There’s no whine, but the disappointment is evident, no anger but clear frustration. Todd Royce is a man coming to terms with a collision between reality and his dream. He’s sucking it up, making changes, and waiting for the clarity only time can offer. Till then he’s moving forward as Todd Royce, dropping the word and any notion of a [full-time] band.

"When did I decide? I decided about 6 months ago when I was starting to record my second CD (‘Waiting For You’) as The Todd Royce Band, and putting together a new lineup after JJ Street had to leave," says Royce thoughtfully. "I started thinking, this is a little difficult. The difficulty was getting a group of three to four people together in the same room to focus on the same thing for more than an hour."

The strain of creating and holding together a band composed largely of independent musicians took its toll on Royce and the music.

It’s been about the music for Royce since he was 7. Now a resident of North Berwick, he grew up in Vermont as Todd Royce Morton. While still in single digits, he watched his two older musician brothers perform on stage. His sisters played piano and acoustic guitar. The environment fostered an "all-consuming passion." By 12 he’d formed a duo and at 15 played his first concert with his high school band.

College was all music, all the time; first at the University of Vermont, then two years on scholarship at Berklee College of Music. Weekends were spent back in Vermont performing. He went on to play with Eight To The Bar, (ETTB), a band with legs, and started touring the East Coast. The point is, music is a functioned passion directed into a musical career. It was all Royce ever wanted.

After four years, in ’96, he left ETTB to work his original material. In 2000 he hit Boston with the Todd Morton Band. Shortly after he recorded his first CD, "Step Into The Light" which he released as Todd Royce, "People always thought it was Todd Martin or … Morgan or Todd Morin," this simplified things. There was a move to Maine, and the formal musical moniker switch to The Todd Royce Band.

From the start the band was composed of members from other bands, often from other states. In 2002 he hooked up with area artists Rick Bernard, (bass), and JJ Street, (drums). This was the hit he’d been waiting for. Bernard and Street had history [playing together], which helped round out the sound. And they both believed in his vision. It wasn’t perfect, but working. Time was limited. Street worked other bands. Bernard had a demanding day job. Rehearsals were often held an hour before the gig, which made building the original sound slow. "The top 40 we could easily chart out," he says. "The gigs were turning into live rehearsals. … It was a matter of trying to keep the idea alive that this was a band, while not being able to get people together 'til the gig."

There were other concessions. Royce wanted to move further out geographically. Bernard, while committed, was limited to a 70-mile reach, due to the day job. And although Street became his "right hand man," he often found himself over booked.

TRB was working eight to 12 shows a month, still rehearsing covers just before a show, and often learning originals, separately, by tape. It made for a lot of scrambling.

Royce was TRB’s only vocalist, which brings him to another problem working a band on the run. While the top musicians he played with could pick up music on the fly, working out vocal parts required more time.

"I was the only vocal, which was very exhausting," he says. "I would hire a background vocal or sax, to take some of the weight off. … it was all stressful." Then the final blow. Street moved to Nashville. "When JJ left a critical piece was taken away. He was very interested in moving it forward, but for me it was the last straw," he says. Street made a point of working on Royce’s second CD, due out this fall, "to help me plant my foot." But the band was another issue.

Initially TRB worked with a number of [fill-in] artists. But, eventually Royce faced the facts. The project was dead. The band didn’t exist. "I was making tapes for drummers, doing it in pieces, sometimes even without Rick. It was nerve-racking."

At times he couldn’t fill the lineup. "Ultimately I couldn’t make some gigs," he says. "I started feeling, if it’s confusing to me what about the audience?"

As he describes the turn of events, Royce’s voice rises, picks up pace. He stops after a rush of words and unnecessarily apologizes, saying he hopes he hasn’t made it sound like he’s angry with the musicians. In truth, Royce’s tone softens each time he brings up a player’s name, which is generally followed by a litany of praise and attributes. What does come across is a man’s frustration with circumstances, an effort to cook with the wrong ingredients. "Playing with different players limits you. You develop a rapport with each set of players. That’s all good, but it’s different with each one. I play with PJ (Donahue), and it elicits a different sound out of me, always high caliber, but different from night to night [drummer to drummer]. It’s in the color of it, the tone you chose, or whether phrases are pushed or pulled," he says. "It felt like a pick-up band just calling itself the Todd Royce Band." "I started feeling uncomfortable," says the 31 year old. "It’s sucking my creative energy away, trying to pretend it’s a band. The gigs are fun, but carrying around this torch - it’s misleading. "It just really hit me. It just doesn’t work. It’s sad that I don’t get to (build a band). But I recognized an era I loved, the era of the band, I believe, is gone."

Since his start, the music scene has changed. The current climate makes it hard to put together a solid group. For starters, clubs are paying poorly. It’s a major contributing factor to the developing practice among the better musicians to hire themselves out, rather than work a single band. Royce recently talked about it with his older brother, who confirms the current club pay scale is the same or less than in the ’70s. There’s also a growing number of questionable arrangements, including you pay to play clubs. "I've actually heard [club owner's] say you have to guarantee you can bring in 50 people ‘or we can't pay you. Oh, and we don't do any advertising,’" he says. So, in face of the change, Royce has a new plan. Whether as a band or solo, he’s booking himself simply as Todd Royce, "I’m building more an awareness of me as an artist now, rather than a band." His group efforts – not band – will concentrate more on concerts, weddings and corporate events. He also plans to travel more for gigs. He has family and musician friends in Connecticut, Washington, D.C., upstate New York and Vermont, and of course he’ll hit Nashville, and hook up with Street.

Bottom line, Royce has no intention of being a hobbyist. It’s why the day job is kept part time. He’s a musician. It’s what he does; "As my brother says, ‘it’s in me and it just has to come out.’ I’m just going to keep my sanity by not booking the project as TRB, and feeling like I have to scratch and present this ensemble like it’s been playing for 10 years" he says. "(I’ll) advertise as me doing my thing, with tonight’s lineup.

"I’m excited, and relieved. Now I’ll make CDs, play my butt off and make waves, and not worry about smaller things. … It’s more mercurial," he says. "And it’s about taking the stress off me so I can get creative again."