with this message from Jeff Warren of Knockout:
"OK, I'm going to make this as brief as possible (even though it may turn out to be the longest update we've ever had). After our last show at the Fireside I began thinking about whether or not I was really happy with the band I'm in. The truth was, I was not happy with it at all, definitely not enough for me to continue to make it my life. I decided rather than quitting I was going to tell everyone in the band that I felt like quitting and listen to what they had to say back to me, then make my decision."
Click READ MORE to be doused in the band's full statement. If you want a summary, it goes like this - the rhythm section of the band has quit the group due to personal differences. The remaining two members are continuing on with new members and have their "first" show coming up on June 22nd.
"When I talked to Steve about the problems I had with the band (both personal and in terms of creativity), he told me how much he agreed. We talked about how we wished it could be like back in the day with our original lineup. Obviously we didn't wanna go back to playing shows to three people that didn't know us. We just wanted the band to be as fun and challenging as it used to be. Honestly, we are not huge fans of the category we have become a part of. We felt it was because our music had been watered down and not pushed to it's potential and that our progress had leveled out to the point where we weren't getting better, just staying at the same level. Anyway, after some thinking, a show in Iowa and a band practice, we realized that we had been split into two different sides and there was some slightly unspoken and at the same time obvious civil war going on between us (Steve and I) vs. Jon and De'mar. It seemed like Jon and De'mar only liked what they wrote and Steve and I only liked what we wrote. We wanted to continue with Knockout as we had intended to from the beginning and be able to write songs together and have new stuff to work on at every practice. In order for this to work, we had to part from De'mar and Jon. I'm not going to lie and say that this was easy to do or that it had a happy ending. Things are still being resolved and there a some hard feelings, but it was either this or drop it altogether. I realized I was wasting my time in a band where I didn't feel comfortable writing songs and wasn't satisfied with anything we had come up with. That to me was very important and any type of success or anything wouldn't matter if I didn't enjoy it. We haven't accomplished as much as a band being together this long should have, and we wanted to do something about it. So with De'mar and Jon not being members of Knockout anymore, we decided to try Mark (former drummer of Starstruck) on drums and our friend Spencer on bass. Steve and I wrote bran new stuff with Spencer and realized that our musical styles and writing capabilities mesh better and that we could all be satisfied with the outcome of what we wrote. When we played with Mark we were also able to write new material quicker and with more satisfaction. De'mar and Jon are both really good musicians and I'm sure will continue to play and bring the rock. We wish both of them the best of luck. The first "New-Knockout" show in Illinois will be June 22 (click "tour" for details). We should have a lot of new material for you all. Hope this explains everything, we'll keep you updated with how things turn out. Talk about brief."