Ex-The Acacia Strain Guitarist Tom Smith Explains How Burnout Caused Him to Quit
Burnout is no fuckin’ joke. The feeling of being overwhelmed with shit in life, particularly in the workplace, can strike regardless of whether you’re a librarian, a teacher, a retail clerk, or in the case of former The Acacia Strain guitarist Tom Smith, when you’re a professional musician. At least that’s what he said during his recent appearance on the Brewtally Speaking podcast
Three years after his departure from The Acacia Strain, Smith explained that he still has problems with separating his responsibilities as a musician and his personal free time, which often contributes to burnout. Still, he explained exactly what happened leading up to his decision to quit the band.
“I definitely, definitely burnt myself out. And I mean, I have such a tendency to overload myself with work. Like, one: I do better just as a person, when I’m busy. I fucking squander free time, like, if I have it. But that’s something that I’ve been trying to even recognize now with my bands — and I’m not learning from it — because I just recorded and mixed both bands within the last couple months and wrote a bunch of those songs for both different bands and whatever.
“But yeah, that was, like, a big thing with… I think that final tour for me was where I truly hit burnout on the road. Because even though there was the pandemic, [and] we weren’t touring, like you said, I was still working on a lot of stuff.
“Like I was, one: I was writing new shit, and two: it took a long time to get the show made for ‘It Comes In Waves‘. Like figuring out who’s playing what, what’s going to be backtracked, for like a year before we actually did the tour, we thought we were going to have a third guitar player with us for that tour, like to do all the extra layers.
“So I had arranged a big session for that, I programmed all the Kemper stuff, like all the MIDI changes. I went so overboard with it where I don’t even know if it helped or hurt, but yeah, I didn’t have a break. Even though it was a break from touring, I didn’t have a break from thinking about all the stuff.
“So yeah, I think when the tour came, because it was so much lead-up with all that working on it, and then, just like the stress of making sure everything works, like I was our playback tech, you know? If something went down in the middle of the show, it was me who had to figure it out. And there was a lot of issues with the technology, just because it was all brand new to us.
“But, yeah, I burnt myself the fuck out. And I think that was a big part of it too. Because even then, on top of things, during the pandemic, since we weren’t touring, I was working like three jobs just to try to live the life I wanted to. So it was just burn myself out in a ‘professional setting’, and then burn myself out in my music setting, and my mental health. It just was like, ‘Yeah, this is not working right now.’ I mean, I was a terror to be around.”
Having experienced burnout in the past, I can attest to his last bit about being a “terror to be around.” Getting burnt out is no joke that can cause serious problems with friends and family. I’m sure there are plenty of you folks reading this right now that are either currently dealing with burnout or have done so in the past. It’s no fun and can easily affect your relationships in life.
You may recall that when he left, Smith said things were largely okay between himself and the rest of the band. Turns out that wasn’t exactly the case, as he said his relationship with fellow guitarist Devin Shidaker suffered due to his decision to leave.
“After I quit the band Devin [Shidaker, The Acacia Strain guitarist] and I didn’t speak for like six months because he and I had such a bad falling out. But we’ve repaired it. And honestly, thanks to him for being the bigger person with a lot of stuff. And he’s like, one of my best friends still, talk to him literally every day, talk to all the dudes.
“Yeah, it was just like I was just in such a shitty place mentally that I was taking it out on others and burning myself out.”
