is it really a new fvk era if there’s no gifsets on tumblr? saw the new music video for back from the void and immediately got the urge to make these. excited to see where this relic ind. stuff is going 👀 @wearefearlessvampirekillers
It's been more than two years already since the last show oft Fearless Vampire Killers took place and I can't help still being bitter about what happened.
So before you continue reading, I want you to know that this is my personal point of view, my very subjective way of seeing things and I have no intention of being nice just so I won’t hurt anybody (ironically that's pretty much the contrary of how I usually am and sth that I criticize about others). I'm aware that lots of people defend Kier for his decision but I'm not one of them and since I don't want people to start harassing me, I even made a new tumblr blog just so I could get all these things that I have been carrying with me since the news about the band's break up off my chest.
In other words: I know that I will piss some of you off and I don't give a damn (again ironically that way of thinking is basically what I hold against Kier).
To make something clear from the beginning: No I don't know the guys or their families or their friends apart from seeing them on concerts and maybe some talking to them for five minutes or so. I don't pretend to know what they think or what they feel and yet I dare to speak up. And for fu**'s sake, I don't hate Kier, I'm far away from that. But I do for sure question his behavior and decisions.
One thing that hit me a few days after I read the sad news was that retrospectively lots of things make more sense to me now and sadly it makes it worse for me. Thinking back I realize one could have noticed a change but then again I guess most fans from any band are kind of blind to such signs. I don't exclude myself. Despite being older than most of the Fearless Vampire Killers fans (no offense here, being young does not equal stupid, I know that) I had this ideal picture in my head how the guys are, how they behave and how they treat each other. I waited to be disillusioned, because there always comes a day when reality hits you but to be honest, I never thought it would be Kier who'd smash my delusions.
I thought a lot about how it happened and something that bothers me more than anything else is that it was not just a shock for the fans but for the other band members as well. Something must have gone horribly wrong in their whole friendship but as mentioned before, I don't know them, I can't say what it was.
But I know for sure that deciding to leave a band is nothing you do overnight, especially when it's one like Fearless Vampire Kilelrs and leaving without further warning, just like Kier did, is nothing I can approve of. If I remember correctly Kier himself wrote that he was struggling for months and that he simply knew that there was no way back for him (I don't find the original posting anymore, if anyone has a screenshot they could provide me, I'd be thankful).
I don't know about you but I for one think that there would have been other ways/solutions. I don't expect anyone to do something they won't be happy with but it's not as if Kier would have chosen to try anything else anyway. He decided to quit and he didn't talk it through with his closest friends. And to all those telling me that there were no other possibilities I like to point out that several bands exist whose singers have side projects and are doing very well with this. In my opinion it would have been worth a shot. He also could have paused to make a new start with another project, to see if that's what he really wants now and to make a final decision later.
But in the very first place I think he should have talked to the band before all of that. What a shitty move it was to tour through Europe, raising the hopes of both the fans and the rest of the band just to quit a short while after that. I attended two concerts during the Bruises Headliner Tour and of course I seized my chance to chat for a few minutes with the band members and it was fun. Retrospectively I realize that what I thought was Kier probably having a bad day and therefore being absent minded was probably more what he said himself in his statement after the break up: He didn't have anything considerable to say regarding the band.
I'd love to tell you something else but I can't without giving myself away or the friends who told me that very something in private. It freaks me out a bit because it makes SO MUCH SENSE to me now (and to every friend of mine whom I told this story) and it would make my point of view clearer to you.
It made me think about how long Kier must have kept his feelings bottled up. I'm fairly sure he hurt himself with this as much as he hurt the other guys and yet I blame him for that. Why? Well because it was his own decision while the others were presented with a fait accompli with no chance of having a say in it, with no back up plan, with no chance of offering a solution everyone might have been comfortable with.
I want you to recall your friendship with your closest friend/s. Are they trustworthy in your eyes? Do you love them? Have you known them for a long time? Would you willingly hurt them? Are they someone you can tell anything? Do you claim to know them and to know their way of dealing with problems? Do they have metal health issues? Do they fear change or at least have a personal problem with it? Would you surprise/confront them without any warning with what will be the biggest change of their life in that moment? If your answer to the last question is 'no' I guess you already understand what I want to say. If your answer is 'yes' I guess I get why you still sympathize a lot with Kier. Nevertheless I hope you still see what I'm getting at with those questions.
In case you're still reading, you probably noticed already that this is something personal and not only based on a 'fan lost their favourite band'-story. I can't pretend my view on this whole drama is not influenced by personal experiences that were something similar. I had a friend who crushed our plans for the future with one sentence. This friendship never recovered and even after some years I can't help but feeling betrayed and that I was left with broken dreams, lots of self-doubts and the feeling of being totally worthless and meaningless while she moved on to live her life. The reason I still feel terrible thinking of her is easy to explain: When someone you considered one of the best people in your life and who claimed to feel the same about you, was willing to leave you behind like that and all of a sudden, without a warning, without a second thought about you, your health, your feelings, your entire future... what would other people to whom you don't matter that much be like? Do I have to mention that whatever trust issue you might have will be made worse?
Can you people imagine how terrible it must have been to show up to a regular band meeting, after your first Europe Headliner Tour and getting told that your friend leaves you behind? You're probably all hyped up, full of inspiration and hopes and then all is smashed into pieces.
There was no warning, no talking beforehand, no preparations for when he leaves... Or should I say... no preparations for the others since Kier seemed to have done his own planning? He came up pretty fast with a new name and a fellow musician. Didn't he? Well yeah, he probably set all up before he resigned from Fearless Vampire Killers and left the others with a mess and the need to start all over again.
I might have a strange interpretation of friendship but friends should talk about what's up in their lives and what bothers them, shouldn't they? Of course it's always a single person's decision to make, most of all when it's a decision concerning their own life. You can't live an unhappy life just so someone else gets to be happy, I get that. But the way you decide and the way you communicate your thoughts and feelings are crucial.
Besides, no one claims that it's easy to tell friends that your mutual plans for the future don't suit you anymore or that something in your life doesn't match anymore with them but wouldn't it simply be the fairer way of dealing with it to tell them in advance/the moment you realize it's not just a phase?
I myself seek advice from most of my friends and I do it especially when a decision will affect other people that are important to me. At least I try to talk to them, I try to make sure they understand my reasons and I try to include them in the process of making a decision. It takes courage to do so, I admit that but don't they deserve that? They are the most important people in my life and if I can't trust them to understand and to support me even if they might lose something in this process... then they are not my friends and our relationship was doomed from the beginning. But if I'm not even willing to try it the hard way, I don't deserve them.
Obviously nothing of that happened between Kier and the others and I really wonder why for they were best friends, the men who would walk through hell together...
I remember the farewell show and what happened after it very well. I remember how drunk Laurence was, barely able to walk alone and how Kier took another exit in the evening. It was as if I saw a bad movie where they show different 'What would happen if' scenes in one of the character's imagination. Except that it was real and so sad I had to bite my tongue to not burst into tears.
I got to know Kier (as far as one can say that) as an open and thoughtful person with a healthy view of life and personal relationships and I always had the illusion that we would get along quite well if we would happen to spend some time together. Now, after all that happened, I doubt that I would enjoy his company for long.
So basically, what I want to say is: It's okay that Kier decided to leave the band if it was a decision he needed to make for his own life to improve in his eyes. But the way he did it was the way of a coward and that really makes it hard for me to accept it.
Some other thoughts that are not directly linked to the breakup but still keep me up one night or another:
A few months after the breakup Kier posted this Valentine's Day picture on Instagram and talked about how his girlfriend makes him a better man. I was confused and – although it had nothing to do with me or the fans or any other person outside their relationship – mad. What was that all of a sudden? Why hadn't he talked about her earlier?
And what's the talking about being a better man because of her? Well, a 'better man' would have given his friends a chance to get adjusted to the thought of changing their plans for the future. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to attack his girlfriend, I don't know her at all but the way he talked in this post made me really angry because everything before seemed utterly fake to me then.
I don't expect people to make a fuss about their sexuality, lifestyle or relationships but if you're part of something like Fearless Vampire Killers, a band that means (or meant) so much for (young) people, you should be careful with what you do, say, and show. And so far this band was a real life queer baiting experience deluxe (and I blame not only Kier on this matter for the whole band had their part in this) that added so much fuel to the fire of fan assumptions that it almost hurts to think of it. I didn't even notice it at first, a friend pointed it out to me after I talked with her how I felt about the 'Hey folks, surprise I'm not gay and I have had a girlfriend for 5 years now' posting.
I don't care if people are gay, bi, pan, trans, nonbinary, genderfluid and who knows how many labels we have. That's cool, I'm one of them (and that's one reason why I sympathized so much with this band) but the way Kier wrote and talked during the time of Fearless Vampire Killers was so different from now and although I should know it better it feels like a betrayal. It feels like a big 'F**k you, I kept silence about it and played my part because you all thought I was gay and that suited my band very much!' (And don't come at me with options like 'bi' or 'pan' or whatever. I know that's possible but it's not the point.)
Furthermore I wonder how much his girlfriend knew about his plans. I can only guess but it'd surprise me if she didn't know about it before all the others and I'm not talking about a few days but weeks and/or months.
There were many comments on Twitter and Instagram by fans on this topic and while I don't condone the way they attacked her and how wedding pictures of their friends were publicly analyzed, I can't argue the points that were made. And since she chose to speak up by herself I can't just keep this out of here, either. I remember her defending herself (which – no matter how I think about her and her relationship to Kier – shouldn't have been necessary in the first place) and that she argued that all the people should stop blaming Kier for keeping their relationship out of his internet presence (well unfortunately those people proved him and her right to do so anyway) and that they also should stop speaking up for Laurence and how they all could be sitting together on the couch now having fun but without a picture/proof nobody would believe her that there was no bad blood between the guys and how they are still friends and... Did anyone of you believe this? Like... really? I know people tend to defend those they love, I'm no better, but that bullshit was almost an offense. Especially now after all the time and after everyone could clearly see the effects of the breakup, her attempt to justify herself/Kier/anything in that matter appears kind of ridiculous.
Now it took me really long to write these lines, a few months to be a bit more precise. Thinking about Fearless Vampire Killers still hurts although I frequently listen to and enjoy the music. I thought about letting this text rot on my hard drive but then Michael left Inklings and after that I saw some tweets of Kier regarding his mental health that rubbed me the wrong way and the latest tweets of Laurence were the final push to continue writing this rant... (‘Latest’ translates into ‘we’re still some months past those events again…’ because I’m slow as f**k.)
So yeah, this isn't finished yet because here are another two cents of mine:
I personally dislike the sound of Inklings. It's average pop music that doesn't sound special to me. Deep Down' was the best so far but it's nothing I would like to listen to more often. In my absolutely subjective personal view the music is boring and some parts are too electronic and literally hurt my ears. I miss Kier's voice but not enough to endure this run-of-the-mill sound.
When the news hit that Michael left Inklings my first thought was: “Karma, Baby!”
When Kier wrote the first time that he recently discovered that he suffers from mental health issues I tried to be sympathetic but I couldn't because it felt too much like a payback from a higher force. Yes that's mean and I actually feel sorry for him now because I don't wish him anything bad, really, but you can't deny that it's a one of its kind coincidence.
Seeing Drew, Luke and Laurence working on new music makes me happy and full of hope but the joy is marred by the fact that Shane is no part of The Broken Kings. I have no idea what happened there and I can only make wild assumptions on how he maybe wanted something more stable and went back to his graphic designer life. (Oh, did anyone else think he was responsible for the Inklings designs?)
Reading Laurences tweets about Fearless Vampire Killers support my opinion that he hasn't forgiven Kier and is still deeply hurt. And you know what? He has every right in this world to still be bitter. I understand him and no matter how much I still like Kier for several reasons, I don't think I'll forgive him how he left the band. Not 'that' but 'how'.
