There are two certainties in life that you can not change. Your date of birth and your date of death. It's the dash in between that defines your book of life and where you can either stand tall in success or bow out in defeat. This thought haunted me for weeks as day in and day out my life was stagnant with the hustle and bustle of my New York City life. Each day heading into a stale office leaving me feeling unappreciated and overlooked by the self-absorption of superficial glares from the department heads whose empty words meant nothing more than shut up and do as I say or you will fade. Looking back I guess nothing could be thought less or expected of this deceiver and his big bottom puppet hiding behind the fabricated walls of this Mickey Mouse company. This false witness wasn't aware, but his egocentric actions set me free to explore and burrow myself deeper into the traverse world of music that lives in me. It was this act of weakness that lead to my biggest epiphany and discovery of my own self-contained power as a music business professional, and which would lead to me writing this story.
As people in a free country we are able to make choices and act on the ideals and dreams that amaze not only those who doubted us, but to ourselves as an inner implosion that reignites our souls and once again gives rebirth to our inner child. It was in this termination, this seemingly dark chapter in my life, which seemed to be the end of my music career. Well as you experience this article I am able to reveal to you that my firing was only the calm before my own transformational storm. A metamorphosis state of being have you, and the start of that dash between my date of birth and, what I hope, my distant date of death.
Action reaction, action reaction. What doesn't kill me will only make me stronger. It's true. All of the cliches we hear. All of the words of wisdom that have been bestowed upon us by the wise. I got my strength to pursue my dreams of making it in this volatile business, that now is redefining itself and catching up on the inevitable path of the digital music revolution, a revolution that has grounded many bands and sealed the fate to many labels world-wide to close their doors while leaving bands to fend for their own. To reinvent their own wheels so that they may have just one more taste of success. For me, I found peace and motivation in a song. What song? "River of Deceit" by Mad Season.
It is my professional and personal opinion that Mad Season is arguably so the most alluring representation of a collaboration band whose life was not only short lived and cut by drug induced tragedy, but whose cult like historical mark left my generation in awe. The impact of their only album took on a life of its own and to this day still moves me the same as it did the first day I pressed play. It's the kind of collaboration that so few dream of and so many music legends will only hear about. In 1995 Layne Staley (Alice In Chains) joined forces with Barrett Martin (Screaming Trees), Mike McCready (Pearl Jam), and John Baker Saunders (Freelance Bassist) came together for the band's one album. An album that flew into rock 'n' roll history much like Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and JP Richardson (The Big Bopper) in 1959.
Four boys created ten tracks that made a generation dig deep with in themselves to do true soul searching and to change the course of their own history by sharing with the fans a very deep insight of each band member's own personal life. The band's formation sparked when Saunders and McCready met in a rehabilitation center in 1994. The meeting was nothing short of synchronicity and reminded me of the basis behind the book "The Celestine Prophecy." Simply written, "Life events are not random but predetermined and planned by a higher calling." Whether that theory is true or not isn't important to me, what is important is Mad Season brought an album into existence unlike anything I ever witnessed and with that album came revelation and peace for me as I am am sure it did for the members. Temporary of otherwise.
I was driving home one night last year alone and trying to make sense of my life. I was listening to Ralph Vaughn William's "Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis," a inspirational music composition from English Renaissance and thought to myself that every great classical composer has a requiem. The most popular being Mozart's Requiem, a hired piece of composition requested of by a Count in memory of his beloved wife. Other requiems that have historical impact can still be heard today years after the deaths of such composers as Faure and Vivaldi, but this wouldn't just be Mozart's greatest composition, it would be his last and how fitting is it that he should write his own requiem. Mozart would pass away from illness at the young age of thirty-five and it made me think how such artistry and passion could fade away with the classics.
I switched the CD out and tossed in Mad Season. "My pain is self chosen...." Those lyrics hit me like a ton of bricks. What does Layne Staley mean? "I could either drown or pull off my skin and swim to shore..." Line after line hit me hard. So much I pulled over on the side of the highway and started to tear. Everybody has their own way of interpreting music and hidden messages in lyrics, but unless the writer expresses his view of his own lyrics no one understands the meaning. It's no secret that Layne and other members had continuous battles to stay clean, but the battle knowingly caught up to Layne and he couldn't find the words to express his self anger. I never had a history or a connection to Layne other than through his music, and I am only speculating as a fan that the formation of Mad Season along with Layne's increasing relapse to his addictions reopened his mind to view himself and his decisions in such a way that left his heart flooded with rejuvenated passions as a songwriter and his mind at peace with the words which poured out onto the sheets he inscribed these lyrics on.
In my mind "River of Deceit" was Layne's way of self analyzing his choice to take the path he chose for himself. It was his way to reconcile with himself so that he could put his mind at peace and to tell the world he knows he did made bad decisions and there is no going back. He had the opportunities to take a different path and this was the path that was right for him. Fair or unfair it was self chosen as he sings in the lyrics. Mad Season would lose both Layne and John to drug overdoses eerily similar, but the legacy that is Mad Season would live on and does live on today. Whether or not this was the band's vision and plan the album has changed the course of many a young man's life. It's a life testimony of four real boys who have confronted their pasts in their own personal ways and in death have left fans, young and old with, a clear message. Our pain is self chosen and the river of deceit, be it drugs, a relationship gone bad, or being fired from a job, will pull us down unless we decide to pull off our skins and swim to shore. In other words get rid of your self pity and live to see another day.
It is this story I have written, be it fact or my own fiction which positions Mad Season my personal pick of best collaboration band to date. Much like a daisy chain linked fence. Each link is needed for the fence to exists and function without error. The same idea works with Mad Season's only album. The lyrics, the members, the music. It all has a purpose and reason as to why the notes, the tempo, and the elements occur. Never have I ever listened to an album that is so absolute. The band did what so many bands have never done and never will be able to do. Mad Season accomplished and finished an impeccable album that to this day will remain peerless and beyond comparison to any other album created by a collaboration band.
"We write about ourselves because we know about ourselves." - Layne Staley, Alice In Chains
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