Trivia / Black Crown Initiate

• Artist Disillusionment: Jesse Beahler's reason for leaving in a nutshell. Their relentless touring schedule helped wear him down, and their troubles with their label did the rest; by the end, he just wanted to settle down with his day job and was content to keep his musical ventures restricted to session work, local fill-ins, and the occasional fill-in for Thy Art Is Murder whenever Lee couldn't make a tour; the fact that he wound up replacing Lee can likely be chalked up to Thy Art Is Murder being a major international headlining act that makes fairly good money, whereas BCI was lucky just to break even for most of their time with him in the band.
• Creative Differences: Subverted with Rik, as he had just burned out from the incredibly heavy touring that surrounded The Wreckage of Stars and wanted to return to a less hectic life. He's still buddies with everyone in the band. Played much straighter with Samuel Santiago, who was not getting along with anyone in the band by the end.
• Creator Backlash: Beahler was only in Rings of Saturn for a few months and grew tired of that band even more quickly, and people who have asked him about it have been met with replies to the effect of "dude, I had no clue what the hell I was doing". He's still apparently friends with them, but he's not that fond of the material that he had to play.
• The Pete Best: Jeff Willet. He was listed as a member on The Song of the Crippled Bull despite having joined right after recording (the drums were programmed) and only stuck around for a few months, as his inability to tour was a dealbreaker.
• Refitted for Sequel: "Holy Silence" was one of the first songs ever written for the band, but it didn't see the light of day until it was recorded for Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape in 2019. This is because Ethan McKenna wrote it along with Andy and Nick during a jam session before the band was even a proper entity, and when the band officially formed, Ethan was unable to join and the other two didn't feel right about using a song that he helped write without him in the band.
• Screwed by the Network: This was a big part of why they didn't play any shows for over two years (aside from a fest appearance in 2017 that they had to bail on due to a family emergency); while the exact details have not been publicly disclosed, Entertainment One apparently attempted to screw them and they spent a fair bit of that time in court.
• Throw It In!: "Bellow" was an unedited one-take vocal track from James of him doing polyphonic om-like chanting while also simultaneously doing gutturals that Andy thought was cool enough to record and put in as an intermission, especially since the second half of the album featured some very lyrically dark tracks and the intermission worked nicely as a representation of a gathering of one's thoughts.
• Troubled Production: Violent Portraits of Doomed Escape, largely due to the circumstances that befell them between the fall of 2016 and late 2018. For one thing, the band effectively broke up for several months after Nick Shaw Rage Quit as soon as they got back from their first European tour after a falling-out with Andy, who gave him a few months, managed to patch things up over a few beers, and got cool with him again. What followed was another more informal hiatus, as the band was also dealing with crippling financial problems (many of which were due to eOne pulling some bullshit, which tied the band up in court), while Andy and James also dealt with some serious personal issues (particularly the latter's fight with cancer). When Andy and Nick started jamming again at some point in 2018, Black Crown Initiate wasn't even on their mind - it was just the two of them trying to have fun and revisit the days way before the band was a thing, and the demos that emerged were largely a happy accident. While things were generally pretty uneventful from the point that the decision was made to bring the band back all the way to the first couple of tours, bad luck got one last laugh, as they kicked out their new drummer right after they returned from a European tour and literal days before they were supposed to return to the studio, and Gabe Seeber had to be recruited as a session drummer with almost zero notice. While all parties were pleased with the results, it is frankly a miracle that the album was even made.