Mountain Man wrote:So you mean the perception was that he had left the band and so their popularity started to wane.
I don't know the original poster's intention. My point is merely that when someone doesn't appear in the official photographs and isn't seen on tour, he's not really a member of the band: He's a songwriter and a producer and a studio musician, yes, but not a band member. Otherwise, Peter Furler was a member of Petra for "Jekyll and Hyde," Keith Edwards was a member of Petra for "Never Say Die" and "Not of This World," etc.
And for a lot of people, when Bob Hartman stopped being a full-time band member, that's when Petra ended -- or at least when it should have ended. I think a lot of this is 20/20 hindsight. No Doubt was a decent enough album. When you look at the direction from Beyond Belief to Unseen Power to Wake Up Call, No Doubt was the next logical step musically (though the production was much weaker than it should have been). Unfortunately, it was also the next logical step from a sales perspective.
I think the commercial failure of No Doubt should have alerted the band that maybe it was time to quit. Certainly the continued sales slump through Petra Praise 2 should have signaled the end. That God Fixation, Double Take and Revival happened at all is unfortunate, regardless of the individual strengths of the various songs on those albums, and the whole situation with Louie was obviously a needless black eye (if you can't get along with the only member of the band that can provide any semblance of continuity to Petra's
first 15 years, maybe it's time to just focus on the solo career). Those albums weren't really PETRA anymore, and they tarnished the brand. Jekyll and Hyde was a great way to salvage some of that, but the most easily justifiable time to end the band, imo, when looking at the state of things
at the time these decisions could have been made was somewhere between 1995 and 1998, either after No Doubt or Petra Praise 2.