News

Hello from Austin, Texas. A new year always brings the promise of new things, and 2012 will bring major changes for us. After almost 20 years, we have decided to end Back Porch Mary. As you can imagine, this was not an easy to decision to arrive at, and there were several factors involved as you can imagine. For Ryan and myself, children entered the picture. Fatherhood happened to Ryan first, and he has done an awesome job with it. As many of you know, earlier this year Ryan had an opportunity come his way that he couldn’t pass up, and for the past few months we have been using a fill in drummer to fulfill our obligations. Joe and I missed Ryan very much, and it just didn’t feel like Back Porch Mary without Ryan. For some, Back Porch Mary hasn’t been the same since Slim left the band, and we completely understand that. The four of us, Ryan, Joe, Slim, and myself were Back Porch Mary for a long time, and that is the band that most of you became familiar with. However, when Slim left the band the rest of us wanted to finish “Life is Now” and tour behind it as much as we could.

For those of you that know me, you know that I tend to think that I can do everything. I figured that I could continue Back Porch Mary, run a new business with my wife Carrie, and be a father to three little boys. This proved very difficult. I had the best father a guy could ask for. When he wasn’t busy working, which he did a lot, he was very involved with my brother and I. My Mom was a teacher, and my Dad made my brother and I breakfast every single morning for our entire lives while we lived at home. In fact, my brother and I each have a picture with my Dad on the last day of our senior year in high school, when Dad served us our “Last Breakfast”. I am very fortunate to have had both my parents at home. They are still married to this day. My Mom and Dad were always there for us. They were Cub Scout leaders, baseball coaches, wrestling coaches, drivers to every kid event on earth, and as I said before they were and continue to be the best parents anyone could hope for. Some of you have even been fortunate enough to see Dad playing drums for Back Porch Mary. So, when I became a Dad, the natural instinct that I had was to be like my Dad. The touring slowed down a lot. This did a disservice to Back Porch Mary. The band was meant to be a touring entity. We were road dogs, and we pushed it harder, drove further, and played longer than anyone else we knew, and we were proud of that. However, life happens. Choices have to be made. Since my boys were born, the road trips became very difficult. I had a blast for the two or three hours we were onstage, but the rest of the time was hard. I felt guilty for not being there in the morning. I must thank my wonderful wife Carrie. She kept the home fires burning, sent me constant pictures of the boys, and never complained about me being gone one time. She knew that I had to get to this place on my own. She’s smarter than I am. Deep in my heart, I knew that I had to be a Dad to my boys like my Dad was to me. For me, being a thousand miles away from your wife and children is unnatural. Ryan had already made this choice. See, his Dad is just like mine, and the other day I was talking to Ryan and he said, “You can be a Dad like our Dads were and be there all the time, or not. There is no middle ground.” He’s right. At the same time I was dealing with these choices, Joe was facing his own questions about his place in this world. Our obligations had ended, and it was a good place to stop.

This decision is very new, and I’m sure I will have ups and downs with it in the next several months. However, it feels right for all of us. Close friends have asked why not just keep it going and just play every once in a while? Well, that’s not what Back Porch Mary was designed to do. It was all or nothing. Victory or death. It wasn’t meant to be a part time thing. The music and our people deserve better.

What’s next? Well, first of all, as you probably have guessed, we don’t plan to go quietly. There will be one final show. The last show will be Saturday May 5th at The Mercury Lounge in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We picked the Mercury for several reasons. First of all, it’s in Tulsa which pretty much was the center of all our touring. Second, it seems like the Mercury Lounge was built specifically for Back Porch Mary. This has been our home base for a long time. Josh Martin opened the place, and Reggie Dobson continues to own and operate what I believe is simply the best live music venue perhaps in America. Any bar that has a sign on the stage wall that says you can’t play cover songs is aces in my book. Joining us on that night will be The Brandon Clark Band. Brandon and his bunch have become extremely close to us, and our shows with him at the Mercury are some of the best times we have ever had. Ryan will be back on drums, Joe will be slapping the bass, and who knows who else will show up, one can never tell. We are announcing it now, five months in advance, so that anyone that wants to make plans to be there that weekend can do so. I myself will probably be at the Mercury on the night of the 4th just to hang out with everyone, and then we’ll play the show on the 5th.

Then what? Well, I can only speak for myself, but I plan on continuing to play as many shows as I can in whatever capacity in the Austin area. I will still write songs, make records, and play shows, both as the singer of a band, and as a side man. I want to produce records for other artists. While doing all of this, I want to be there when my boys wake up every morning. So, if you want to see me, and some of the other guys play, just come to Austin. We’ll be here. I’m a player and players play.

I’m an extremely emotional person, and I’m sure there will be times that I will be a complete wreck over this. I won’t’ try and thank everyone involved with the band at this point. We’ll save that for later. Right now, I can just say that we hope as many of you as possible decide to join us on May 5th at the Mercury in Tulsa. I promise that it will be Epic.

Thanks for supporting us,

Mike