CHAPTER 10

Well I have been writing about this for a while now, I wish to thank those of you have read and I hope that you can take away some lessons that help you in your band…if your in one.

I guess I should tell all of you what happened and why I’m no longer in Human. It happened on June 13th 2008. I got a phone call from Scott telling me that I was no longer required and that I was fired. That was probley the worst day of my life to be sure. Something I had put 16 years of blood sweat and tears into only to be told that I wasn’t wanted anymore. It was a lot like leaving a marriage only to find that your spouse was cheating on you with 8 other people. I have gone thru a lot of emotations since then and I’m hopefully in a good place now.

There have been some really great people who have listened since then and just been there with a kind word or a shot of Tequila. To them I thank you and wish you all the best in what ever you do.

Before I forget I have missed out some stories due to them being private or that it would cause a grudge when there no need to make one. Also it’s been that I write things down when I remember them and there are huge caps in my memory.

But in saying all that I would not trade my time in that band for anything. I do wish them the best, with the one regret being that I could not title this book, From the Signed.


Thanks again to everyone

Paul

CHAPTER 9

After Blood Bucket had been recorded and pressed we went about placing it in stores to sell to the public. There’s only one major store here in New Zealand that can get any bands music to the whole country and that’s Real Groovy, this turned out to be a double edged sword. Real Groovy would by your album and sell it for a mark up which is only natural, but would usually place it in the New Zealand music section not in the section that applies to your band like Metal or Hip Hop for example. The other problem with them was that when they sold out of your albums to sell, they didn’t tell you half the time so you were left wondering what’s going with sales or having to spend a lot of time and money checking the store and ringing around the country seeing if they needed more.

It wasn’t long after Blood Bucket that Mitch had to leave owing to a Family Emergency in Australia. So we wished him well and off he went. With Mitch gone we turned to or new sound man Kez to take over. At the time Kez was young and wanting to do something in the music scene, and this looked the best way to get it done. So after he learnt a sets worth of songs and many many practises he was ready for his first gig. To be honest I can’t remember when or where that was but it must have gone well because only the bad gigs stick out in your mind. I do remember his first big show was when Pungent Stench came back to New Zealand for a third time.

Now this was a great show and we gave it or all again just to show that we could. The night went well and it was great to catch up with the band again, who by the way remembered us from 1993. They ended up having to use Scotts Guitar for the National Tour and my drum kit for a secret show they had here in Christchurch two night later. The secret show didn’t get a lot of people but it was a great night. They played under the moniker of The Pungent Stench Hit Machine, which was cover songs and magic tricks by there Australian tour manager while drinking bottles of Jim Beam.

It also happened that we decided to go on a tour of New Zealand, something we hadn’t done before. We hit Christchurch,Dunedin,Wellington,Ha
 milton and Auckland. We sat down at a bar and divided up between us what we should do to get it off the ground. My job was to arrange places to stay, Backpackers and such. When it was all ready to go we started the tour. And to be honest it was a pretty good tour, we had gone to other places before but not one after another. To be honest it’s not as easy as it sounds setting one up, and you have to be ready to handle emergencies at the drop of a hat.

We had a lot of fun on the tour and meet some very cool people in all the places we played. We called it The Amputation of a Nation tour, there had been other ideas but looking back I’m kind of glad we didn’t go thru with those names.

The other good thing about The Sound of Yellow was the T-Shirt we made for the video. It sold quite well and it’s still a thrill to see them now and again on my travels. One of the more memorable gigs we did with Tim was the From Dusk Till Dawn movie and gig night. We had a friend who owned and operated a movie theatre in town, and we got the idea to do a show and a movie. After a lot of debate we picked From dusk till Dawn and went ahead with the poster design and tickets.

It wasn’t a bad gig as gigs go, but trying to do a dark stage entrance music thing just won’t work in a movie theatre. Dallas or soundman at the time did the best he could but it was just not a good venue for live music. We had a contest that night as well for the best dressed Vampire, which ended up going to a guy who went with the whole Dracula cape and tux theme. Now the only problem with the gig was at the same night another show had me organised a Warners hotel in town, this was a one night only revival night for some of the metal acts. To this day it boggles my mind when we found out about the show and were never asked to play it. The reason I found out later on was that the organiser didn’t even think to ask us.

Things were moving along nicely in the band and we started thinking about a new album yet again. But Tim had other things on his mind and after a while we parted ways with him. Now we had a problem.

We got or selves a new Guitar player named Mitch. Mitch used to be or soundman after Dallas left, and when we found out he played Guitar we asked him to join. Mitch also mixed the new album which we called Blood Bucket, that cd turned out to be or most popular so far with us having to get at least 3 different order for it. The first gig we did with Mitch was a huge show called national Anthem. It went on TV over a weekend and had more then a few acts involved. Or set was a three in the morning time slot which really was on of the more difficult gigs we ever did. Scott managed to get or footage from that night and post them on You Tube for the world to see. We also did another video for the album. It was for the track Night of the Living Bread. Filmed at a venue called The Dux de Lux it also got it fair share of airplay on TV at the time. We got the footage of Paytoilet of Despair and Night of the Living Bread and put them on the cd for people to watch on their Computer.