"Disappear" by Number One Gun (ft. Stephen Christian), Monday, November 22, 2021

I wrote earlier this year about Number One Gun, particularly about This Is All I Know. The band from Chico, California, would only become one member--Jeff Schneeweis. The other members went on to form the band Surrogate and work with other bands such as Emery. There was a lot of controversy surrounding Number One Gun's last album, related to the late fulfillments of crowdfunding. Schneeweis, the only member left in Number One Gun, declared the band to be finished and started releasing music under the moniker Leal. This Is All I Know is the end of a Christian Rock era: a band that stuck despite never being anyone's favorite band.

HEAVY IS UPON US. Just as Anberlin had announced their farewell in 2014, several other bands called it quits. In 2017 the band Yellowcard, along with Anberlin drummer Nathan Young, recorded their final album and gave their farewell tour. After Anberlin ended, Stephen Christian was busy first in Nashville as a songwriter then as a Worship leader in New Mexico. He released a worship project titled Wildfires and an Anchor & Braille project titled Songs for the Late Night Drive Home. He also offered guest vocals on Fireflight's "Safety" and Number One Gun's This Is All I Know including today's song. I've talked a lot about the shift in the music industry, particularly on rock/emo/punk bands in the late '00s and early '10s, but I think I remember seeing it first hand in the summer of 2008 at Cornerstone. In 2007, the economy was good, Cornerstone was packed, and everyone was buying merch. But in 2008, in the middle of the Banking crisis, gas prices skyrocketed. The concert goers dwindled and fewer people bought merch. There was grumbling in the camp among the underground scene as to why the festival had to pay the main-stage bands so much. Rumors of paying P.O.D. $1 million to play in 2010 and flying Blindside over from Sweden to a record low turnout was a sign of the end. While festivals were losing out on money, bands were bearing the brunt of the changes. Record labels dropped underperforming bands, and it seemed like everyone was underperforming.

HATE IS OVERRATED. One of the reasons I started this blog was to indulge in the stories of disappearing artists. Sometimes bands get a farewell tour. I remember watching Anberlin's farewell tour around this time in 2014 on Yahoo!'s concert series. Of course Anberlin was one of the successful acts that not only had a farewell tour, but subsequent "welcome back" tours. Anberlin determined that being an independent act works because they have fans that will go along with whatever they do. Smaller acts didn't always have that luxury. What about bands that recorded one or two albums only to be dropped from their record label. Sometimes we got a press statement. Sometimes we got a "we're looking around for another label." Most of the time casual fans aren't scouring the Internet for an article about whatever happened to Acceptance or Edison Glass. Thanks to podcasts, I've been able to become more connected with my music, but still there's a lot of MIA bands left unaccounted for. And how long does it take us to recognize a band as missing? While the pandemic has been a time of great innovation for bands with large, established fan bases, we may be asking ourselves whatever happened to their opening acts? As rock radio stations disappear, the stations that are left contain bands that can't crack the top 10. Without an active fan base, the big bands will stay big, and the smaller bands will, well, disappear. Is it survival of the fittest? No, it's truly a battle of the bands.

   
 

Read “Disappear” by Number One Gun on Genius.