A letter to the band.

Matt Bauer · April 20th, 2026

Kurt, Mike, Grayson, Marshall, BJ.

Please read this in its entirety. I have a message for each of you.

Yesterday I got this voicemail from Marshall:

"Hey man, it's Marshall. Here's the deal, dude. Me and the guys have been talking and we're not really happy with what happened on Friday. I get it. We get it. You had to prioritize your daughter and your family. I didn't want to be too far away, but we just need some consistency. Like we're playing five times this week, and if we can't count on that, man, I don't think we're going to be a good fit long term. So I think we're gonna have to let you go. Feel free to keep up or let me know if you need anything, but I think we're gonna rock a four-piece from now on and try to get tight with that. So. Yeah, man, talk at you later."

At our last band practice, we agreed Hunter would be a fill-in for gigs I couldn't make, not a replacement. Marshall said at that meeting we were contracted with Gilley's as a band through end of May. I offered every-other Wednesday on my five-day stretches with my daughter, and said I'd keep being upfront and as far ahead as I could about anything I couldn't make. That's the plan we landed on when we wrapped up.

When the band parted ways with Danny, I told Marshall directly that I never wanted to be treated the way Danny was treated. A phone call. A side group chat I wasn't part of. Marshall agreed. The voicemail above was a phone call, and in it Marshall literally said "me and the guys have been talking." If we're a band, why didn't that conversation happen in a group chat with me in it, or better yet, in person? That's the exact thing I asked not to be on the receiving end of.

Since the voicemail's framing is reliability, one thing is worth mentioning. Back in February, Marshall told me Local Flavor had canceled our duo gig. I called the venue. The story was not what he had told me. Here's the timeline, from my own texts and the recording below.

Call with Local Flavor · Feb 11th, 5:56pm · 71 seconds

Faking the death of a family member to skip a gig isn't a scheduling issue. It's a trust issue. Six hours notice in a tornado warning with tennis-ball hail on the radar, to get home to a seven-year-old who was already scared, is the opposite. One of those is a reason to lose the band. The other is a reason to be in one.

The word in Marshall's voicemail is consistency. Everyone in this band has things the band works around. Kurt has date nights with his wife, which he should, and which is a big part of why they've been together as long as they have. Mike plays in other bands most nights we're not playing. Grayson is 19 and in school, legally out of bar gigs for a while, with a Tuesday radio show we accommodate without blinking. None of that is a problem. The band works around all of it, and should. My obligations are treated differently. That's the inconsistency.

My commitments with my daughter haven't changed since day one. I have not canceled a single rehearsal. Every scheduling conflict I've had was flagged in advance as much as possible. I was even going to play Gilley's tonight and drive straight to Kansas City afterward to be at my actual job at 7am tomorrow morning. That framing that I'm not dedicated isn't accurate, and it's not cool to say it is.

Caldwell was one cancel, and even one cancel I don't take lightly. I said as much in my message to the band. I flagged it at 2pm for an 8pm gig with tornado advisories running right through the drive. Marshall's reply that afternoon was "Thanks for letting us know. Stay safe Matt." Two days later the same cancel is being used as the reason I'm out. And you know what? I'd make that same call again. Driving an hour through a tornado warning at 1 in the morning to get home to my kid isn't a reliability question.

In case anyone wants full context on what I'm already working with outside the band: Holly is level 3 autistic. She's seven. She's not potty trained, unable to dress herself, isn't conversational, and is very limited in the ability to tell me what she needs. It's getting better every day, but until then, she needs full-time hands-on care. Marshall has said "we all have things going on," and that's true. Everyone does. That's exactly why accommodation was part of the deal from the start.

One specific moment worth putting on the record. When the Hunter plan first came up, Marshall opened the conversation by saying his girlfriend hated the idea of us playing more gigs than we already were. Kurt said BJ hated the idea too. I said Tash hated it too, for good reason. Then everybody seemed to say "I'm doing it anyway." I couldn't say that. Not because I don't want to play. Because I can't maintain the balance at home and commit to five nights a week at the same time. The goalposts moved that night, from a couple gigs a month to five nights a week. Two of you were in a position to override your partners' concerns. I wasn't, and I was upfront about that in the room. Call it what it is. The goalposts changed. So just say that. Don't brand me unreliable for being the only one who couldn't match the new number.

This band has cost me time with my wife and with my daughter. Tash and I have worked through that tension more times than I can count, because this band was the one thing in my life that wasn't work, wasn't full-time dad duty, and wasn't sleep. I put my eggs in this basket. Not just the music. The friendships too. That was the whole deal.

Five nights a week is a great opportunity. If that's the direction this band is going, more power to you. What I'm pushing back on is cutting off a founding member to get there. From the day Marshall and Kurt brought me in, the pitch was "just tell us what you can play and we'll work around it." That's the agreement this band was built on. Before Mike joined, it was Marshall, Kurt, me, and a rotating drummer. That's the lineup that got us to Gilley's. The band was built around my schedule working. You're now changing the band so that my schedule doesn't work, and replacing me over it. That's a choice, not a necessity.

You guys all already play in other bands together in some capacity. What made this band feel different, to crowds and to me, was the specific combination of ingredients, and the only ingredient that isn't in the other bands is me. That would suggest that the combination with me in it is the winning one. Not because of me.

I'm sure I've come off as a diva at points, and I own that. Confidence often reads that way. I wouldn't be on stage holding my own with the likes of Kurt and Mike if I hadn't built that confidence over a lot of years. I've been performing music for almost 30 years. At some point, you've paid your dues, and you shouldn't have to deal with treatment like this. Kurt and Mike can attest to what I mean. I've earned the right not to play five nights a week. I've earned the right to set boundaries on my own time. And I've earned the right not to have a band I helped build pulled out from under me for holding those boundaries.

Here is what bothers me most. This is a founding-member band. Me, Marshall, and Kurt got it off the ground. Mike came in later and has been solid since day one. Almost a year of real friendships, inside jokes, late nights, gigs, texts, and harmonies we were still working out at our last practice. Every time Marshall put himself down, his mic level, his bass playing, his doubts about fronting, I pushed back on it. Every single time. I'm not asking for credit. I'm naming it because the person who left me that voicemail doesn't square with the person I was encouraging.

Marshall, I told you directly I wasn't okay with my share of songs getting cut to just 9 out of 40 when Grayson joined. You heard me. You did nothing. When you take ownership of the setlist and a band member says straight up "I'm not okay with this," the responsible move is to reconcile that. Instead you continued to put me in timeout because I use an iPad, while I'm learning a pile of new songs and juggling a full outside schedule. Give me a minute. If Kurt had charts open on stage I'm pretty sure nobody would bat an eye. We got here with the original lineup. The second the calendar filled up, the way this band got run changed, and I don't remember any of us voting on that. I also think the iPad thing was an excuse to sideline me, just as Caldwell was an excuse to remove me.

Grayson, on February 16th, at the band meeting right after Marshall apologized to me privately for the Local Flavor situation, you told the room what you'd said to Marshall. Quoting you directly from the recording transcript:

"I told Marshall, 'Man, now I want everything. I want this back through, you know, I want to integrate it. But now I got a little taste of it. I am a little greedy. And I am like, but we also have this new thing. We have this brand new thing where there doesn't need to be a front man.'"

(I happened to be recording that practice. I've recorded some of ours, here and there, because I like hearing our progress.)

You also said, about walking into that conversation: "I don't want to come in here and step on toes. I just want to say how I am looking from, well, a new perspective." I took that at the time as a polite preemptive apology. In hindsight, the reason you had it ready was because the conversation about me not being in this band had already started between you and Marshall.

You also framed the changes that night as you "trying to build me into the sets." You meant well. I want to be honest about how it landed, because it matters. You can't build someone into something they were already the foundation of. I helped define what those sets even are. The framing of "building me in" to something I was already the core of is what the whole shift has felt like from the inside.

Here's a fair test. If the three of you had decided mid-year to cut Kurt's solos and leads down to 9 songs out of 40, would Kurt have been fine with that? Kurt has said himself he doesn't get to play leads much in his other bands and feels pretty stifled by it. Would you have done that to him? Would you have done it to Mike? Would you watch either of them get slowly boxed out and called "inconsistent" when they pushed back on it? You wouldn't. You know you wouldn't.

The responsible thing in any of this would have been to come to me and say, "Hey, here's what we're seeing. We don't want secrets between us. We want to share what we're feeling and get your take, and see if we can come up with a solution together. If we can't, we part ways amicably." That should have happened. That's the kind of band I want to be in, and it's the kind of band I thought I was in before Gilley's.

This didn't start on Friday. When I told you I couldn't play the first Gilley's gig, I was going to be out of town filming a client. It was real money I needed, the kind that really puts food on the table, and it wasn't something I could move. I was bummed to miss the gig. You called leading up to it, asking if there was any way I could make it work. You said it was "our shot" at Gilley's regularly. You were telling me in that moment how important I was, but from the day I couldn't swing that one gig, I've felt expendable. That's not a reliability problem. That's more like a slow punishment for one miss.

Marshall. The second the Gilley's gig hit, something shifted. The smell of success took over, and I'm not writing this to shame who you are. I'm naming what you did, because what you did caused real damage, to me and to the band this used to be.

Grayson, you're 19 and one of the most naturally gifted musicians I've ever played with. I've told you to your face you're going to be anything you want to be in five years, probably less, and I meant it. I'm in awe of what you can pick up. You're also modest about it, which is what keeps the talent clean. Keep that.

Mike. I have to tell you, man. You are incredibly solid in the pocket, by the book, always learning. You are truly everything a guy could want in a drummer. And for the record, your beard looks great at any length.

Kurt. I'm tearing up writing this (and again as I proofread it). You have been a dream to play with. The first time I ever shared a stage with you I was the drummer, and Henry eventually pushed me out of that one. Almost a year ago I finally got to play AND sing with you in the same band, and every single time I threw you a lead, a vocal, anything, it was electric. You were hilarious on stage. The Boomhauer moments alone were worth every gig. You've also always been considerate of my family situation, from the beginning. That's why I have a hard time believing this is where you actually stand. I truly hope this isn't what you wanted.

BJ, I know you'll read this too, and I'm tearing up again as I write it. You have been like a mom to me in this scene, and I mean that. At one of our recent Shenanigans gigs you came up to me very sad and said, "Hey Matt, I really hope you decide to stay in the band." I didn't understand at the time that me leaving was even on the table. I had never considered it. I'm thinking about that moment differently now. I'm asking you the same question back. Where do you actually stand on this? If this isn't what you wanted either, I want to know.

Here is what is clear. This was never about consistency. If Kurt had to cancel a gig, it would have been fine. If Mike had a conflict, it would have been fine. If something came up with Grayson, it would have been fine. I can't make one gig with six hours notice in an extremely severe weather warning to get home to a scared seven-year-old, and I'm out. This isn't about my reliability.

If any of you ever want to play in a band with me down the line, the door is open. That goes for Marshall too. He is a great bass player, whether he believes it or not. His present mindset and the way this band has been run aren't compatible with what I'm willing to be part of, but people grow. I'm not closing the door forever.

Thanks for reading, all of you. I appreciate the time.

You have my number. If any of you want to say anything, please reach out. I'm also at musictechie@gmail.com.

Matt