Well known throughout the metal industry, manager and concert promoter Mark LaFay announced earlier this week that he was leaving the biz. Having co-founded concert promotion company Kulture Entertainment in 2000, LaFay parlayed the success of that company into Middle Coast Management, discovering and signing bands such as Haste the Day, Still Remains, Demiricous, Gwen Stacy. Here, in his own words, is his explanation and thoughts on why he’s leaving the music industry.
Monday I made my decision to leave the music biz public. It was a somewhat surreal experience because the reality of my change had set in. The past 10 years of my life have been a crazy ride of ups and downs. I’ve had a lot of fun, made a lot of friends, seen a lot of things, been a lot of places and hopefully I’ve made some lives a little better. The decision was definitely a hard one for me because in a lot of ways I was becoming what I did for a living. When what you do becomes who you are it becomes very difficult to ever leave what you do behind.
I definitely haven’t hidden the fact that I love Jesus, even though my actions/behavior at times haven’t reflected this. I can say unflinchingly that God was putting on my heart that it was time to move on well over a year ago. I didn’t respond to that because I was afraid and also comfortable in the way of life I had created for myself. So I ignored it for a while. This past March I had some downtime and I knew that I had to make a decision. Was I going to respond to what I felt and still feel is a divine calling, or not? I had to decide if I really believed in Jesus…. and so I stepped off the ledge.
I can imagine that a lot of people that don’t give two shits about Jesus are probably weirded out by that. That’s fine. I’m not pushy when it comes to faith in Jesus, I just try to live it out and this is just part of that. I’m learning what it means to have faith every day. I don’t know what i’m going to do next but I do know that I don’t have to worry about it and that is liberating. I am excited about learning and growing in all aspects of my professional and personal life. This change will definitely facilitate that.
So that’s about it. Thanks for sharing life with me for the past few years. I’m going back to just being a fan.
