Matthew Good Band broke up in August (Monday, September 24, 2001) http://www.canoe.ca/JamMusicArtistsG/good_matthew.html By PAUL CANTIN -- Senior Reporter, JAM! Showbiz TORONTO -- The Matthew Good Band's upcoming album "The Audio Of Being" came close to being the band's swan-song. The inter-band strife triggered by the album's torturous recording caused the group to call it quits for a time, Good told JAM! Music. Last month, signs of strife within the band surfaced with the Aug. 27 announcement that guitarist Dave Genn was leaving the band. Four days later, the band announced that Genn was back in the fold. But while in Toronto on Monday to do press to promote the October release of "The Audio Of Being," Good went public with the first real indication of how severe the conflicts within the band had become. "To be quite honest about it -- and we should be honest about this -- Dave didn't just leave. The band broke up completely. There were a couple of days there when there was no band at all," Good said. The decision to ditch the band came shortly after Genn's departure was made public, he explained. "There was no band. We all quit," Good said. "When the whole Dave thing happened, I guess I flirted hourly with it. With me, it was too stressful. For me, the writing and making of this record were beyond stressful ... I basically went 'f--k this.' What is the point? I'll just start another band or do something else." What pulled them back from the brink was the realization that "The Audio Of Being" was "the record of our lives," bassist Rich Priske said. "Looking past the painful process it took to get there, it is a great record. To throw that all away because of petty differences and turmoil is a disservice." Priske and Good said that now that the group has emerged from the storm, their relations are back on an even keel. Added Good: "My mind cleared on it after seven to 10 days - a lot of crap went up that couple of weeks. But I kind of ... it was arrogant. You get this far, and then to let egotistical s--t to ruin it is arrogance." "The Audio Of Being" arrives in stores Oct. 30. The first 50,000 copies will be housed in an elaborate digipak with a booklet containing the lyrics to every MGB song, including B-sides and rarities. Speaking of books, Good has recently released his first book, "At Last There Is Nothing Left To Say," a re-jigged collection of the "manifestos" he has published at his official website (www.matthewgoodband.com) in recent years. "I am stuck in that grey area where (publishers) can underestimate how it will do, but will my popularity in the other side of my life make up that difference? It really depends," Good said of the book. "I am fully expecting the book to be critically torn apart. They will call it pedantic. They will call it what you will. Good. As far as I am concerned, literary critics are probably no better than music critics in that they are all failed authors." Whatever the critical or commercial response to "At Last," Good is pushing ahead with his next non-musical project, his first novel. The book is entitled "Maximum Traitor," and he describes it as a rich metaphor for politics on both a global and personal level. The book is set in a futuristic Britain ruled by a chickadee. When the bird's bodyguard -- a German Shepherd -- botches an assassination, he flees into the woods and befriends a rat. "The entire book is an example of how you can do a lot of things in this world, but the worst is betraying yourself," Good said. "But that could change, because I still have a couple of years to go. "It could be about baseball by the time I am done."