Death of a band

After this week, Diamonds for Eyes will be no more. Maybe you have heard of the band, maybe you have not. As local acts go, they were fairly prolific, turning out three albums in four years. They built their following the same way as thousands of local bands before them: show after show, each time getting one more person to look up from the bar or wander over to the stage.

The Diamonds for Eyes farewell show will be held at the Basement Bar,
901 Cherry St., on Saturday, March 21.

This is what bands do. They play, they create for a time, and then they are gone. Sometimes it is because the component members just burn out on the daily, largely thankless grind. But for Diamonds for Eyes’ songwriter Joshua Putney, this is just another step in a greater journey.

“It took me about six months to teach everybody (in Diamonds for Eyes) the songs,” he said. “I taught them each individually, then we would come together for practice so we weren’t wasting group time on individual parts. So, it took a long time to teach six people 10 songs.”

This is not Putney’s first act, and it is not going to be his last. Once Diamonds for Eyes takes its last round of applause in the Social Club’s Basement Bar this week, Putney, his wife and a couple other Diamonds for Eyes holdovers will begin work on their next project, Black Pills.

“Over the years, the style of what I was writing changed so drastically that I decided it was time for a change,” Putney explained. “The decision took time. It didn’t just happen overnight.”

Perhaps the hardest part of saying goodbye to a band and starting something new is the Sisyphean task of building a fan base from scratch once again.

“It is frustrating,” Putney admitted. “But it’s all part of the process, and I realized that a lot of what I enjoyed about it was meeting new people and building a fan base one person at a time.”

So, Diamonds for Eyes is ending, and who knows how many will mourn its passing. But for Putney, there is too much to look ahead for to spend too much time looking back.

“I see my life like a story that I’m writing,” he said. “This is just one chapter closing.” CV