Here goes:

Harmacy was a bit of a creative disappointment for me. The recording process was forced. We began recording right when "Natural One" (a song I'd done w/the Folk Implosion) had become something of a hit. We were recording in a house we rented at the suggestion of our engineer Tim O'Heir. It was a strange time. The equipment wasn't working well when we started so we spent a lot of time on the couch channel-surfing. Soon enough, "Natural One" popped up on MTV, my face filling the screen and a strange tension spreading over the proceedings. No one said anything about it at the time, but there was an expectation that we, Sebadoh, might follow with our own hit. It affected each of us differently and in hindsight, I'm not sure any of it was positive. I finished the record feeling extremely detached from the process. We weren't very involved with the recording or mixing. I chose to rationalize this as giving our engineers space to work, but in the end, I was just fried and really had no perspective on how anything sounded anymore. I just wanted the album to be finished. Things did feel okay once we started touring. The songs sounded better live and it felt good to just hang out and play.
The post-"Natural One" tension lingered as Sub Pop tried desperately to make Harmacy into something of a crossover hit. They seemed convinced it could happen and we found ourselves on a different level of pressure and hype. I wasn't surprised when "Ocean" and "Willing to Wait" didn't propel us into alternative rock stardom. We probably weren't ready for it anyway. We did, however, get some radio time and even found ourselves playing in basketball stadiums for radio station-sponsored festivals opening for the likes of Jewel, Sheryl Crow, and the Wallflowers. We made the best of it, shrugged off any doubts and played through it all. By the end of our touring for Harmacy, March 1997, we had seen our record company nearly fold (in the end, they didn't), but although we had done well, (Harmacy was our best-selling record), I knew something had to change. That summer, after being partners for 8 years, Jake and I decided we needed time to jam at his place in Louisville and find a reason to keep the band together. We left Bob hanging in Boston. We didn't have a plan. I drove myself from Boston to Louisville, alone for the first time in awhile. No ringing telephone and none of the business details that were swallowing my home life. Just alone in a car wondering what Jake's house was going to be like (he lived there for 3 years but I'd never visited), and what we were going to do when I got there. Within an hour of arrival, I was riding shotgun in Jake's red Toyota minitruck down a maze of one lane dirt backroads, bouncing through the jungle/forests of summertime Kentucky. As we passed locals, usually driving their own jacked-up mini-pickups, they'd wave and Jake would wave back. The busdriver wave is common courtesy between good ole boys. We ended up at the longest go-cart track I'd ever seen. We raced unsupervised slamming into each other and any preteen or parent in a go-cart who challenged us. At the house, we jammed and attempted a few songs. We kept that up for a few days. Then I heard a song Jake recorded w/a friend playing drums--it was Russ. It was heavy, totally improvised and totally *there*. I was impressed, even a little threatened. Turns out Russ Pollard and Jake had become good friends recently after floating around the same group of friends for a few years. It seemed Russ wanted nothing more than to hook up with a band who wanted to spend the next couple of years being a band, touring and whatnot. In the course of the usual Louisville drinking schedule, I met Russ and soon he came to sit behind the drums. During the remainder of my visit, we played often and began to talk of a future together. I returned home wondering when and how I was going to inform Bob Fay of our decision.

For now, I'll spare the clumsy details of the final Sebadoh meeting with Bob Fay because some recent developments might explain things a bit better. Bob Fay moved to L.A. in the late summer of 97. I was there that fall w/the Folk Implosion and we hung out. The breakup was nearly 4 months old at that point and after some good talking and needed apologies, Bob and I were on friendly terms (which was good cos Kath and I were spending a lot of time with his housemates). Seeing Bob relocate to L.A. from his hometown Boston in a smooth and relatively low-cost fashion inspired Kath and I. One year ago this November, while Kath was in L.A. looking for a house for us to rent, she called me and convinced me that we must not rent but *buy* a house she had just seen. And buy we did. I signed my life savings away before seeing the house, but Kath has taste I trust and I was not disappointed. So we moved to L.A., very close to Bob. I was soon swallowed up by the madness of moving and frequently travelling to Louisville to work with Russ and Jake, I didn't see Bob at all. By the spring of 1998, Sebadoh was recording in L.A. Jake and Russ staying at my house. We were back and forth to the studio (conveniently located a half mile away) 7 days a week for over a month. During this period, Jake and Russ did see Bob a few times. They pretty much partied together (I heard that Russ and Bob talked for 2 hours one night.) After we finished recording, Kath and I had a housewarming party and I saw Bob but only briefly. Pretty much from then til now, I've been working on either Sebadoh or Folk Implosion full time. I haven't been to shows and I know nothing of L.A. nightlife (just the way I like it really). When I returned home from England a few weeks ago, I got wind of some pretty harsh stuff Bob had told a local free newspaper. Basically he wasn't happy that he was finding out more in Sebadoh interviews about why and how we'd fired him than what we'd bothered to tell him in person. Basically he felt he deserved a little more follow-up from me than just the initial apologies. I called Bob shortly after reading the article, and within a few days, we were face to face at a local coffee shop. We talked for hours and I learned a lot about what Bob was feeling during the Harmacy recording sessions and touring. It seems the ambivalence of that time was rooted in some musical differences between Bob and myself. He needed a change as much as I did. He's playing in a couple of bands here in L.A. and he seems happier than I've seen him in years. I think L.A. suits us both well and I'll probably be seeing more of him once things settle down.
So the gist of this long and winding message is this: lots of stuff has happened since you last heard from us. Not the least of which might be the less than graceful way Bob left the band. But it's a personal issue between Bob, Jason and myself that we're dealing with at our own pace. Give us the benefit of the doubt if you can.