When A Musical Collaborator Ghosts

[Kacey Y]

Have you ever had a musical collaborator, in a band/duo/songwriting partnership just vanish and become unreachable indefinitely?

I've almost always been the "logistics" person in every band, even if I wasn't the main songwriter. The band mom, the one that schedules everything, books everything, organizes, handles money, communication, promotion, setting up and maintaining online accounts, etc. About 14 years ago I started a "band" that was really just a recording duo, with a friend who got burned out of dealing with all the interpersonal headaches and business aspects of the previous bands he was in, and asked if he could just write music and lyrics and I could handle everything else. I contributed some guitar parts as well occasionally, no lyrics, wrote and performed all the parts that weren't guitar or lead vocals, handled arrangements, recorded and produced everything, and again did all the band logistics. He didn't want to play gigs, he never wanted to talk to anyone else about anything to do with the band, but I consulted him before replying to any offers or making any decisions. There were limited releases with some small record labels, we turned down bigger offers and tours because of his disinterest, which was fine as I was very busy with work and family at the time. After I moved across the country almost a decade ago, I proposed we kept going with the band, as doing things remotely wasn't really a hindrance to our creative process and there was no time crunch. He put things off for a while, then eventually stopped returning texts, voicemails, and emails and it's now been years since I've heard from him. He had no presence on any social media before that and the only people I still know in the area haven't heard from or seen him in years.

I'm still the sole person with access to all the masters, artwork, email, social media, paypal, and music hosting accounts. There's no publishing/legal issues involved, as we released everything under creative commons and he was very averse to the idea of it being a money making endeavor and was purely interested in the creative aspects. I would never presume to reactivate the band without his involvement or anything, but should I try writing him a letter to his last known address (which was his brother's house) or something, and offer to transfer everything to him and wash my hands of it? It's just a chore for me to archive this stuff and check accounts every so often, when it seems like he lost any interest in the band or respect enough reply to friendly or formal contact long ago.

 

[ahbass2500]

Have you ever had a musical collaborator, in a band/duo/songwriting partnership just vanish and become unreachable indefinitely?

Yes. Several years later, I found out lots of drugs were involved, most of his gear was sold to feed the drug habit, and his family had cut ties with him after trying to get him help.

My experience has probably jaded the course of action I would recommend, but... If you think you have done enough to reach out and are not getting anything back, cut ties. Sad when that happens (the individual I am talking bout officiated my wedding), but you can only do so much.

 

[KenD]

Check the obituaries of the last area where you know he lived.

 

[51PRI]

Have you ever had a musical collaborator, in a band/duo/songwriting partnership just vanish and become unreachable indefinitely?...

Yes, the bass player in the all original band I was in (I was playing guitar) suddenly starting ghosting us. He wouldn't respond to texts or phone calls even if they weren't music related. We still haven't found out why.

 

[Kacey Y]

Yes. Several years later, I found out lots of drugs were involved, most of his gear was sold to feed the drug habit, and his family had cut ties with him after trying to get him help.

My experience has probably jaded the course of action I would recommend, but... If you think you have done enough to reach out and are not getting anything back, cut ties. Sad when that happens (the individual I am talking bout officiated my wedding), but you can only do so much.

That is so sad. I've had a lot of close experience with addicts and it's so corrosive to relationships. I've only experienced that in a band once, and it was very abrupt (guy vanished in the middle of recording and never came back), but I wasn't close with him and only found out the drug part over a decade later, while catching up with the band leader.

Check the obituaries of the last area where you know he lived.

Oh I did, have several times over the years. He's still alive, as far as I know, and probably still living at the same address and working the same job. My brother still lives in that area and has mutual friends, so I could probably track him down through a chain of a few people. Then again he probably has the same phone number and email still too and I sent occasional messages just well wishing and checking in for like a year after he ghosted and never heard anything back.

Yes, the bass player in the all original band I was in (I was playing guitar) suddenly starting ghosting us. He wouldn't respond to texts or phone calls even if they weren't music related. We still haven't found out why.

That's heartbreaking, to just never know like that. Especially if you count the person as a friend. I never understood why people don't just say something at least. Be cruel once, instead of letting it linger unspoken forever.

 

[Peteyboy]

It's sad to lose touch with someone you shared that connection with. IME with things like this its usually drugs or booze. And from your description he sounds discouraged and down. You know that no one advertises particulars about their own relationship with chemicals. In this business it's definitely an occupational hazard. Or, I don't know: are musicians prone to addiction, or are addictive personalities prone to music?

 

[jerry]

Maybe he wants to stay gone!

 

[Frank Kreber]

Could it be that he has a mental illness? A lot of what you write about him could point to this possibility.

 

[Kansas]

Quite often "friendly associates" aren't really friends when you no longer serve their purpose.

 

[Norm Nelson]

I understand your dilemma. What do you do with all the material you've recorded, etc. Can you burn all that material to something semi-permanent like optical discs and store that rather than trying to keep all the data on line or live on a computer? Then in 15 years when you and this guy get discovered as previously unknown geniuses you can restore it all and cash in

 

[Kacey Y]

Quite often "friendly associates" aren't really friends when you no longer serve their purpose.

So true, unfortunately. I've experienced that quite a few times with people I considered very close friends in the past. I try not to let it make me cynical or fearful of connection.

I understand your dilemma. What do you do with all the material you've recorded, etc. Can you burn all that material to something semi-permanent like optical discs and store that rather than trying to keep all the data on line or live on a computer? Then in 15 years when you and this guy get discovered as previously unknown geniuses you can restore it all and cash in

I have considered just finding something to store all that on and forgetting about it, yeah. I was just organizing a few things in my basement today and found vinyl masters and test pressings of a band from 2005, a DAT tape and some cassette demos from a late 90's band I was in, and a bunch of CDR masters and raw tracks from in between. So clearly I have no issue hanging onto things lol

 

[aprod]

Take the hint. He is not interested.

 

[Kacey Y]

Update, but nothing surprising or earth shattering. My brother has several mutual friends with my ex bandmate and he asked around, apparently nobody has talked to him or seen him in years, except one person (who on my short list of people to track down and ask) who was pretty close friends with him since high school. He just said he's still living with his brother, has some health issues, and otherwise doesn't know anything about what's going on with him. Seems like he ghosted almost everyone he knew and just became a recluse, unfortunately. I'm not going to bother reaching out, I'll just decide what I want to do with all the archival material I have and disable any notifications for the online accounts.

 

[frankie5string]

I've definitely worked with people who did this. Being an artist is hard... I've witnessed visual and musical artists go into virtual seclusion at the expense of anyone they employed around them. Sometimes the payment randomly arrives afterwards, sometimes it never arrives. Eventually you learn to read people and more or less figure out who may be a problem, and who has a reasonable head on their shoulders. Otherwise, you put up with it to a degree.

 

[mambo4]

" No response is a response."

 

[Levent]

offer to transfer everything to him and wash my hands of it?

I wish I was in a band with a ''logistics mom'' person like you I have been in really dire situations over my life which included all my family members being terminally sick, relocating to another city, forced off a job, legal issues, being cheated on a long relationship and most of these things happening all at once. I still let people know that were involved with me in a project that I wont be available or something within a few days latency tops. It doesn't take much time, we all spend time in toilet or commute.
It takes a certain level of disrespect and laxity to treat you the way he does. I would forcefully transfer him the login infos with a cold/professional mail and ghost him back for the forseeable future.

 

[Kacey Y]

I wish I was in a band with a ''logistics mom'' person like you I have been in really dire situations over my life which included all my family members being terminally sick, relocating to another city, forced off a job, legal issues, being cheated on a long relationship and most of these things happening all at once. I still let people know that were involved with me in a project that I wont be available or something within a few days latency tops. It doesn't take much time, we all spend time in toilet or commute.
It takes a certain level of disrespect and laxity to treat you the way he does. I would forcefully transfer him the login infos with a cold/professional mail and ghost him back for the forseeable future.

I ultimately decided to just change any account settings, so that nobody could pay money or send contacts for anything, and deleted anything that required active stewardship, but was essentially already dead for years, due to inactivity. I still have login info for one or two things, but won't be receiving any notifications if there's a problem or some site shuts down or deactivates an account. Everyone I talked to about this that knows him personally also hasn't heard from him in years and agreed it was a sad situation, apart from anything to do with music, but clearly his choice.

I'm pretty clear with my communication, even if it's just admitting I don't have the motivation to participate in something at the moment. I try to always be direct and polite and keep things to the point and not try to add info to justify anything. I try to be honest and direct with people. One of the reasons I stopped actively pursuing being in bands was because I was tired of being the band mom tbh. Especially since I am an actual mom with kids. After a decade of that and years of therapy, I have considerably less patience and tolerance for trying to motivate a bunch of grown adult men to actively participate in something they ostensibly enjoy and chose to do. That probably sounds more harsh than I feel about it, I've had a lot of fun being in bands too, and at the points I got tired of doing a lot of logistics stuff I'd just find an opportunity to show up and play bass.