Four For Friday - Drugs And A Yoko - The End Of A Boy Band - Part One

If I had to guess at how many bands I have seen play over the years, it would be in the thousands. Probably not ten thousand, but definitely getting into the upper ranges of four digits. How many of those bands are still together? Maybe 100. OK it could be 200. A lot of the bands I saw were club bands trying to make it big, so maybe they are still together and still playing clubs somewhere. Most just die of natural causes. I know everyone likes to think there are always these nasty fights. Sure, there are those, but most are because the band is going nowhere and someone needs to get a job so someone else comes in and that person gets along with someone else in the band so they break off and do their own thing, leaving the others to do their own thing. You want to make a band last? Start a cover band. Those things last forever. Oh, and they also pay the best. If you can look and sound the part, you will be making six figures a year easy. Oh, and you can make it until you decide you don't want to do it anymore. Cover bands are always popular because you are singing songs every person in the audience knows so they are having a good time. When the audience has a good time they remember it and tell their friends. Anyway, this is not about a cover band. It is about a band that showed a lot of promise. A boy band that by all rights should still be at it today. They had a couple of things going against them. Drugs and a Yoko. A proper, break up the band Yoko.

When I was called, it was by an insurance company. The management company of the band was trying to buy insurance. Why? To protect themselves if they booked a tour and the band split. Whether or not the management company was trying to overstate how much they were going to earn from a tour (they were) was not really relevant. The insurance company could make sure they made their own money. Their big issues was whether the band was even together. They initially thought this whole thing might have just been a scam to make money off the breakup of a band. Schedule some shows. The band breaks up and everyone walks away with a huge pile of money for just pretending they like each other for a few days. Even that would be ok for the company, but they wanted to know so they could charge an outrageous premium and then sell the policy to some other company. They wanted me to go see the band. Meet with everyone and figure out what was really going on.

I knew who the band was before I met them. I had heard most of their songs, but they were a boy band and I didn't really care if they stayed or if they went. There would be someone else to take their place. The band was in a stage I like to call breakup make up. It is the same as a relationship you have been in with someone for a long time. You are so used to being with that person that it is tough to just go cold turkey. Things are much easier if you stay with the person rather than leave. You know what happens if you stay and leaving is the unknown. The unknown is always hard. Well, hard unless you have someone on the side waiting. If one of the people in the relationship is really anxious to be moving on, chances are good, no matter how much they deny it, that they have someone on the side just waiting. You go to call them a week later and they have already found someone. Hell, they might have already moved in with the other person.

If there is not another person, then things take a different path. You might stop by to pick up some of your things. Some ex sex occurs. There are probably texts or other missives where you tell each other how much you miss the other. There are some short lived reunions and then they sputter it out. The intervals between these reunions becomes greater until one day, you both have moved on.

There is nothing different between that and a relationship breakup. You have the member of a band that has already been seeing another record company or manager. Perhaps there is talk of an acting career but the music would get in the way. Boom, one day they are there and the next they have a solo record coming out in a week and the person can't remember if your name is Rance or Lance.

The band I was dealing with had a little bit of both, The nominal front person of the group wanted to do other things. Had done other things. Thought they were better than everyone else in the group and he was being held back. Why did he think these things? People who wanted to make money off him and his Yoko. A Yoko who had dreams of her own. Big dreams. She really had wanted to be a Bachelorette but couldn't even land a spot on The Bachelor. She was hoping for a reality show and was ticked off she missed the band's brief foray into reality hood. She dreamed of being a singer and is still to this day spending vast sums of money which will never be seen again on a career which will go nowhere. Maybe she thought if he was a solo star she could get the reality show and a singing career while always being in every pap photo. She encouraged his acting career because she thought he could be a huge star and then get her roles or introduce her to people who could get her roles. She HATED the other members of the band and they hated her. Remember how much Rachel McAdams hates SJP's character in Family Stone? Yeah, that is nothing compared to this.

Drug use was rampant among the band and hangers on. The only time they were not doing drugs is when they were boozing. Although, often there was boozing with drugs. The thing with the band was they had not been together all that long. We are talking three years or so. They didn't have piles of money saved up. They needed to stay together and go on tour or at least pretend they were going to so they all could get paid.

Coming up on Monday, go with me as I travel to three cities with these f**kers and get drunk with some guys from college who I think now work for a drug cartel.