These days I am proud to be working with some of my local-hometown idols formerly from Sunshine and Born Again Savages, but some times the situation is reversed. I was first introduced to Chris during a performance back in 1995 that we had played with a band called (ironically) Vampire Choir. A young drum technician/roadie for the band approached me with a demo-tape for his own band Dark Victory, wanting to book some shows together. I must admit that this was probably the worst off-key and out of tune demo tape I had ever heard. I thought this would probably be the last time I heard from this guy. To my surprise, I caught him in the audience at quite a few shows over the years doing the same thing I was doing with Sunshine, 99c Special, and Born Again Savages. Idolizing and learning from those I admired.

It wasn't until after his band Tears End was formed that I actually had a few more than casual run-ins with Chris. In mid 1997 we were stuck at the lovely Oswego Falls Cafe missing a few cables to our P.A. system when Tears End (the club's house band) was able to loan us a few to get us through the night. Upon chatting a bit after the show, he proceeded to tell me about Tears End and we decided to try to arrange a show or two together. As we were still booked pretty solid with Pagan Holiday at this time, things took a few months to arrange a show featuring the three bands. Finally in May of 1997 we managed to put a show together featuring us, Pagan Holiday, and Tears End in Watertown, N.Y. Incidentally at the time I was ending a really ugly relationship and trying to ditch my then-girlfriend and was thankful for Chris for taking her home. She began dating Chris and eventually it became the cause of demise for Tears End. Shortly thereafter, Chris offered to fill the now vacant spot of drummer that had been vacant in the band since we had moved the Jester onto the keyboard. After several weeks of trying to rehearse together, Chris could not play the songs and we made a mutual parting.

Around that point Chris had picked up a job working for WAQX FM 95x Rock station here in Syracuse and we kept in contact. Chris went through numerous amounts of bands within this time and was even offered a keyboard slot once in the Nightmare which he had to decline due to his working hours. Regardless, Chris still gave us a lot of plugs, and even a few interviews on the air, and remained a big fan of the band. When his newest electronica project Atmos/Fear X formed, we once again attempted to strike some shows up together. Whilst we only managed to strike a handful of shows together, I thought this group was good enough for me catch a few more times. This group was a breath of fresh air from the countless generic alt-rock, cover bands, and nu-metal bands we were normally being lumped in with, and in my humble opinion Chris' best effort to date. Former bass player Dan Gober attempted to join Atmos/Fear X twice during his fallouts with the Nightmare, and was not successful either time.

Unfortunately, things turned for the worse after the firing of Dan Gober when we decided to allow Chris to handle our promotions department left vacant by Gober. Our first and only show that Chris handled featured an entirely new lineup of Atmos/Fear X and a lot of miscommunication beforehand. The Nightmare provided a modest P.A. and lighting setup for the show and was dealt more than it could handle power-wise than what was previously discussed. Also time slots were crucial for the band at this point with tight working schedules for our 'other jobs'. With everything that went wrong our P.A. fizzled out and died. I, myself lost my cool, and cancelled the show after three songs. Upset about not getting a proper sound check, going on far later than we expected, and over the damage done to our P.A. system, my famous 'cancellation speech' unfairly cited Chris for his inability to follow through on what was agreed upon. While the club owner only worsened the situation by yelling profanities at the band over his own "P.A. System" causing an intense shouting match between myself, the rest of the Nightmare, the audience against the club owner, it was Chris who probably handled the situation the best. Chris kept quiet, ran home and brought his own meager P.A., and had Atmos/Fear X play an unrehearsed extended set.

Things were strained for a short time between Chris even after I offered him an apology for my outburst. Chris is a good hardworking man in the local music scene. He may not make the best of all decisions, nor do I, but he has a good heart and great passion in what he does. It took a while for all of that to sink in to me, for me to realize that even if any blame did fall on Chris's shoulders it certainly was by no means intentional to hurt the band in any way. Perhaps Zadoc...and the Nightmare may have inspired Chris Halen musically, but it is certainly Chris Halen who taught me a lesson in not getting so caught up in the music business that I forget the real friends that I have.