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The time has passed quickly since the Station fire. One day, you suddenly lift your head up and a year has gone by. It hits you hard, the lapsed time, like realizing how long a distant relative has been dead, or how long it’s been since you’ve called a good friend. A full cycle of seasons has come and gone since 100 people were ripped from this mortal coil, leaving painful, gaping holes where real lives had once stood.

During that time, not much has happened of any substance in the courts to determine liability for issues. Charges have been brought, but for the most part fingers have stopped pointing, at least as emphatically as they were last spring, and fears of a recurrence have eased. Most of us have even stopped looking for the exits when we enter a club. The general public has recovered. Almost.

But as we distance ourselves from that horrible day, we assume that real changes have been made without us noticing. In the year since the fire, politicians and regulators saddled up their collective horses and took to the trail, beating down club doors and chasing down owners in an attempt to enforce stricter safety laws. Fire marshals increased their profiles across the state, demanding that establishments stiffen already rigid fire codes. Clubs closed in the wake of that pursuit, some permanently. The climate was getting colder.

In light of that chill last year, two weeks after the fire, we convened a summit of local club owners and musicians to find out how each group was affected by these changes. Rich Lupo (Lupo’s Heartbreak Hotel, now Lupo’s at the Strand), Kevin Finnegan (the Ocean Mist), and Kevin Cummings (Cats and KC’s Tap) were joined by Jason Kendall and Neal Vitullo to discuss the immediate fallout of the fire.

Now, one year later, we asked Lupo, Finnegan, and Cummings back to update us on the state of the scene, the changes they encountered, and the adjustments they’ve had to make. This time the clubowners are joined by Heather Rose, singer and songwriter for the StereoBirds, and Paul Hullabaloo, a member of the Cringe and a self-styled personality behind the controversial No Positive Radio program.

Q: What are your overall impressions of the past year as far as your clubs and careers go?

Rich Lupo: The phrase that comes to my mind first is "life goes on." We’ve all had all kinds of expenses related to the exactitude necessary from the fire department and enormous constructions costs. But as far as the rock and roll scene in general, life goes on.

Kevin Cummings: One thing that I’ve seen is a lot more working together from the scene. Even things like, "don’t put your equipment over there, it’s blocking the exit." Rather than having to explain myself, people are just doing it. Either that or bands are coming in and asking where they should set up and what it is we want them to do.

Q: Paul, what were your impressions and reaction to the fire over the past year?

Paul Hullabaloo: Well, right at the beginning there was a tremendous nervousness on a number of levels. On a safety level, there was the fear that the artist community both underground and at the city level was going to get curbed a lot. It’s difficult enough for bands to get bookings. But right after the fire happened we noticed that the opposite occurred. There was an upswing of bands, making sure they could still get out there and play. They didn’t want it to be a shark attack, where when one person is attacked [and] all the beaches close. Bands want more than ever to get out there and play, and encourage people to get out there and explore the live music community. The specter of the Station fire will linger forever on the scene, of course, but it’s business as usual.

Q: Heather, how do you feel the scene has changed in the last year?

Heather Rose: It’s interesting to hear Paul’s experience, because we didn’t have problems getting gigs. For us, it was more the emotional problem playing the shows. After the fire, we had three gigs right in a row that following week. I had lost a friend, and my bass player at the time lost a friend, and it was more knowing you have to play and the strangeness around. "Don’t put your gear there," I’d hear. But when I never thought of it before, now it’s like, "Hello, it’s right in the middle of the door!" It’s more of an awareness among the musicians. The fear and paranoia I’ve found come from the people who never went out to to the clubs anyway. I must have gotten asked every day at my day job around the time of the fire, "Do you use fireworks at your show?" It was strange little questions like that from outsiders that constantly made it challenging to try and move on.

But I feel it’s a disservice to everyone who was lost and who is still suffering now to stop the music.

We’ve been playing clubs for 10 years and now we finally know where the exits are. Actually, we play at the Lucky Dog in Worcester and there have been fire marshals there twice, not because they’ve done anything wrong, but because other towns have taken this responsibility on as well.

It’s comforting to know that people haven’t forgotten and they’re working to try and prevent it from happening again. It’s the only thing we can do now.

Q: How did your clubs manage the costs of renovation?

Kevin Cummings: Fortunately, we’re all concrete and steel so we didn’t have a lot to do. There has been mention of the sprinkler system, and something is gonna need to be done. In many cases, it’s just laws and codes being enforced, but I haven’t seen the hammer fall. It’s more like, "Hey, come on. Get this done and work towards that." I’ve seen everybody working together, from the authorities to the bands and my own staff.

Rich Lupo: The cost was great to us. We were up to code as of the date [of the fire], and we ended up having to enforce codes we didn’t know about or adding things that needed to be added. If you have a liquor license, you’re submerged into politics. As far as the fire inspectors go, I don’t think people appreciate how detailed a job it really is. There is a fire code book that weights about 50 pounds!

Q: What’s happened at your respective clubs since the fire?

Kevin Finnegan: The working together with people has been great, no problem. The fire marshals, for example, were coming in to educate us, rather than bring the hammer come down. The time frame was tough, and financially it was, too. In terms of the Ocean Mist, it was the nightclub aspect of the place that got hurt pretty bad. Our capacity has dropped considerably, so it’s not the actual cost, it’s the unknown cost of lost business. They were fast to take our capacity down and educate us and tell us to do this and that. It’s the laws that aren’t in effect yet, the regulations, like how big the doors should and how many you need to get my capacity back up. It’s the time that this is all taking that’s my biggest worry.

Q: Have your jobs gotten more political?

Kevin Cummings: Well, at least we know who these people are. Before it was a voice on the phone or a walk-through with a letter. Now they’ve taken the time to step forward and we’re working together and I’ve seen them trying to break it all down for us. And let’s face it — we’ve talked responsibilities before. We have responsibilities as club owners and entertainers that these people are coming out to have fun. Well, we have to keep them safe as well as entertained.

Rich Lupo: As far as our job being political, it’s always been political. But what we really wanted at Lupo’s was to get caught up and see exactly where we we’re at.

Q: Do you feel like there have been permanent changes on the scene because of the fire?

Kevin Finnegan: Construction-wise, yes. Since the fire there has been for me a balance between the creative, personal end, and the business side. For me, my whole livelihood is 80 percent business and 20 percent music. It might be the opposite for the artists. But it’s the business end of this whole thing that’s taking most of the time these days, with changing laws. But in terms of cost, when does it become too much? You can’t build everything out of titanium. There’s a degree of no return here. You can only build it so safe.

Rich Lupo: But Kevin, the government doesn’t balance and weigh it. The government has to have it just the way they want it. There’s no balancing with caution. But sooner or later, I think every club is going to have a sprinkler and every club is going to have a fire marshal too.

Kevin Finnegan: But what I’m saying is, when are they going to stop? You either adjust or go out of business. But then there’s the degree of, if you adjust too much, you’re losing something that’s great. I grew up going to crowded shows at Lupo’s. I had great times. Where is the balance of safety and fun?

I’ll tell you right now, if this happened five years ago, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I’m lucky the Ocean Mist has more than just the nightclub aspect to support it. It’s a breakfast place now and local tavern. The nightclub aspect is down 75 percent since last year. We’re down $435,000 in band receipts since the last time we spoke. I’m lucky I don’t have a big mortgage or a family to feed. I don’t have a lot of expenses or I’d be out of business. But then, how do you explain that to the families of the people who died in the fire? I don’t want to make it solely an economic issue, but that is an aspect that has to be looked at. Hopefully the government or the fire department sees it so that I can make a financial decision like, "OK, let’s do what we need to do to put people in a crowded place again to have a good time safely."

Kevin Cummings: I like the music scene, walking around the club. But there are things people don’t see that we do, like cleaning the bathroom, getting the place ready, ensuring there’s emergency lighting.

Rich Lupo: First of all, the solution to the bathrooms we found was not to clean them at all [laughs]. Again, we’re businessmen. It was a tragedy, of course. But we have to talk in a business sense. It’s getting harder and harder since the fire to do business. Right now, there’s no more liability. If there was a fire or a catastrophe in one of our clubs, I don’t think any one individual would be liable. The fire marshals, the owners, the managers have all made sure that the place is protected from liability. That’s good. The bad is that insurance rates are up 40 percent. So it’s costing us more money. Because of this, it’s impossible for us to run a business where Rhode Island bands can play. Impossible. We rely solely on money generated by the entertainment. We just play our role, just as entertainers get up there and entertain, we’re there to give them a place to do it.