That often asked question! Here's some theories from the undeniably dodgy world of internet gossip...."....This was Guy Ritter's last album with the band. His reasons for leaving were he was getting tired of the thrash vocals and medical allegory""Apparently Guy Ritter was unhappy with this new heavier direction the band had taken and decided to part ways in the middle of the recording."another hint from an interview with TED when asked about the falsetto singing not being used so much after the first release (Stop The Bleeding)........"Ted: Yeah I think it was very simple, I think that there was about five percent of the fans that were extremely excited about it and very vocal about how great it was then there was a percent who were either lukewarm or said, “Well, once in awhile is fine.”, and then another big percent of people just said, “Gosh the music is great, but not real crazy about the high falsetto vocals.” That’s what it came down to. And I think in certain aspects it didn’t fit the music and there were five of us that sat down and said, “I think we want the music to sound a different way and we’ve heard loud and clear from the public.” As I said there were some people that were very vocal and said, “Oh this is great,” but there was this huge majority that said let’s not have so much of that, or none of it.""The song titles are still medical terminology (much to Guy Ritter's chagrin he would later say)""I guess it depends on who you ask. I have heard (largely through message boards and internet sources, so you be the judge) that the parting was less than amicable, especially where Guy was concerned. I really don't know for sure, but I have read that Ted was such a micromanaging control freak that people really couldn't stand playing for him, which is why he is the ONLY original left...""Ritter left Tourniquet in 1993 shortly before the Intense Live EP was recorded, in order to pursue a new direction with his musical career. After a self-imposed sabbatical, he reunited with fellow Tourniquet cofounder Gary Lenaire to form a new group, Echo Hollow." N.B. As far as I am aware, Guy left Tourniquet whilst POD was being recorded, and not just before the Live EP was beginning. (Fundy)
And the real deal, from Guy himself...."Well, basically for me…I am not being critical of the band or where the direction they went, but for me the band was always more of “this is a ministry and we just happen to play heavy metal.” I got into music for that reason. As I said before, I was originally into pop music, but when I saw what Stryper was doing with music I went and tried to learn that style because it was a tool to reach people. Ted and Gary were always great metal players before I met them. They are just phenomenal musicians. I have never really been good at any instrument. I play a little of every instrument…drums, guitar or keyboard. I am not great at anything. But I learned a style of singing and tried to write the songs that I wrote for Tourniquet on guitar because I felt like it was a tool to reach people. By the time we finished Pathogenic I felt like we were more of a metal band, we were Christians in a band. That is the way I felt. It was my personal opinion. We weren’t praying as much as we were before and weren’t doing things like we used to like meeting with a musical pastor. Our focus was just different. Couple that with the music…I really just wasn’t into the thrash vocals as far as the yelling type shouting vocals. I wanted that to be a compliment to the singing. I just felt like there was too much yelling on the POD album and I sat down with Ted and Gary and I told them that if I was going to stay that I wanted to do less yelling and maybe do some more ballads or some more commercial stuff. I remember Ted saying if anything it was going to get heavier."