From Autumn to Ashes frontman departs

From Autumn to Ashes frontman Ben Perri has left the band, and not without a little drama. Perri's former bandmate and co-vocalist Francis Mark posted the announcement explaining:

There has obviously been a monumental change in From Autumn to Ashes and I am sorry for not explaining it sooner. I want to give you an accurate account of what happened but it is important that I do so without saying negative things about Ben or mentioning anything about his personal life. Even though he left this band in a most inconsiderate manner I will show him the courtesy that a "friend" of seven years deserves.

Even though Ben obviously doesn't care about us or any of his fans I truly hope he finds happiness with whatever he plan
s on doing. Parts of him will be missed very much

The album in question, Abandon Your Friends was released last year. The group began work on the follow up in September. Francis Mark, who has taken over all vocal duties is promising some mastered material to showcase the lineup later this month.
You can click Read More for more on the shakeup.

There has obviously been a monumental change in From Autumn to Ashes and I am sorry for not explaining it sooner. I want to give you an accurate account of what happened but it is important that I do so without saying negative things about Ben or mentioning anything about his personal life. Even though he left this band in a most inconsiderate manner I will show him the courtesy that a "friend" of seven years deserves.

It all started with an appropriately titled album, "Abandon Your Friends". As you know the members of FATA went up to a house in the Catskill mountains to write that record. We were up there for a total of three weeks and had been writing almost a song per day. By the end of the second week we had the music for ten songs finished but had not heard any vocals by Ben. It had appeared that he was writing a lot and he spent most of the nights alone in his bedroom. By the end of the third week we had the music done for fourteen songs and still no lyrics or vocals on any of them. When we asked Ben about this he assured us that there was nothing to worry about. He maintained that he was ready to go and he was just organizing the vocal parts in his head. On faith that lyrics were finished, we flew to Vancouver and entered the studio to begin tracking the music for the album. We finished the drum tracks, finished the bass tracks and were half way through the guitar tracks and still no lyrics had been presented to us. Ben kept telling us not to worry, that he was ready to go. Instead of admitting that he needed help he lied up until the moment that it was time to start tracking vocals and he had nothing useful written. At this point producer GGGarth Richardson handed me a pad and a pencil and said, "You had better start writing some lyrics or else we don't have an album here". It was one of the most stressful situations I have ever been in. Now you understand why there is not much vocal interplay between Ben and I on that record. We were barely speaking due to this incident. I sang half the songs myself and then gave him lyrics to sing on the other half of the songs and I went home frustrated. All things considered I think "Abandon Your Friends" turned out to be an interesting record but it was difficult to go on tour and support it. Even more difficult was trying to say something positive about it in interviews because the recording process was so tough and we didn't want Ben's failure to be public knowledge. This was a big contributing factor in the band taking a five month hiatus.

Fast forward to the Vans Warped Tour. Vagrant records had their own stage this past summer and asked if we would come out and play. The offer sounded appealing and I think we all really missed playing together but the idea of taking on a two month, hot summer tour was kind of scary after having done nothing for five months. We played The Bamboozle fest in Jersey as a test run and it was amazing. It felt so good to be on stage together. So off we went on Warped Tour and every show was better than the day before it. At the end of the tour we came home inspired. It was the best we had ever played together. Our friendship was tighter than ever and we all knew that with this new found energy we could write a record that would destroy "Abandon Your Friends".

It was the first week of September, 2006, when we started writing at a new rehearsal space in Brooklyn, New York. I would meet with Josh and Brian every afternoon and songs were pretty much writing themselves. It was really exciting, it felt like old times. Everything was perfect, except for one very important thing. Ben did not show up to a single practice. It was happening all over again. We had sketches for ten songs and Ben hadn't even heard them, let alone written any lyrics for them. I did receive an email from him in this time period saying that he was really excited about some of the new stuff he had written. I figured if he actually did write some decent lyrics that would be great, and I'd love to see them get put to use, but as a precaution I started writing lyrics for all of the songs so that I was prepared if we had a repeat of last time.

September 18th, 2006, we head down to Baltimore for a week of pre-production (demo tracks) with producer/friend Brian McTernan. Ben did not come so I used the lyrics I had written and recorded some demo vocals for him. Believe me when i say that I really tried to hook him up. The demo vocals I put down were probably 80% screaming.
We sent him the demo tracks and he seemed excited. We were set to begin recording on October 2nd. Everything was so relaxed. The music was more technical than our previous album but it was coming together effortlessly. At this point Ben was still in New York. We expected to start tracking vocals on Monday, the 23rd of October. Ben said he was ready and excited but on that Monday there was an excuse why he couldn't come down. "I can come on Tuesday", but that didn't happen either. We spoke on the phone tuesday night. Everything was good to go. He sounded happy. I booked him a bus ticket for Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, the 25th, around 11 am we were getting ready to pick Ben up from the bus station when we received an email stating that he would not be coming. He turned his phone off so that we could not call him. In the middle of recording the best album of our career, and just two weeks before our tour of Australia with The Bled, Ben quite literally abandoned his friends.

With the support of my friends/band, and the support of an amazing record label, I have stepped up to front this band. I tracked the vocals on the new record and we brought a touring drummer to Australia for my first shows as the singer for From Autumn to Ashes.

I know a lot of you are skeptical about this and I don't want you to accept this change with blind faith. Most of you are probably wondering if I can scream. On December 13th our new album will be mastered and we will post some new songs, then you can decide for yourself if this change is for the better. I feel confident that you wont be disappointed.
Even though Ben obviously doesn't care about us or any of his fans I truly hope he finds happiness with whatever he plans on doing. Parts of him will be missed very much.