Into Thy Hands - The Aftermath

The Aftermath

Into Thy Hands came out in the summer of 1988. We had a few big Canadian shows where we were able to promote the album, and for a short-while we felt like big things were going to happen for the band, especially if we had radio success in the USA. We had a number of Canadian tour dates, and the band got very tight and focused on what proved to be a very busy rest of the year. Even though the 6 month recording period was exhausting, especially for Andy and I towards the end, there now needed to be a renewed sense of direction and enthusiasm from the whole group. Because we were young, we were able to bounce back and go at our summer of 88' with a full head of steam. Ironically, at the start of 88', the band was never closer to implosion, but by the summer of 88', we were all on the same page and closer than ever.

Unfortunately, Reunion Records was not pushing the album the way we had expected them to. When Sanctified came out, there were tons of interviews and press for us to do, and we even made trips down to Nashville to schmooze and make connections. Upon the release of Into Thy Hands, these activities were not nearly as plentiful. In fact, you can pretty much tell from the album packaging that Reunion was already cutting their losses. I don't think we caught that at the time, but it's painfully obvious in retrospect. In a market where the lyrics were supposedly so important, Reunion put all of our lyrics on a single sheet in a font size that even a young child with perfect vision wouldn't be able to make out. They re-used photos from our Sanctified album shoot, and used a bare-minimum of colours for the artwork. I swear that Jeff Moseley went back to Nashville while we were making the album and told his superiors that he smelled a sinking ship. They cut costs wherever they could, and then when the album came out, the marketing dollars were obviously chopped as well. Our radio singles failed to make a mark, and other than rave critical reviews, we had very little helping us sell the new album.

When any normal band puts out an album, a series of well-planned events must take place. First of all, you have a whole bunch of pre-release promo materials ready for all the retailers and magazines and such. Then, upon the release, you do a Press-Tour, where you travel all over the place to do radio interviews and if possible, TV appearances. When all of this is done, and your single is rising on the charts, you hit the road, usually on a pre-packaged tour with a more established artist. This way you play for more people than would come to see you at a normal show, and in the hopes that a year later, you can headline some big shows rather than just be an opening act.

These are all successful marketing ideas. We had none of these going for us in mid 1988.

We did phone interviews and some press, but there never was any talk of getting on a tour. If we were going to tour, it would be up to Andy and our manager Glenn Koehler to book shows. Managers don't book shows. Booking Agents book shows. We didn't have one, so we did it ourselves. When you're in a limited market, where the bulk of your paying audience is thousands of miles away from where you live, it involves a complicated series of phone calls, contract proposals, deposits and infinite other little issues. Reunion was not offering us any kind of tour support. I think their feeling was, "hey, we just gave you $30,000 to do an album. Now it's time for YOU to show US how badly you want success."

When you're 20 years old and single, (and possibly from rich parents!) you can afford to go out on the road and live off canned ravioli, but when you are married, paying rent and holding down a job on the side, you can't just pick up and go. We could do our weekend local concert dates, but taking off for a month of massive money loss on the road was not an easy pill for any of us to swallow.

Andy and Glenn did their best to setup an actual tour of the US for the Fall of 1988. It was a bit late in terms of the marketing time frame from Reunion, but it was still doable, and they seemed enthusiastic about us hitting the road to promote this album.

It was hard to find enough gigs in a row that would justify us being out on the road for over a month. They would book a show on a Monday night, but then find that there were no "pick up" gigs before Thursday, so we'd be scrambling for money, food and accommodations for the Tuesday and Wednesday night. This scenario plagued the whole planning of this tour. There were simply too many days off without pay and not enough decent paying gigs to cover our basic expenses. This doesn't even take into account that we all had jobs back home that we'd have to take a leave from, and then face the reality of not making any money while we were on the road, and potentially coming home in massive debt.

It was a scary time period for the band.

We had one good thing going for us back then, and that was the creation of a venue and regular gig for us in our home town. There is and was a place in Kitchener, Ontario called "Bingeman Park," which was a vacation, camping area that had concert facilities and recreational areas all in house. Glenn had a friend who managed the community halls that were on site. They cut a deal together to allow us to use their facilities once a month for concert events. We called this place "The Alternative Entertainment Club." We held monthly concerts and eventually grew this to a fairly successful concert atmosphere for young, up and coming Christian bands. At first, The Awakening would play there along with bands like Elim Hall and Level Heads, but eventually, lots of younger bands such as The Light Brigade and Rare Design would bring their friends and fans to the club.

Mike started playing with a punk band on the side, and even they performed at the club. Mike played drums and sang, and played a stand-up drum kit. Glennn Pellow played guitar and sang, and Steve Habermehl played bass. For our local music scene, this was a booming enterprise on its way up.

But for The Awakening and the future of our recording career, everything hung in the balance unless we were able to get out and tour the USA.

Contracts were signed and commitments were made, but at the last minute, it all fell through. Reality really hit home for Mike and Al, and for me to a lessor extent. Mike and Al both had regular jobs and couldn't just take time off like Andy and I could. In the end, it became clear that they both ran a huge risk of being fired from their jobs if they took their leave of absence. We had rent to pay and a big loan to pay back for the budget of the Two Worlds album, and we just couldn't do it.

I'm not positive, but I suspect Andy called Reunion Records and told them that unless we got some form of tour support, there was no way we'd be able to do our tour. When that didn't happen, Andy had to postpone the whole tour.

This had to be the death knell to Reunion Records. Signing a band that lived thousands of miles away must have seemed like a really dumb idea at this point. Had we all lived in Nashville, we could have done some realistic touring. In Canada at that time, there were probably 50 places to play, and they were scattered all over our massive landscape. It was simply too expensive to tour in Canada. (It still is!)

We continued our monthly events at The Alternative Entertainment Club, but there was no doubt that things were looking grim as 1988 came to a close.

We still practiced regularly and were still writing new songs. Andy figured that since our tour was cancelled and we didn't have a lot of gigs in the area, that we should just head back into the studio and do demos of our new songs. We decided to make that the focus of the end of 1988. We wrote tons of songs during this time period, and figured we may as well do demos to keep Reunion interested in us and keep the possibility of a new album in 89' alive.

Because Andy and I were full-time employees at Cedartree Studios, we decided to record our demos in the studio, rather than on the road, like we had in 87'. Also, because the band was getting more and more tight as a unit, we decided it would a good idea to record together in the studio live off the floor. This would mark the first, and only time in our careers that we would record together in real time. Because these were just writing demos, perfection was not the goal. Ironically, as flawed as these recordings were, they were some of the most exciting performances ever recorded by the band, and sadly, none of them ever saw the light of day.

We went into Cedartree Recording studio near the end of 1988 and began recording the 10 new songs we felt would spark more interest at Reunion. While this was going on, Andy and Glenn started to re-book cancelled shows from our US tour for a possible new tour in the next year. We hadn't given up on the desire to tour, but we needed more guaranteed shows to be able to take the gamble. This would all come together in the early days of 1989.

Ian - June 21/09