than i ever have.
as i began to let my creativity guide me more rather than my business accumen things were changing in the band as well. we were looking for producers for our next release but we had mounting tension w/in us and we were not addressing it. i’d become hypersensitive to band member coming and going (in total i think i went through 12 different band members...also shoutout to those dudes for putting up with me for so long!) in our first press release it basically read ‘Aaron Blackerby is so ambitious you better be with him or he will kick you the fuck out!!’ i don’t like feeling like the guy who can’t hold a band together or being perceived that way. but things at this point in the band felt so toxic that i wanted to break us up.
i’d had enough and i had been writing new stuff. not really sharing it with anyone for a while. i wasn’t sure who to trust with it. on the cusp of when i wanted to break up the band we had a good old fashioned yelling match. we finally pointed fingers at one another and it was glorious in all of it’s self-righteousness. ‘I’M DOING THIS, THIS AND THIS AND YOU AREN’T DOING SHIT!!!’...’OH YEAH, WELL I’M PUTTING UP WITH ALL OF THAT AND DOING THIS, THIS AND THIS AND I’VE GOT THIS OTHER SHIT GOING ON OUTSIDE OF THIS BULLSHIT!’
you know...the usual things human beings say when we don’t want to be wrong and dump our shit onto those we care most about.
after that yelling match though...we went back into my shitty house (the one i rarely invited anyone over to and yes it was the same one that had the RV parked in the front yard with my ‘roommates’) and practiced.
from then on it seemed like we were more open with one another, for the most part or at least 3/4ths of us were being open and really enjoying the playing together. as the music started to guide us i think it led to general happiness within the band.
this feels very cliche’ in how i’m describing it but without the worry of what other people thought of us and only worrying about our own expectations of one another things were going fairly smoothly. sadly though one of our members was not fully on board and we did a bad job of addressing it.
over the summer Wes left the band. for those that don’t know Wes was our lead guitar player and did a great job of playing in FITK. he was a real team player and in some if not most instances he was the heart of the band.
i was devastated when he told us he was leaving. granted i can’t say that i didn’t see it coming, when Jason, PJ and I were bouncing ideas off of one another Wes felt like the odd man out. he’d be in the corner and be quiet and didn’t really contribute much to it. THIS IS NOT TO BASH WES IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM
the music was changing to being faster, more rock and no real semblance of americana or country.
we played our last show w/ Wes at the swan dive. it wasn’t the best of goodbyes as we played probably the worst show we’d played with this lineup. my guitar sting breaking at the beginning of the set was probably a good sign of things to come.
when he left, i cried. i did the usual things that people do when they’re sad and PJ, Jason and I were left w/ what we were going to do next.
we’d just hired Frenchie Smith to produce us and we’d been writing a lot of new tunes and once again i’m sensitive about people leaving my band...
i wanted to go on as a three piece but Jason and PJ insisted that we try out a childhood friend of theirs in Dan Garza. who the fuck knew you could find your next guitar player just a week later after having another one leave???...this doesn’t usually happen. and when i play with folks i want the vibes/the hang to be really enjoyable. i think the music is better when it happens that way.
and thankfully i really liked Dan and still very much do.
Dan came into the band on the cusp of his wedding, moving back to austin from dallas and keeping his shit together at his demanding job. i really thank god that Jason and PJ weren’t too big of dicks to Dan as a kid so tht they had this friendship to fall right back into.
He came right in and fit great! the dude had to do some polishing up on the tunes but the vibe was there and that’s all that matters. *remember we are letting the music guide us, not outside forces or expectations.
cut to a month and a half later and we’re playing our first gig as this lineup at the Parish, Dan’s first gig in years and our first gig ever as a band at that spot. we opened for Ghostbunny for their CD release party (dope show once again dudes if y’all ever read this!)
a week later, we’re in the studio with Frenchie learning how to play in a band and record together.
DAN HAS ONLY BEEN IN THE BAND FOR A MONTH AND A HALF AND HE’S IN THE STUDIO LIVE TRACKING WITH ALL OF US!!! THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN OFTEN ON A LOCAL LEVEL!!
and he killed it. Jason killed it. PJ killed it. i hope i killed it...meh, i’ll be more confident and w/ my bandmates and say i did as well.
that sunday afternoon of tracking we finally decided to change our band name or at least this was the beginning of it. we sat in the Bubble’s control room listening over to the tunes and i said ‘i don’t think we’re Fire in the Kitchen anymore’. PJ’s reply was ‘Yeah...i’ve been wanting to talk to you about that for a while now...” and Jason gave the Jason look. (if you don’t know what the aforementioned ‘Jason look’ is ask him at our next show) (SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION ALERT!!! NEXT SHOW IS FEBRUARY 5 AT STUBB’S!!!)
from this point forward, we’ve been trying to figure out what to call ourselves.
as is apt to happen when dudes have a group text together, we’d start with some band names and they’d devolve into middle school humor and let’s just pray that our text messages never become public.
we’re changing our name to Major Grizz. there’s sadly no big ‘ah ha’ moment behind it. we just thought it sounded cool and at the end of the day that’s kinda like making music. you just think this is cool shit you want to share.
we’re now a couple of day after leaving the Bubble w/ Frenchie and our new band best friend Yayo Sanchez. we’re done tracking for our upcoming EP and i’ll probably share the Frenchie story at another time. for now i’m trying to stick with the overarching theme of 2015.
so with the change in name, we’re going to be doing things differently moving forward. i’ll be using this tumblr page to give you the most honest happenings of the band. it’s not pretty and there’s rarely any glamor behind it but i like the challenge of having something weekly to share with anyone that is interested and use it as another outlet for my own writing. maybe down the line i’ll share some lyrics (that’ll be another personal hurdle for me to get over completely) or even have other band members share what’s going on and hopefully speak with other bands to hear about what’s going on with their journey.
i want whatever content we put out there to actually be relevant to what we’re doing. i’d rather not contribute to the noise of the internet with constant click bait. at the same time we’ve still gotta keep up w/ the norms of social media and build up our facebook algorithm for the time being.
if you’ve made it this far, thank you for getting here. i don’t know if things will be this long going forward. more to come in the future!
this is just the beginning...
