Guitarist Tom Smith has spoken at size about what led to his 2022 departure from The Acacia Pressure and the fallout that ensued with the band due to it. Showing on the ‘Brewtally Talking‘ podcast, Smith, who has went on to play with Suburban Scum, Pure Finish and extra, cited extreme burnout as the first motive for his exit.
As Smith revealed, a lot of that took place due himself carrying not solely too many hats within the band exterior of his guitar duties, but additionally working three separate jobs on the time. He stated of that [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“I positively, positively burnt myself out. And I imply, I’ve such a bent to overload myself with work. Like, one: I do higher simply as an individual, once I’m busy. I fucking squander free time, like, if I’ve it. However that’s one thing that I’ve been making an attempt to even acknowledge now with my bands — and I’m not studying from it — as a result of I simply recorded and combined each bands throughout the final couple months and wrote a bunch of these songs for each totally different bands and no matter.
However yeah, that was, like, an enormous factor with… I believe that ultimate tour for me was the place I actually hit burnout on the street. As a result of regardless that there was the pandemic, [and] we weren’t touring, such as you stated, I used to be nonetheless engaged on a number of stuff.
Like I used to be, one: I used to be writing new shit, and two: it took a very long time to get the present made for ‘It Comes In Waves‘. Like determining who’s enjoying what, what’s going to be backtracked, for like a yr earlier than we really did the tour, we thought we had been going to have a 3rd guitar participant with us for that tour, love to do all the additional layers.
So I had organized an enormous session for that, I programmed all of the Kemper stuff, like all of the MIDI adjustments. I went so overboard with it the place I don’t even know if it helped or harm, however yeah, I didn’t have a break. Regardless that it was a break from touring, I didn’t have a break from excited about all of the stuff.
So yeah, I believe when the tour got here, as a result of it was a lot lead-up with all that engaged on it, after which, similar to the stress of constructing certain all the things works, like I used to be our playback tech, you realize? If one thing went down in the midst of the present, it was me who needed to determine it out. And there was a number of points with the expertise, simply because it was all model new to us.
However, yeah, I burnt myself the fuck out. And I believe that was an enormous a part of it too. As a result of even then, up to the mark, throughout the pandemic, since we weren’t touring, I used to be working like three jobs simply to attempt to stay the life I wished to. So it was simply burn myself out in a ‘skilled setting’, after which burn myself out in my music setting, and my psychological well being. It simply was like, ‘Yeah, this isn’t working proper now.’ I imply, I used to be a terror to be round.
After I give up the band Devin [Shidaker, The Acacia Strain guitarist] and I didn’t converse for like six months as a result of he and I had such a nasty falling out. However we’ve repaired it. And actually, because of him for being the larger individual with a number of stuff. And he’s like, one among my greatest mates nonetheless, speak to him actually every single day, speak to all of the dudes.
Yeah, it was similar to I used to be simply in such a shitty place mentally that I used to be taking it out on others and burning myself out.”