The more I think about this whole band thing the less I’m sold on it. I am used to being the lone wolf. The Clint Eastwood type… strolling out of the desert, coming to town and playing and leaving a trail of broken hearts and damp seats. Then the townspeople catch me and hang me but I don’t die and I come back and kill them all in a rainstorm.

So being in a band seems like it could be hard on someone like me. My decisions, frankly, are always the right ones. If I concede anything at all it is generally with some sort of plot hatching where later I get something valuable and teach someone a lesson that they agonize over for the rest of their lives. Kenny and I are already butting heads and arguing. The other day I said “Pass the salt,” and he did. But I sensed something under the surface. Something subtle…but it was there. Oh, it was there.

I was in bands. Too many to count. Five. Actually that wasn’t that hard. Five bands in my life. Now this new one. Chick singers are trouble. Either we have to demand a separate dressing room so she won’t catch sight of anything that would make it hard for her to focus on the show …. or we just throw all modesty to the wind and parade around in front of each other like the Manson family on ecstasy … flaunting our chiseled bodies till the stage manager has to turn the fire hoses on us to get us to perform. I will NOT go thru that again. It was bad enough when I was in the O’Jays.

So I have decided to go solo. I think having 45 Twitter followers and several hundred Facebook “friends” makes a pretty attractive case for solo success. Oh, they may try to talk me out of it, sure. Tell me how much they will miss the Tuna Casserole that I bring to the soundchecks. My smile that lights up the room when I turn on the overhead light switch. (Coincidence? I don’t think so). My steadfast confidence that I and I alone know what the people want in their hearts from their musical icons. Sure, they will miss all of that. But lone wolves need the open wilderness. Clint Eastwood needs a horse and a gun and the open prairie. And a nice salve for that rope burn on his neck.