Rock On (Bad Boy Bandmates & Babies)

The pick-ups and amp had overpowered everything and had accomplished most of the work. Playing acoustic meant having a firmer and steadier hand most of the time.

A year had passed by since minor or major changes had been done on our album. Our friend Sven was the production manager for our record label, Suspicious Activities, and he had been really busy since having a daughter.

In fact, the last time anything was done it our album was before Sven’s daughter, Ari, was born. So, she was technically older than our release if we did the math.

We had no hard feelings, but we were anxious to keep our name in peoples’ minds. By comparison, The Pet Shop Boys released an album every two years and were considered prolific. Meanwhile, our average was six months, and our fans were starting to get nervous now that it had been so much longer than that.

With the album tracks of the guitar finally being recorded, I conducted the digital magic to have it appear as a fully notated sheet music. Like Paul McCartney, I couldn’t read music, but I didn’t have to pay someone to do it for me. A one-time outlay for a bit of software was all that was required.

Line by line, verse by verse, the track was slowly coming to life. The lyrics that were naturally imprinted made it so much better for everyone. None of the guys were classically trained either, except for Adam, but we’d hoped that would soon change with the addition of a cellist to our band.

The idea to take Dante Street Massacre into a Symphonic Metal direction was originally mine, but it had been supported with unanimous agreement. It was clear that none of us were going to be playing a cello well in a classical manner in the near future, though. So, we made the mutual decision to advertise to find someone who could.

We rarely had a line-up change, almost never. We were still five of the same six guys since those dark and heady days in my mom’s basement, keeping it low and trying not to get another warning from the cops. The idea of an addition was exciting but also odd. Enough to put some of us on edge.

The challenge of finding someone to fit into our dynamic added to the already daunting task of tracking down a classical musician in a city with a sub-genre of Post Punk named after it. “The Seattle Sound” had marked our hometown since most of us could remember.

We were determined to be different— an alternative to the alternative. Like Jello Biafra wearing a Roy Rogers belt buckle and shaving his chest hair into an upside down cross to weird out the Bay Area weirdos back in the day.

Hopefully, we would find a cellist to help us accomplish that goal.

Now, my printer was rolling at a soft whirr. Copies for everyone made the jump easier from digital. There were six in all, just in case Thom managed to exceed our expectations.

The whole process of finishing the sheet music I’d been working on and playing had made me extremely tired. Fatigue was the right term. It was like an invisible weight dragging me around. Strong aromatic coffee beans counted out exactly to forty— no more, no less— helped me reach a state close to normal, and so I settled in for a rest.

It was a drug response, to be sure, but caffeine was the closest any of us ever really came to addiction. It was never decided that we would be drug-free; it just turned out that way, none of us really seeing the point of experimenting too much.

Once my pupils were done dilating, it was time to eat. The stove was lit blue, its gas flame a harbinger for something new.

Tradition was not a concept I’d ever applied to food. Experimentation yielded some fascinating results.

Who knew you could put M&Ms on top of pancakes or mix it into applesauce?

There were instances I considered writing my own cookbook entitled: How to Burn Water. It could give self-important “foodie culture” a much-needed kick in the rear.

Fed and cleansed within an inch of corporeal existence, I dressed to face the day ahead of me. My black silk suit slipped easily over me, no shirt required. My tattoos, many and precious, mostly covered me anyway. Or at least they distracted from the fact that I had flesh.

No one seemed to notice or mind the lack of hair on my head. If not for my tendency toward Chuck Taylors, I’d likely have been mistaken for a bonehead a lot more. As it was, I more closely resembled a hatless Rude Boy, much to the surprise of many newcomers. Even Seth Black, the owner of Suspicious Activity Records, had done a double take at our first meeting.