I've remained ambiguous about my departure from Ronin for the most part for a good year now.
I have no regrets whatsoever about leaving but there's one thing I do miss - and I feel I never say this often enough - it was the fans. I remember so many gigs where people would show up and would sing and riot their hearts out. And the one thing I noticed was that the people weren't pushing for the sake of pushing each other, but (maybe it's just my biased perception) there was a sense of unity amongst the fans we had. And for all our technical inefficiencies and imperfections, the one strength we had was a clear message to share to the people who went to our gigs --> that your dreams are worth grasping onto if you believed in fighting for it. It was a clear and honest message from the five of us. We believed in bringing rock music to the kids on the first-ever school invasion tour, and we persisted and persisted until it was accomplished. We had to claw our way up the radio charts and fight with ourselves (and our parents) for a vision we believed in.
It was easy to get caught up with the fame of it all. I admit I myself got caught up in the hype of it all, badly, and the more there was, the unhappier I felt, which eventually led to my choice to depart ways for another route. There were the groupies, there was the temporary sense of satisfaction in being 'loved and appreciated'. But in the end, I think the fondness and happiest moments I take away from my whole Ronin experience was to hopefully inspire younger bands to dare to try for the dream that they have. I saw it in the faces of many in the crowd, and that was what touched me most of all.
But it was the death of Wayne Thunder that made me realize most of all, the greatest thing any human being can do for anyone else is to inspire them. Wayne inspired me greatly, The Suns inspired me immensely. And it made me realize that whatever we try to earn for ourselves, materialistically and status-wise, it's almost inconsequential when we depart from this world.
People like Visa from Armchair Critic constantly tell me that he was inspired by our actions as a collective to form a band and dare to try. But I never tell him often enough that its stories and words like these from people like him that has made me content with my life. So I'm telling you now Visa, thank you for making me feel happy at daring to dream as well. These days I am fully content to help other bands with stuff like the LIME compilation CD and in organizing larger scale gigs to give back to them the feeling that I had the delight of experiencing. There are so many great bands out there whose dreams deserved to be fulfilled to an even greater extent than what we accomplished. I support them fully and will do whatever I can in whatever small minor way I can to help them live that dream.
P.S. I actually disliked performing Black Maria. I think we must have played it at least 200 times at all the different gigs and schools lol. But I am proud of the fact that it did hit number one on radio station charts. Though that doesn't make it any less annoying to listen to LOL.
