The Reason why Parker Lundgren Left Queensryche
Parker Lundgren was born in Port Townsend, Washington, in the year 1986, in a family that had a lot of interest in music. He is a musician, guitarist, and songwriter. Lundgren started playing guitar, and he took lessons for acoustic guitar and jazz guitar and worked through guitar books. All his friends played guitar, and so he ended up joining many bands. He played guitar for bands like port Townsend High School, jazz band and rock band, and the Nihilists in 2008. Parker Lundgren co-founded the Nihilists band, which he played for six years. He joined the Queensryche band in 2008 when an opening for a position arose when guitarist Mike Stone left the band. According to loudwire.com, Parker Lundgren has announced his reasons for leaving Queensryche, and they are as explained below.
Business Ventures
Parker Lundgren said he left the Queensryche band to concentrate on his business ventures, which he invested in while still in the band. The investment had expanded far and wide, opening even into other locations, and thus he needed time to focus on them. His business of collecting and selling guitars and other unique and souvenir musical instruments was performing well, and finally, he was able to open his own guitar studio. According to sleazeroxx.com, he has a recording studio where he records for other bands. He has also recently opened a guitar repair shop which is a full-time business.
Need For More Time
Parker devoted his time to playing guitar for 13 years. He indicated that sometimes practicing and playing guitar would take 4-10 years. He has also been a songwriter for the group, which is also time-consuming. Therefore having ventured into business, he found it difficult to balance between the two as both are time demanding. According to ptleader.com, Lundgren went ahead to explain that during their tours, they would even travel for a very long time, sometimes up to 200 days. Finally, he decided to step down his role to have enough time to run his business.
Teaches Guitar
Parker Lundgren is a man of many talents, and so he also teaches guitar to students as he is well versed in playing acoustic and jazz guitar. He has also honed his skills from guitar books. Lundgren is a progressive person and a very creative character that easily endeared himself to even his fellow band members who described him as a family to him. This influence has also made him get involved in training children to play guitar as he feels children are better learners than adults and have more time to learn. He is also characterized as being a mentor in his studio. He also records for other bands. Therefore, the idea of quitting the band was almost inevitable to be able to achieve all these goals.
Family
Since he started the businesses and expanded to other locations, his wife has been running and managing them due to his busy schedule in the band. Lundgren decided to make the difficult decision of leaving the band because his wife needed assistance to run their businesses and, at the same time to take the responsibilities of a husband. One of his business ventures, a shop with a full repair service for guitars, makes him fully involved. He also needed time for his family at port Townsend seeing that he traveled abroad in their performance tour.
Internal Wrangles in the Group.
There have been internal struggles in the group, a case in point being Scott Rockenfdeld, a drummer in the band but took a break of four years but has gone ahead to launch his own secured website, although his position is that he is still in the band. There was also another incidence where a vocalist was relieved from the band due to disagreements. However, in the words of Lundgren, when this was ongoing, he chooses to stay aloof concerning the situation. According to ice-vajal.com, Lundgren actually stated that he desired to do what he was contracted to do and do it excellently. It was, therefore, clear from this interview that Lundgren is a peaceful person who keeps off conflicts. He even stated that conflicts such as the type of song to play were there in the group. The personality of loving peace, therefore, made him quit the band to run his own business.
Ambitiousness
After setting his eyes on something, Lundgren is an ambitious person who will not quit until he has achieved it. When he joined the Queensryche band, the fans had a very low opinion of him as they argued that they had been followers of the band even before he was born, and thus he could not offer anything new. However, he persisted without giving up, where he ended writing a song by the name ‘where dreams go to die in 2013, which rejuvenated the group. Therefore after starting the business ventures, he had to quit the band as he found he could give the band enough time it needed while at the same time he could not imagine his numerous businesses failing.
Being An Independent Thinker
In one of the interviews on their tour to Germany, Lundgren was asked whether he was not uncomfortable traveling with his future father-in-law. Though his response was to take it easy and not give it much thought, Lundgren came out that he could separate family issues and business. People with such personalities who are independent-minded will usually not have a problem in making hard decisions. This was his case as he felt it was not light to be partially in the band and partially in his own business ventures.
Support from fans and fellow band members.
Lundgren was appreciative of the support that he had received from fans, friends, and fellow band members for the 13 years he had been in the band. Many people are usually cautious when making a decision that seems risky, especially where they are being discouraged by their close associates. Lundgren was so optimistic that the same backing he had received when in the bad would continue even in his new ventures, which encouraged him to quit.