I first witnessed the talent of Dave Escamilla when Crown The Empire first started to gain momentum through a tour with the legends The Used and immediately became a fan of the up and coming group. After years of attending over 15 shows to support and refresh my love for their music I was hooked on their ever growing library of great tunes. The first member to drop out of the group Ben Suede created a slight change in the bands energy. Upset and moving forward the band continued to create great material and only continued to snowball in popularity landing shows at festivals such as Rock on the Range and multiple performances at Van's Warped Tour.
Fast forward to the bands newest album Retrograde. As expected the album gained mixed reviews from longtime fans of the band for the new direction on some of the songs bringing in newer electronic elements to their music while maintaining the energy that the audience was familiar with and adored. Yet, Dave never gave fans a chance to hear the Retrograde album for all of it's beauty. Shortly after the release of the album Dave left Crown The Empire around January of 2017 creating a void in the bands music.
The bands statement was as follows,
Statement:
"Bands are a lot like a relationship; you've all heard this. Sometimes when shit goes south, it's hard to tell who broke up with whom, if you're ever going to get back together, when to give them back their things - it's messy, and it takes a while to figure out how to get back to focusing on just yourself, when all you've known for a good part of your life is sharing it with this other person.
Dave isn't in Crown The Empire anymore. That's how the chips have landed after the smoke has cleared. Everyone will try and make it out like it's a big corporate thing, and say we're "very excited about the future of what both he and ourselves make as we all continue to pursue music" but we all know that when you see your girl or guy with someone else it sucks. The difference is that we turned to each other during this time. The four of us found solace, respect, friendship renewed, and our purpose within this band, and stopped letting our selfishness divide us. Instead we've come together, bonded more than ever to help build each other up.
We've never heard or seen Dave make anything, artistically or musically in the 4 years he was in our band, so we're just as excited to see what he does make as you are. We've had enough time to lick our wounds and can truly say we wish him the best, but we don't want any of our fans to think he was at the heart of what made Crown - Crown. I don't think you'll see him say anything different. Yes, - the "members" as you know it of Crown The Empire were not the primary song writers, but to us, our best friend Brendan, has basically always been in our band, and wrote with us from the very first song. An architect can't say he's made a house without someone to actually build it. It's not like some random person that we pay and say "hey make us famüs" he's literally a brother of the band, and that has not changed. We will continue on as we have, together, tighter, more creative, and more excited, amicable and finally free of negativity than we've ever been. Dave is an incredible talent that we'll never be able to replace in our sound, but we're excited to build an identity around Andy as the singer of this band once more, and we can't wait to bring our creations to you.
Because at the end of the day, anything we create is ultimately not for us. It's for a point in time in the world and the people in it. Thank you all for being participants in our fucked up little universe so far, and we hope that you all will stick around to see how it evolves.
With Love,
Andy, Brandon, Taddie, Tree"
Now for what this whole article is centered around. Mr. Escamilla as an artist, supporter, and content creator I have some things to say. I realize there will always be factors not known to the public, however as an artist, how could you create such a beautiful album and never give your fans an opportunity to hear them in all of their live performing glory? The fact that songs such as "Sign of Life" and Lucky Us" will never pierce my eardrums creates a deep sadness that I cannot shake. I will always support the band and continue to support Dave as a solo artist/producer, yet I will always long to hear Retrograde.
Thank you for reading my rant, rock on,
-Titan