It was because of “certain people in Avalon that were ultra conservative” that Passons was compelled to go back to reparative therapy “to save his job.” Custer wanted to know who led Avalon, whether it was the label or whether the process was democratic. Passons said it was “very fuzzy.”
“There were certain issues where we felt like we were in the driver’s seat. But when it came down to it, we realized we weren’t,” he said. “Because at the end of the day, the label holds all the cards, and the cards are green. The cards are dollars. And so at the end of the day, they really had the say-so of how things happened.”
Passons was required to come off the road for a while and was temporarily replaced. He did not remember the reason given to the public for his absence at that time. But he found his reparative therapy experience pointless.
“It wasn’t like they were giving me any structure, any antidotes,” he said. “It was just me talking and them looking really sad for me. And I’m like, I don’t think this is going to work.”
“I eventually said, ‘I’m not going back,’ and I went back on the road,” said Passons. “That was sometime in 2002.”
He doesn’t remember the group making stipulations when he rejoined. “I just remember that a group member saw me in a questionable situation later in 2003,” he said. When confronted about it, Passons lied to the group member because his career was at stake. “I’ve learned to lie very well in those situations,” he said. “That’s what a person does when you grow up in that type of environment; it’s self-preservation to not tell the truth.”
“I’m not quite sure to this day if the situation I was in or the fact that I didn’t tell her the truth was the reason that this person decided to start a campaign to get me out,” said Passons. “I have a feeling it’s the latter because this person told me years before that: ‘Don’t ever lie to me.’ And I saw that side of this person when people had crossed them, and it wasn’t pretty.”
It appears likely that the person Passons was referring to was Janna Long. Passons later said the other female member of the group present when he was ousted, Melissa Greene, was new and “wasn’t making any of the decisions.” Passons noted that Greene believed at the time the group was making the right call, although she has since become affirming, a pastor, and one of Passons’ close friends.
“I have a feeling it’s more of [me lying] than who I was, but this person really started an aggressive campaign to oust me,” said Passons. “And it worked because this person basically told the label, ‘It’s either he go or I go.’”
He said, “And I think the label is like, ‘Well, we’re going to have a group that just falls apart here. And so let’s just do what we got to do, get rid of Michael, and see if we can salvage the rest and keep going.’”
Passons said that all of the conversations about getting him out of the group happened behind his back. “And all I know is that June 30, 2003, they all showed up at my house unannounced and said, ‘You’re out,’” he said. The only people present were the three other band members.
“And there were so many ways I could have taken that conversation,” he said. “It would have ended so differently and history would be so different right now. But I didn’t take anybody else down with me. I could have. But I just politely asked them to leave.”
“And that was the end. It was basically like I was thrown off the tour bus, but they didn’t come to a complete stop, and they didn’t look back,” said Passons. “I was devastated. It was the lowest point of my life because I had lost my community, because…every egg I had was in that basket. All my friends, my social life, my career, my paycheck—everything was gone in a flash.”
