Three Members of Vektor Quit the Band
After a flagship year — one in which their latest album Terminal Redux garnered the highest critical praise of the band’s career — it appears things are not peachy in the Vektor camp.
In a Facebook post on the official Vektor page that has since been removed, drummer Blake Anderson, guitarist Erik Nelson and bassist Frank Chin announced they were all quitting the band after nine, eight and twelve years, respectively. Here is a transcript of that post in full:
Greetings Vektonauts. With sadness we must inform you that we, Blake, Frank, and Erik, are all departing from Vektor effective immediately. It has been a completely incredible 10-ish years that has brought us all around the world and introduced us to so many super generous, passionate, friendly people and produced three albums of which we are extremely proud. Seeing the reception for Terminal Redux in particular after all of the hard work put into it has been very humbling. Sadly we’ve reached a point where we can’t continue with the working arrangement we have, for a number of reasons that we find unnecessary to discuss publicly. There’s no big story or drama, people and personalities simply change and drift apart and we’ve reached our limit.
The three of us are lifer musicians and will continue to be. You’ll be seeing us in other contexts, other bands, recordings, tours, and more. Our time in Vektor has been a major part of our lives and parting with that will be a serious adjustment, but ultimately we’re excited to see other new ways we can put our ideas to use. We are -hugely- grateful to everyone that came out to shows, picked up merch, listened to the music, showed us a great time and kept us going. We accomplished more than we ever thought was possible when we joined and we hope you’ll stay tuned for what we do next – you have certainly not seen the last of us.
We don’t know if this means Dave will seek new members and continue Vektor or not, that is for him to decide and announce in his own time.
Given that it’s the holidays and the future of the band is out of our hands, we’d appreciate some space for the time being as we enjoy time with friends and family (please don’t message our personal pages about it, we won’t reply). All the best and we’ll see you down the road.
-Blake, Frank, and Erik
Guitarist and vocalist David DiSanto, who started Vektor and remains the band’s driving force, subsequently deleted the above post from Vektor’s Facebook page and posted one of his own:
I apologize to anyone who was concerned about the post from earlier today. Vektor is not stopping. I started writing Vektor songs in 1999 and I’m still writing Vektor songs. As long as I live, Vektor will not die.
I appreciate everything that Blake, Frank, and Erik have done to help this ship take off. I also appreciate all of my band mates before them: Willy, Pablo, Adam, Mike, and Kian.
See you on the road!
-Dave
We may never know the full reasons behind Blake, Frank and Erik’s simultaneous exit from the band, but allow us to do a little reading between the lines here: “We can’t continue with the working arrangement we have” seems to imply unhappiness with pay structure. Unfortunately this kind of disagreement is all too common with bands at Vektor’s level who don’t make enough money to pay each member anything significant after touring. On top of that, resentment can build when there is one member — in this case DiSantos — who controls the creative direction of the band. We saw a similar situation unfold with Scale the Summit earlier this year. It’s entirely understandable on both sides.
In any case, we’re sorry to see Blake, Frank and Erik leave — we’ve been huge fans of their work, especially on Terminal Redux — and we wish them the best in the future. Same for DiSantos: excited to hear where he’ll take it next.
