over the course of the five album releases ('q2k', 'tribe', 'operation: mindcrime ii', 'american soldier' and 'dedicated to chaos') after degarmo left, the band had gone through three guitar players, five record companies and four management firms. q-prime had taken over management duties before 'operation: mindcrime'; they were eventually replaced by ray daniels during the 'q2k' sessions, who was then subsequently replaced by lars sorensen. following the "tribe" tour, lars sorensen was dismissed, and geoff tate's wife susan was promoted to band manager, after having worked as an assistant manager for the band since 2001. in this period, wilton spent time recording the self-titled album of his side project soulbender.