When Lance first asked me to contribute to a web site dedicated to Raychel, I didn't know what to write about. Not that there wasn't anything to write about. Far from it. She meant so much to me that I just didn't know where to start. I asked Lance to help me hash it out. He told me what he was going to start with, and they were things I agreed were important. However, I told him that if he was going to write about Raychel's beginning and end with The Bleeders, then I had to be able to write about the instrument of Raychel's destruction: Kyle McAllister.
I think it's important to point out something before I detail Kyle's history with The Bleeders. I don't hate him for being who or what he is. This is not intended to be a personal attack. Instead, I want this to be an honest and straightforward analysis of Kyle's behavior. I apologize in advance for letting any personal feelings bleed through this writing. If you come across any during this article, or any in the future, please attribute it to the pain of the author's loss of her most precious and talented friend. It is a pain which, as the site develops, I am sure many of you will feel as well.
Kyle McAllister is a gifted musician. On November 14, 1998 when he first strolled into a meeting of The Bleeders and played a set on acoustic guitar, everyone in the group knew it. Nobody has ever doubted his talent. But he will never be successful. It is not a fault of his talent. It is a fault of his personality. From my experience with him, Kyle sees the world in a simplistic way: It is Kyle McAllister versus The World. And while that approach may work for some people, it handicaps Kyle's ability to gain success in the artistic community. For artists need to curry favor and network with other artists to gain access to higher levels of exposure. Kyle feels that he deserves the penthouse of artistic expression without ever working his way up the elevator.
Kyle was immediately welcomed into The Bleeders at that meeting in November of 1998. Actually everyone is. We are not a discriminating group, and perhaps that is something of a downfall of the group. Regardless, anyone would welcome Kyle into their group. He is extremely good looking. He is about six feet tall, with brown hair and the deepest brown eyes you've ever seen. But while the depth is appealing, it is deceptive. He has more in common with a shark's eye, which is a marble that looks for weakness to pursue its own survival.
As I said, his eyes are deceptive, and they deceived a number of our members. The most susceptible ones were the females of the group. Kyle was most receptive to the affections of the poets and songwriters of the group, but only briefly. From November of 1998 until about February 1999, Kyle had flings with about nine or ten of the female poets in The Bleeders. While many might chalk it up to the conquests of a good looking man in an open and free-loving society, I have a different opinion. Kyle was using the romances as an opportunity to audition these women as lyricist to his musician. As soon as he lost interest in their talent, he moved on. The reason I believe this is that during those four months, he was in constant circulation. But when he met Raychel, all of his liaisons suddenly stopped.
"...Kyle was an unstop-pable force in Raychel's life, and that force was instrumental in killing Raychel..." |
From Kyle's perspective, Raychel was perfect for him. She was talented, beautiful, and because of her weakness around men, she was easy to dominate, too. More than that, Raychel had a gift for communicating complex thoughts in short phrases. And that was something that Kyle could not resist.
Kyle's biggest obstacle was Lance. Lance and Raychel had been together since she had first joined the group over a year before Kyle came in. I can't say how Kyle did it, but he overcame Lance's influence, and by March of 1999, Raychel left the group in Kyle's possession. Actually, I can say how he did it. Kyle is a master at manipulation. If you talk to him, you can't help but feel for him. He's a small town guy from North Dakota who came to seek his fortune in the music business. There's something homespun, simple, and heroic about him. But underneath it all is a vulture scavenging for prey. He was looking for a person to write lyrics for his music, and when he found her, he carried her away.
Three months later, the two of them came back. You knew immediately that Raychel was completely different. Her demeanor was changed, clearly under Kyle's spell. She had been writing songs with Kyle, and had come back to debut some of them. I admit, they were great, but they didn't sound like the Raychel we had known. Her material was less autobiographical, more like she was playing a character that Kyle had chosen for her. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but it wasn't Raychel. And that was what made her work so singularly special.
I used my connections to help get Raychel and Kyle their recording contract, I don't shy away from that, but I didn't do it to help Kyle. I did it in an attempt to get the recording company to separate Raychel from Kyle. But things just didn't work out. Raychel was just too far under Kyle's control. She couldn't let go of him. I don't doubt that by the time the opportunity arose, Raychel was too afraid of the violence that Kyle had shown he was capable of inflicting.
Yes, he was capable of inflicting violence, and in the future I will give you examples of his violent background. I won't be responsible for throwing out unsubstantiated rumors, so I will hold back on these facts for the future. Regardless, Kyle was an unstoppable force in Raychel's life, and that force was instrumental in killing Raychel, whether he meant to or not, and whether he actually committed the crime or not.
