Jordan Lane

Hi Nikki,

I don’t believe we’ve met but I wanted to offer my condolences for the loss of your brother, and share a few memories of him. Chris briefly played bass in I Die Screaming, a grindcore band I formed with another friend who’d seen him play in Veritas. When we’d gotten wind Veritas were calling it a day we wanted Chris and his incredible talents in our metal band. His tenure was brief, playing on a demo we recorded before leaving the band to focus on other projects.

We were disappointed but understood. What was amazing to me was a year or so later when he sent me recordings of his project The Exercises, playing phenomenal noisy grind. He said he’d missed playing in IDS and wanted to start something in a similar vein; it was funny to find out that he’d put together a far better take on the genre by himself as a side project than the rest of us had managed to come up with focusing on it as our main outlet. The funny thing is, IDS continued on for a few more years, but as a trio; we never filled that bass spot.

Logistics were certainly easier with less gear to worry about, but I think the real reason is that we knew we’d never be able to find someone who could do a better job.

Chris had the sort of talent that simultaneously inspired you to take your own work to the next level and also made you want to quit forever because you knew he could do it better if he wanted to. But there was never a hint of ego with him, just the sort of good-natured humility that made him someone you wanted around onstage and off. It is sad to see him taken away when he still had so much to give the world. I miss him and I’m glad to have been a small part of his life.

I put the demo up on Bandcamp as a free download for posterity’s sake.

http://idiescreaming.bandcamp.com/album/2006-demo
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Jordan Lane
Freelance writer and editor