Most polemical christian metal artists

Thiago-Brazil wrote:

d@v!d wrote:

Thiago-Brazil wrote:

sentient 6 wrote:

Thiago-Brazil wrote:

I remember reading a interview with Ritter where he says, among other accusations, that the song Caixa de Raiva(Box Rage)  from Microscopic View of a Telescopic Realm was addressed to him.

Does anyone know the gist of this ?

As far as I am concerned, lots of disagreements regarding Tourniquet and its future. But there was a lot of things going on with Guy and Ted at the time and I don't know if anyone has once exposed on internet what really happened in details.

I guess we should ask Gary Lenaire about that, as he was in the band and in a neutral side, as he remained in Tourniquet for a couple of years and then left to form a band with Guy. I mean, at that time, he kept his friendship with both.

As a fan, I wish the departure hadn't had happened so early. The first three Tourniquet albums Absolutely smokes! Their best releases ever!

My subjective interpretation of the events at the time were that since Guy's live performance wasn't what one heard in the studio that it led to his dismissal.

Well, you know that in studio you can make whatever you want. playing live though, it is live! You can do only what you can with confidence.

I ever questioned myself if that could be the real reason. And it might have been, but I guess that it wasn't the only reason, mainly because Ted looked a bit angry in Caixa de Raiva. It could be much easier if Tourniquet juSt let Guy go.

Yeah, I understand the studio. He always seemed lost on stage to me and seemed to be holding the band band in that regard. Who knows what else went on between them. The most approachable people in that band at that time I knew were Gary and Victor. Actually I was taken back by how cool Gary was.

Thiago-Brazil:
The lyrics of Caixa de Raiva are written by Luke Easter. Ted has nothing to do with whatever that song might have had against Guy. So you can't make any connections with that song to Ted's relationship with Guy. It isn't Ted who is looking a bit angry in that song.



Here is a snippet from the interview I posted a few posts ago:

Todd Walker: OK. I hate to move from the good times to the bad, but…regarding your departure from Tourniquet…did you leave during or after the recording of the third album?
Guy Ritter: It was actually right after we finished. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had any vocals on that album. (laughter) We had just finished the album and it was not too long after it came out.

TW: Do you want to go into why you left at all or do you want to leave that alone?
GR: Well, basically for me…I am not being critical of the band or where the direction they went, but for me the band was always more of “this is a ministry and we just happen to play heavy metal.” I got into music for that reason. As I said before, I was originally into pop music, but when I saw what Stryper was doing with music I went and tried to learn that style because it was a tool to reach people. Ted and Gary were always great metal players before I met them. They are just phenomenal musicians. I have never really been good at any instrument. I play a little of every instrument…drums, guitar or keyboard. I am not great at anything. But I learned a style of singing and tried to write the songs that I wrote for Tourniquet on guitar because I felt like it was a tool to reach people. By the time we finished Pathogenic I felt like we were more of a metal band, we were Christians in a band. That is the way I felt. It was my personal opinion. We weren’t praying as much as we were before and weren’t doing things like we used to like meeting with a musical pastor. Our focus was just different. Couple that with the music…I really just wasn’t into the thrash vocals as far as the yelling type shouting vocals. I wanted that to be a compliment to the singing. I just felt like there was too much yelling on the POD album and I sat down with Ted and Gary and I told them that if I was going to stay that I wanted to do less yelling and maybe do some more ballads or some more commercial stuff. I remember Ted saying if anything it was going to get heavier.

I think another thing…the label was not paying us for royalties at all. Almost nothing. Just enough to probably be legal about it. And I really wanted to audit the label. We got paid maybe $3000 in royalties the whole time I was in the band. Then we got a letter saying, “We paid you too much so we are going to have to take payments of a thousand or more back!” It was crazy. And I couldn’t get the band to agree with me that we needed to audit the label. So I had some disagreements there. It wasn’t like this big fight or anything. You never would have thought there would be the tension there was after I left the band. Gary and me were friends and Erik and Victor for a long time. But there was definitely some tension because I wanted to go a certain direction and felt like I had the right to have that opinion being one of the co-owners of the band. Interestingly enough the next album that came out from Tourniquet did have a ballad on it, so the direction did change. But I was constantly telling them that I really think thrash is on its way out and we need to be in front of the curve, not behind the curve. Thrash will always be there for the people that want to play and there will be a crowd that will want to hear it. But it did change quite a bit after that.

TW: Are there any misconceptions out there about you through the years that you want to clear up?
GR: It is common for band members to have disagreements after going separate ways. When we parted ways, we had an agreement to respect one another and to avoid any negative talk going forward. However, there were some comments made by both sides that shouldn’t have been made. The things I said were out of frustration from hearing stuff that Tourniquet had said about me, mainly after shows. That said, it would be nice if Ted called or wrote me someday. He can reach me through www.guyritter.com. I am sure that if we talked, we would have a great conversation. We have a lot to reminisce about. I would apologize too for anything I’ve said to hurt his feelings out of frustration. I am sure it will happen someday. I would also like to ask Luke why he wrote “Caixa de Raiva”. I would prefer that we all make amends for the things we have said or done.

That's his side of the story. We might never hear the other sides.



I've only seen Guy on stage in the Tourniquet live videos that have been released and what's on Youtube, so I don't know how the rest of the shows went, but to my ears and eyes Guy wasn't a bad performer. I've heard some people saying before that Guy wasn't able to perform as well as he did on the albums, and they've even pointed out the Ocular Digital DVD while saying that. I personally can't understand that at all. Guy does a great job on stage! Sure, one of the microphones is faulty, and sometimes the delay effect gets all messed up, but when he uses his other microphone and doesn't have the effects to ruin things, he sounds quite exactly like in the albums.

Well, he might sometimes just be walking around without doing much, but even that looks more exciting than what Tourniquet's shows have been in the past 10 years or so. And this comes from a huge Tourniquet fan. Not that I don't enjoy those modern Tourniquet live shows, but the stage presence was 1000% more intense and better in the 90's (both when Guy and Luke were fronting the band). Well, Victor Macias added tons of charisma to their shows so obviously without him it's not going to be as great as it used to. And surely the lack of everyone's hair does its job in lessening the stage presence too

I guessed Ted wrote Caixa de Raiva as he writes 90% of tourniquet songs. Anyway, I have heard about a tension between luke and guy, though I never understood the reason why.

About Guy's live  performance, all I can say is that I have the Ocular Digital DVD, which has two tourniquet live performances, and one of them is with gary and guy. I could never watch it entirelly as I though the sound and image quality are not good at all, but I will try to watch and see how Guy Ritter fits in the band.