What’s next?

It’s been an intense year so far

2010 has proven to be a time of musical growth for the Nerds, a period of musical exploration and resolution. We can say with no great uncertainty, that 2010 has absolutely shaped up to be one of our best years as a band.

2009 was insanity. We toured, we released an album (The Span of a Life) and we unbelievably won Creative Loafing’s “Best of” Awards in three different categories. Celebrations were short lived, as Johnny parted ways with us in the Spring, and Abby in the Winter. We almost gave up… Almost.

And then there were three

After Christmas, we were faced with how to continue on as a trio. We came together in practice and just played through the confusion. By the time we had made up our minds to keep being the Nerd Parade, we had 10 songs sketched out. We built a bigger and better studio and got right to recording

Spring of 2010 saw the release of a limited edition version of our third LP Daylight Saving Time and another brief tour. The new music was (and still is) a bit more “muscular” sounding, with a slightly “darker” take on our typical tongue-in-cheek lyrical delivery. We immediately loved (and still love) it to death.

That brings us to the present

It’s been a couple of weeks since Rich was asked to leave the band. We decided not to discuss the personal reasons behind our decision, as we did not want to put any more negativity into the world. However, if you read any of Rich’s (or his wife’s) public posts following our decision — it’s probably not difficult to see why we had to let him go.

We had only one commitment on our schedule, and that was the 2010 Nophest Music Festival. We asked David Tyberg of The Extraordinary Contraptions to fill in. He agreed and set forth in learning a challenging set that touched on our three full-length records. When we finally took the stage, David was playing amazing bass and singing some of Abby’s parts simultaneously — better than it had ever been done before.

Too bad we can’t keep him forever

I suppose the moral of the story is that one should never be afraid of change. One should continue the up-hill struggle until the summit is reached, remembering that some relationships are better left undone and that it’s difficult to miss something that was never really there to begin with.

We have a bassist audition scheduled for this week, and we’ve already hired an old war-buddy back on keyboards. We’re not even remotely interested in giving up, or even looking back. Our job is not to be predictable and boring, but to constantly push ourselves into uncomfortable places. After all, that’s where the best art is made.

So our future looks pretty bright right now…