I hope this isn't true. I just a the news on FB
It does appear that this is so. Sad news for sure. RIP
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/neal-casal-has-passed-away/
Wow what a shocker. I saw him with CRB a few times, he was always great! RIP Neal.........
Dammit.
He played with Otiel this past weekend at Lockn.
OMG
horrible
oh boy, awful.
Here's Oteil and Friends with Duane Betts from Lockn this past weekend. Casal is prominent next to Betts
Suicide is never an answer for anything.
It leaves the ones closest to you holding the bag.
Frustrating because I'm sure in this case there were plenty of people who cared and could talk.
Brings back memories of Butch.
Stay off the self checkout line people.
Love is everywhere.
Go find you some.
I just posted this on the Steve Hoffman Forum in the topic regarding this awful news and i repost it here:
"This is terrible / gutting news. Saw CRB only a few weeks ago while on vacation in Berlin, Germany. Was a great show! During the show i had several topics on this forum on my mind regarding all the rumours / turmoil around The Black Crowes, Magpie Salute and CRB. Read about CRB desintrigating etc. and / or Neal probably leaving after those European dates. Well, from the way they played and seemed to have a great time together on stage i really thought that everything is just fine in CRB. They were "in the zone" and really into their new album. Not a band that was not communicating let alone falling apart. But the current state of the CRB may very well have nothing to do with today's tragic news. Especially since suicide hasn't been confirmed. Sincere condolences to his family, friends, fans and his (ex)band-members who have to deal with this terrible news."
Shocked. Tasteful and adaptable is how I always described him. I loved him in the Cardinals with Ryan Adams and was bummed when they ended. He provided great playing and amazing harmony vocals in that band and their 2006-2009 run was a hell of a band.
Saw him again with Chris Robinson. Never saw Hard Working Americans but I was pleased Snider and Schools teamed up with him. And thought it was great he was part of Oteil's band at Lockn, particularly in light of the CRB taking a hiatus...just happy he was still plugged in with the heavy hitters.
He always seemed like an easy going mensch...particularly surrounded by some tough personalities in Ryan & Chris. Sad day.
A terrible loss 🙁
I hope he has found peace.
RIP Neal
You will be missed
[Edited on 8/28/2019 by LeglizHemp]
As the day has dragged on this has stuck with me more than expected.
I saw CRB on 10/29/14 and that was the same day as my sister's funeral. Wondered all that day if my wife and I would feel up for the concert, but we went. I was so glad I did. I helped distract me and ease the pain a little. The healing power of music. They played the New Earth Mud track "Safe In The Arms Of Love" and it was a sadly perfect song for the day. The show didn't fix anything, but it made it better for a couple of hours.
Between sets Neal stayed out and talked to fans. Just a great guy.
I say all of that because hopefully he and the people who knew him know that even in that brief 3 or so hours he was making a difference to people every night of his life
I was pretty friendly with Neal and we'd been in touch a lot lately because Andy brought hima copy of Texas flood and he was very, very moved by it and by Stevie's story.
I knew him since 1991, when we first met through a mutual friend and I went to see Neal play solo acoustic in a Lower East side bar. My friend lured me there by saying he was the guy from Blackfoot, LOl... which he was, though it twas irrelevant to what he was doing. We didn't speak for years, maybe decades, though I enjoyed his work in the Cardinals a lot and still think that period is Ryan Adams' best and great stuff. i saw a few great shows by them.
Since CRB started, Neal and I reconnected and spent a long time talking at Wanee in 2014 and have been in touch ever since.
He was smart, funny, empathetic, universally well liked. His solo music reveals a depth you might not catch if you only know him as a guitarist and harmony vocalist.
I was stunned to wake up on an already sad day (anniversary of Stevie's death) and hear this news yesterday. As I learned details I became more stunned and ever sadder. His friends were communicating with each other all day, via the usual ways. I spoke to Duane and Lamar, who played with him with Oteil two days prior and they were knocked on their heels. It is devastating. Everyone wishes they knew more and did more and that's what happens when someone takes their own life, as most of us unfortunately already knew.
I doubt I was alone in sending Neal's texts yesterday. some of them apologized. I wish I knew more, asked more, did more. This guy was very beloved and valued by many. Did he know? Would it have mattered if he did? You can really like someone and feel pretty close and never know the most important things about them. Deren Ney, who was Nicki Blum's guitarist for a long time, wrote a very moving essay about Neal and all this. I shared it on my FB pages, as did many others. In part it gets to the heart of loneliness that plagues many road musicians. I'd urge you to find and read. It's a big part of what drives many musicians off the road. Neal was trying to do that. He never got to the other side. He deserved better and I really hope that he is at peace.
I was pretty friendly with Neal and we'd been in touch a lot lately because Andy brought hima copy of Texas flood and he was very, very moved by it and by Stevie's story.
I knew him since 1991, when we first met through a mutual friend and I went to see Neal play solo acoustic in a Lower East side bar. My friend lured me there by saying he was the guy from Blackfoot, LOl... which he was, though it twas irrelevant to what he was doing. We didn't speak for years, maybe decades, though I enjoyed his work in the Cardinals a lot and still think that period is Ryan Adams' best and great stuff. i saw a few great shows by them.
Since CRB started, Neal and I reconnected and spent a long time talking at Wanee in 2014 and have been in touch ever since.
He was smart, funny, empathetic, universally well liked. His solo music reveals a depth you might not catch if you only know him as a guitarist and harmony vocalist.
I was stunned to wake up on an already sad day (anniversary of Stevie's death) and hear this news yesterday. As I learned details I became more stunned and ever sadder. His friends were communicating with each other all day, via the usual ways. I spoke to Duane and Lamar, who played with him with Oteil two days prior and they were knocked on their heels. It is devastating. Everyone wishes they knew more and did more and that's what happens when someone takes their own life, as most of us unfortunately already knew.
I doubt I was alone in sending Neal's texts yesterday. some of them apologized. I wish I knew more, asked more, did more. This guy was very beloved and valued by many. Did he know? Would it have mattered if he did? You can really like someone and feel pretty close and never know the most important things about them. Deren Ney, who was Nicki Blum's guitarist for a long time, wrote a very moving essay about Neal and all this. I shared it on my FB pages, as did many others. In part it gets to the heart of loneliness that plagues many road musicians. I'd urge you to find and read. It's a big part of what drives many musicians off the road. Neal was trying to do that. He never got to the other side. He deserved better and I really hope that he is at peace.
Nice tribute and great perspective. Thanks Al.
Saw this when I got up yesterday. Just saw him with Circles Around The Sun a couple months ago and it was one of the best sets I've seen this summer. Even chatted with him for a couple minutes that day and he seemed nice. Just so sad what happened. Good vibes to his friends and family
I copied and pasted this essay about Neal Casal by Deren Ney from Alan Paul's Facebook page. It's good enough that everyone should have a chance to see it:
“Hey Deren, I'm Neal. We have a million mutual friends who say we should be friends.”
That was the first thing Neal Casal ever said to me. I had just walked offstage at Terrapin. I remember it vividly, because he was one of my favorite guitar players.
I told him I had heard the same thing. We agreed to become the close friends our other friends expected us to be, and started asking about each other in surprisingly intimate detail, like a first date.
As we discussed why our mutual friends thought we'd get along, we concluded it was probably our “malfunction”, something that we didn't have the courage to talk about it honestly: That we are 'true believers', as he put it, people who love music too much and are too sensitive to be in the business of making it.
“We're suckers,” I said.
Neal laughed and winced.
“Suckers!” he said. “That's so real.”
“I mean, why else would we do this to ourselves?” I said.
“That's fair,” he said.
He compared it to seeing magician's as a kid.
“Being the magician isn't fun. Being the audience is fun. The audience gets to see magic,” he said. “The magician is working. What does he get out of it?”
“He gets to stress the fuck out about it,” I said.
“Right!?” he laughed. “Got to hit that latch and release the thing, to release the other thing, to not cut the girl in half.”
“And he just finished stressing about this all the night before.”
“And he's got to do it for the next 50 nights.”
“If he fucks up, everyone will say he sucks.”
“Worst magician ever.”
“I liked their early tricks, the new stuff sucks!”
“Man, yeah, fuck being a musician,” he said, and then caught himself. “I mean, magician!”
“You were right the first time,” I said.
This was all in good fun, but what made me know I was simpatico with this guy was that as soon as we released that pressure valve about the job part of music, we started talking about how much we loved it. How it was worth all of the struggle, because even if we could only add to it in the tiniest way, we were part of the literal most important thing in the world: Rock and roll. Musicians, like magicians, do get to make magic, and even if it isn't always 'magic' to the magician, that's pretty special.
“Plus,” he added. “Just because you know YOUR trick doesn't mean there isn't REAL magic.
“I'd like to think there's real magic," I said. "That's probably why we do it, we're always going to be looking for it” I said.
Neal paused and took a deep inhale and exhale.
“Wow. Yeah. We really are suckers.”
We burst out laughing. The perfect punchline to this long joke that was more honest than we wanted to admit. We liked each other as much as people thought we might.
Neal and I never became the kind of friends we said we'd be that night. We'd cross paths on tour, and send songs and funny pictures, congratulate each other about cool stuff the other was doing, he even encouraged me to take an audition with Hard Working Americans when he was leaving the band. He was always so nice and supportive in the bursts where we'd interact. We acted like we were the good friends we said we'd be, but we weren't really. We pointedly never went as deep as we went that night. It was like we'd written a novel in our first meeting and never spoke of it again.
I sit here tonight writing this, unable to sleep, because I think I know why that was, at least for me. Now, maybe the reason is he just thought I was an asshole, who knows. But I sense it was something else. Something that is so sad that I think every musician reading this will understand and it is something I hope if nothing else this helps us talk more about.
Musicians are on the go so much, and their lives full of such feast and famine, that they instinctually expect loss, and prepare for it. You don't get to take much with you on tour, or much home, other than the memories, the little moments of connection. They quickly become the most valuable motivation when you are struggling to get through that next tour.
At first you try to plunder that resource as much as possible, relive those fun times over and over. But at some point you realize that bar in Minneapolis isn't as fun as you remember, or that girl in New York isn't as charmed by you as she was last time, or that guy you liked in Phoenix is actually a weirdo. Or, God forbid...the crowd is smaller. The applause is less thunderous than it was last time. Or there's more applause for a worse show. Just as quickly as magic can be summoned, it can be revealed as a mere trick. You reach a point where you can't bear to care for new things that might hurt you.
I can say I was a little scared to know the real Neal for these reasons. Partly because I wondered if he would be as great as he seemed. And partly because I worried he wouldn't think I was. I am not at all saying Neal thought our meeting was some precious thing that he didn't want to lose it or anything, that isn't what I mean. He had tons of friends and supporters. He didn't need me.
But I do think that night was indicative of something about Neal that resonates with me and that I see with a lot of my brothers and sisters in music that breaks my heart. We see each other for sometimes 5 minutes once a year but love each other like lifelong friends, we watch each other go through ups and downs, we truly care about each other, but from afar. We could hang out when we aren't working, but that would risk finding out it isn't like it seems, or even if it is, knowing that once tour comes around we won't see each other for a long time anyway. It's a loss either way. So we don't want to get too close. Especially to anyone who reflects us back to ourselves. The more alike we may feel, the more we're scared to really know each other. We hope just knowing each other are out there is enough to get us through our next rounds of endless of hellos and goodbyes.
Neal was obviously someone able to deeply connect with people, and moments, and records, and photographs, everything that took a heart to understand, Neal got it. But, if he was anything like me or many of the musicians I know, I also think he had to keep those things at arm's length because he didn't want to lose it when it dissolved back into reality. To make things real could mean to lose them.
I can't pay tribute to the fullness of who he was as a human or a musician. But I can say I am profoundly sad thinking he felt that need to not be too close to anything lest it become something that hurts. Apparently even about life itself. That isn't the way I want to remember Neal, but I do think this is a moment for everyone to think about that and to think about how things get to this point.
I will tell you how I will remember Neal. I spent the day working on a video for an unreleased, beautiful Greg Loiacono song that Neal sang harmonies and played guitar on, by total coincidence. I didn't even know it was him playing on the song until after I found out he died. But his playing on the song is beautiful, and had comforted me about something else entirely that was on my mind today, I loved the guitar textures so much, it had such an emotional impact on me. And I didn't realize that all day as I struggled with other things, he'd been connecting with me, giving me hope through his music.
That is the power of music that Neal was such a true believer in. To take indescribable pain and turn it into healing for someone else. That is no mere trick. That is real magic. I can't say for sure what that meant to the magician. But I know how much it meant to the audience who got to enjoy it.
I am so sorry to his friends and family who are mourning right now.
Please, if you are hurting, reach out. To family, friends, professionals, me, anywhere you can. You won't believe how many open arms are waiting to receive you.
Suicide is never an answer for anything.
It leaves the ones closest to you holding the bag.
Frustrating because I'm sure in this case there were plenty of people who cared and could talk.
Brings back memories of Butch.
Stay off the self checkout line people.
Love is everywhere.
Go find you some.
Love is everywhere, but even love is not enough to make you feel like you have a purpose in life. You cannot live your life to please someone else so they will stay with you and you will not be lonely if you do you will not be fulfilled or satisfied. You have to be happy within yourself so that love will complement your life not be your reason for living. If you are not a little bit selfish you become self less losing your own sense of you in order to please someone else, whether it is your partners, fans or someone else in your life. Many musicians become musicians to hide from intimacy. They learn to speak, communicate through their music, their lives become dysfunctional and stardom feeds the demons, ego and insecurities. Many have expressed the loneliness, even Gregg. "All alone in a sold out crowd" off his solo album Just Before The Bullets Fly. "Demons". And yes it is very sh*tty that Butch did not feel he could reach out to his bandmates and others with that tax problem. A three week gig at the Beacon could have paid half that off. One of Dickey's roadies from Great Southern [a very long while back] had a disagreement, spoke his mind, got fired and then killed himself when he did not have his rent money. He could have asked others to help, but a lot of people don't care or understand how bad someone has it, people are just well it's not my problem. You all ultimately were begotten from Adam, therefore it is your brother. You got to keep that emotional separation so you don't end up cryin' being consumed by the misery in people and the world.
Get close but not too close don't be vulnerable it could destroy you; but when you live that way it's not authentic or satisfying no matter how much success or money you have. After a musician has millions and creature comforts, then what is there? Nothing else to accomplish - unless they realize the next phase is giving back and inspiring other people that's where you will get your joy.
[Edited on 9/1/2019 by gina]
Many musicians become musicians to hide from intimacy. They learn to speak, communicate through their music, their lives become dysfunctional and stardom feeds the demons, ego and insecurities.
That's heavy. I never thought of that perspective..........you may be on to something here Gina.
Get close but not too close don't be vulnerable it could destroy you; but when you live that way it's not authentic or satisfying no matter how much success or money you have. After a musician has millions and creature comforts, then what is there? Nothing else to accomplish - unless they realize the next phase is giving back and inspiring other people that's where you will get your joy.
Warren Haynes certainly got that one: An entire street of new homes in his hometown of Asheville, NC. Funded by his annual XMAS Jam, the keys to all of these homes were turned over to needy families.
Brad Paisley is doing something really beautiful in Tennessee too.
https://twitter.com/TheStoreNash
By a brick (500), buy a hat $100, or contribute what you can. Follow the progress of an innovative idea.
That's what it's all about. Empower others, inspire people. Just get started that's the deal. As miserable as the the coming hurricane may be, (and I hate to say there are TWO more waves coming into the Atlantic - it may be a long season) there are always opportunities even with disasters. Look at Katrina, the musician's village was a very cool thing that got done there.
[Edited on 9/1/2019 by gina]
Insightful and heart-wrenching, in terms of the lonely times on the road.
Gregg said it, multiple times:
+++ It's a permanent solution to a temporary problem. +++
Think about his life and the depths he had to deal with in order to say it out loud.
The other 22 hours offstage with people telling you all kinds of stuff, selling you all kinds of stuff
Bleh.
