There has never been a shortage of drama in camp Rings of Saturn. The latest hit when guitarist Joel Omans left the band. Initially, this move was made without any hint of conflict. But now, the beans have been spilled. Joel just released this lengthy message expressing his disdain with Rings of Saturn guitarist, founding member Lucas Mann.
"So there's been quite a bit of vagueness to the real reason why I quit Rings of Saturn and It's been eating away at me keeping it to myself so here it goes.
The deciding factor in me leaving the band was Lucas. I had enough of biting my tongue and going along for the ride. When I first joined the band we got along great and had the same common goals as musicians but that changed more and more over the years. To summarize he simply doesn't care about playing guitar or being a musician anymore. Word for word he told me 'I don't give a shit about playing guitar or getting better at guitar, I just want to write music and get the band as big as possible in the shortest amount of time.' So with that kind of attitude it hindered the band from playing any of the new songs from Lugal Ki En that we were suppose to be playing live for the last 6 months.
Ian, Aaron, and myself were all capable of playing the new songs we prepared for the set but we had to make up excuses such as 'the label won't let us play songs until the music video is out or we didn't have time to practice as a band so we aren't playing any songs on the album release tour.' And his reason for not learning the songs was that he was too busy managing the band. I was also told to get off his back for it since he 'Does more in life in general than I do.'
All in all what it comes down to is Lucas Mann is a hack of a musician and I will never work with him ever again. He stresses the band into recording songs note by note, releases them, doesn't learn them and then makes as much money as he can from the merch while sitting in the comfort of his parents' house. On top of that he is a self centered asshole to his band mates and fans which is not acceptable to me in anyway.
I admit he is very smart with managing and promoting a band. Maybe he'd do better helping other bands since he doesn't have the desire to play instruments himself. I've learned a lot from being in ROS and met some amazing people but Ive had enough of the bullshit. I'm not going to sacrifice time with my family, my musicianship, or my integrity for some childish wanna be musician. I couldn't be happier with my choice to leave. I now have time with the people I care about and I've regained that burning passion for my instrument. Thanks to all who have supported the band, I'm excited to start releasing albums that are REAL all the way through for the remaining listeners of mine to enjoy. No longer will I stand for someone to record bullshit parts with my music and not even learn it. Fuck that."
