In '98 Innoscent began their long career of touring. This soon became what the band was known for: live shows. Whether large or small venues, the band was constantly playing for whoever was there to listen, always recruiting new fans. However, there was one catch: there was no way to hear Innoscent unless it was live. This was a problem which haunted the band's success for years to come. Their fans would tire quickly after trying (with no success) to hear the band's music after seeing them live. While a few songs--namely, Windowsill,--were played on some college radio stations, it was not enough.
Still, Innoscent was just beginning, and even though they didn't have an album to promote, the tour with The Houseshoes was an excellent experience for the band, making them stronger musicians who had to always be able to put on a good show, regardless. They had no polished album to hide behind. They also got to learn from bands who had had a lot more experience, and were able to get a real taste of the trials of touring. Sometimes, the troubles were almost too much. 1998 saw the near split of the band.
Spirits were low at the end of the tour. Innoscent felt as though they had been defeated; they were tired and weary, and missed their normal lives back home. They were also sick of eachother, and felt the pressure to produce a studio album for their fans. They had shown people everywhere what they were made of, and now it was time to follow up the successful tour with a successful album. However, they felt that they had grown in a lot of ways since they had written their current material, and knew that their musical style had changed a lot over the few years. That meant that they needed to write some new songs before heading to the studio. This was not an easy task for the band.
Having not written any music since almost '96, the members were very rusty with their songwriting abilities. Kwina especially felt a lot of the stress to write the new material. Previously, she had been the main force behind the songs, writing the lyrics and melody to mostly all of their material, while B. Ho and Junk would then write in their own parts. Kwina simply did not feel compelled to write. There was no inspiration; she just wanted to go home. Extremely angered and annoyed with this, B. Ho and Junk wanted to kick Kwina out of the band. Of course, this was irrational; none of the members could think quite straight since they were all so burned out.
Not wanting to do any permanent damage that they would someday regret, the members decided it was time to take a break from the band. Now September, they all headed home and didn't keep touch for the remainder of the year.
There was a lot of individual growing up that needed to be done. Junk decided to visit Africa to do some missionary work, something that her parents had always wanted her to do, instead of being in a band. She became an involved member in her Jewish community, and strengthened her faith during this time.
B. Ho travelled to Spain in October, after discovering that her life in Maryland was no longer existent. She went to Madrid to find her grandmother (whom she later dedicated the song La Muerte to, in 2001) who had put her mother up for adoption in the 1970s. All her life, B. Ho had heard stories from her mother about the sacrifice that her grandmother had made for them. (Since B. Ho's mom became pregnant with her before getting married, her grandmother knew that she would be accepted in Spanish society, and so she sent them to America so as to have a better life than she could provide for her daughter and granddaughter in Spain.) The reunion of B. Ho and her grandmother was bittersweet. All her life B. Ho had idealized her to be something which she was not. However, it was a bridge that had finally been built with her past.
Kwina, on the other hand, stayed home for the rest of '98. She became very depressed and went to her bed for weeks. She had many physical problems which had resulted from her emotional breakdown during the tour. She had problems sleeping, and even developed an eating disorder. After going from psychiatrist to psychiatrist, with no luck, Kwina finally realized that this was something that she was going to have to overcome on her own. Music was an outlet for her inner turmoil. This music that was created during this dark time in Kwina's life was the music that brought Innoscent back together.
All of this soul-searching served for a much more mature group of girls. When seeing eachother for the first time on Christmas day, it was a whole new band. They were not the same young girls that they were just earlier that year. Refreshed and re-energized, they were ready more than ever to make the band work. However, they did not want to run into the same problems again. Wanting to bypass any other breakdowns, they decided to start slow, and just have fun with the band again. In a way, it was just like when they had first started, only instead of practing in Junk's garage, it was now the basement in Junk and B. Ho's shared apartment. (Kwina still lived at home.) With the new material, the band was no longer bored with what they were doing, and with the new mindsets, they were no longer angered with eachother. It was just a group of three friends doing what they loved to do: play music. The band had been reinforced.
Ooh, what happened in '99?
Hm, back to the main Bio page.