By shelz.

We are all products of our decisions.  The roads we travel are littered with forks and inevitably the side we choose is either cause for celebration or a reason to mourn missed opportunity.  Sometimes you’re right, sometimes you aren’t.  However, there are some folks out there who have taken bad decisions to monumental fail status. They couldn’t have known that the choice would be the absolute worst of their entire life, but in retrospect, the shit has to hurt. A LOT.

In the realm of the super music group there have been some really bad choices made before the band hit the big time.  Some guys felt like their rising star was way too big to share the spotlight with the other members.  Some felt like the front end work involved was too much for them to handle.  Others just felt like they were wasting their time and would always be playing in their grandmother’s basement so they just gave up. But they all kicked rocks right before the world took notice.

So below we have some victims of their own decisions, apathy, or ego.  Feel bad for them if you want to, but it won’t make any difference now.  They had their chance and they blew it.  Big time. 

Timothy Gatling 

Gatling and Teddy Riley had been friends since childhood.  Their common love of music led them to founding Guy with Aaron Hall and trying to break into the industry with a new funky form of R&B called New Jack Swing.  However, before the first album came off the presses, Gatling jumped ship for a solo career.  He aptly named his solo album Help! because that’s exactly what he needed to keep up with the meteoric rise of the band he decided was too constraining for him. Unfortunately, he never got any. He’s written for a few people since then and started another group called Surreel (me neither.) However, he totally missed out on sales of over 4 million. 

Stephen Duffy 

Who could have known the second British Invasion was going to really happen?  I mean, we don’t really like the English, do we?  Well we did in the early ‘80’s when New Wave tinted pop became MTV’s mainstay and leading the charge of the Wham’s and Culture Clubs that flooded the airwaves was the quintessential 80’s British boy band, Duran Duran. Duffy was a founding member but decided, for some reason or other, he wasn’t down for the cause early in the game and left to start Obviously Five Believers. That group only managed to eek out one single while Duran Duran went on to become the most popular pop Britpop act of the ‘80’s.

Marc Nelson
He was a member of Az Yet, but try to come up with an Az Yet song. Don’t worry. I’ll wait. Anyway, while you’re thinking, know that even though he experienced some flash in the pan success with that group, the original crew he was with, Boyz II Men, did just a little bit better. Hailing from Philly, Nelson was part of the original line-up but checked out prior to the release of Cooleyhighharmony to start…you guessed it… a solo career. Given, this guy has been able to keep a job in the industry, but “End of the Road” is Motown’s highest selling single. Ever. Compare that to the Az Yet song I asked you to come up with, if you managed to do it.

Ron McGovney 

The sad story of Ron McGovney pretty much starts and stops in his garage.  He helped arrange demos, gave the band a place to practice and even helped lug all their ish around in his car before they were signed to a major and he’s repaid by allegedly being bullied and having beer poured all over his bass.  The situation affected him so deeply, he sold all of his equipment and said to hell with being a rocker before the first album took shape. However, if he would have persevered he would still be the bassist for one of the most critically respected and commercially successful metal bands of all time, Metallica. 

Metallica – The Memory Remains

Spike Savage | MySpace Video

Jaime Kelley 

Constructing the concept for a group before you have the people to fill the slots is pretty easy, but filling the slots is where the problem comes in.  However, boy band guru Maurice Starr knew the ins and outs of the process and decided he was going to construct a white counterpart to New Edition.  New Kids on the Block started with the two members who obviously didn’t want to be bothered and took leave early on only to be replaced by young men who were feeling the project. The first to leave was Mark Whalberg who we all know became Markey Mark, did some work for Calvin Klein and ended up wowing Hollywood with his acting chops.  The other was Jaime Kelly who was dismissed for having an Allen Iverson outlook on practice.  The industry hasn’t heard from him since.

PART 2.  It gets worse.

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