Page 17 of More Than Scars

“If anyone resonates with you guys tomorrow, make sure you let me know, and what it is about them that’s striking a chord with you,” Pressley said, in between the cutting, chewing, and murmurs of appreciation going on. “It won’t necessarily mean they’re our person, but it will let me tune in a little differently and pay specific attention to what it is that you’re hearing and why it’s vibing with you.”

“We can do that,” I said.

“In addition to the songs you’ve written, you guys should start thinking about other people’s songs that allow you to show off the strength in your playing,” Joey suggested. “Those will be the ones you’ll want to practice the first few days as a band. You’ll want a bigger list of those, twenty at least, then you’ll have things to pick from that everyone has a chance of knowing. Playing those together will help you find your rhythm. Once you start to gel, then you can move into working out the original songs.”

“Most of the songs we’ve written, Bowie and I have worked on together in some capacity,” Tony admitted.

“Yeah, that’s going to help you lots and put you ahead of the game in some respects, but you’ll need to watch that too. Your other two guys aren’t gonna have that same kind of connection, so you’ll want to work to build that with them, so your band doesn’t start with a divide right off the jump.”

“Listen to my husband on that,” Stoli said. “Once there’s a rift in the band, the cracks spread everywhere. You’ll feel that shit on and off the stage. Can’t patch that easily, either, you’ll have to work harder for every inch you gain. Don’t do that to yourselves, and don’t do that to Wolf and Pressley either. Their job is gonna be hard enough once the wheels really start rolling.”

“Seriously.” Joey said. “You’ll learn soon enough that no matter how early you guys get up, no matter how many hours you put into practice and penning songs, these guys will be up earlier and on the clock much sooner, making sure that things are the way you guys need for them to be when it comes time for you to get up on stage. Tending to the interpersonal shit between band members needs to fall on the four of you. With you two being brought on first, you need to step up as leaders. Don’t feel like you need to do it alone though. Stoli and I are always available to answer questions. As you meet the rest of the bands, you’ll learn that they’re the same way. You’ll always have those guys you’ll connect better with. Go to them if you need to. Never be too proud that you let something fester just because you’re not sure how to handle shit.”

“And don’t let bullshit get out of hand,” Stoli chimed in. “You guys have a solid connection. You call each other out when you need to, yeah?”

“Hell yeah,” I said. “That’s how we got up here. Tony knew I wouldn’t have auditioned on my own, so he dragged my ass out of bed and didn’t even tell me what the hell we were gonna be doing when we got where we were going.”

“Right on,” Joey said.

“Anything crops up, any attitudes, anyone wanting to put their ego before the band, you call them out,” Stoli said. “Immediately. Fuck that shit. You don’t play either. You don’t go soft on that shit. You be firm, and you check it hard.”

“Hopefully, you won’t have to,” Pressley said. “But I hate being left in the dark. So if something goes down, you give them a chance to tell me, then you check with me and make sure they did. Don’t think of it as going behind someone’s back, think of it as keeping me in the loop, which is exactly where I need to be.”

“Never had a manager before,” I admitted.

“Have you ever been in a band before?” Joey asked.

“Yeah. In Portland. We broke up three years ago, but, um, yeah, we were tight when we first got started, but we were young too, fresh out of high school. Guess, looking back, we were destined to fail.”

“How manymembers?” Joey asked.

“Four. Our singer played bass, me and another guy played guitar, and our drummer was a big guy who switched from football to drums after he got his ankle broken in a game.”

Though I’d barely looked up during the meal, even though my face was already as far away from them as I could place myself, I glanced up just in time to see Stoli and Wolf cringe. Even Tony did, though he’d heard the story before, and yeah, it had been a bad moment, the worst I’d ever witnessed, until I’d seen myself after my wreck.

After we ate, we changed and headed back into their studio, with Stoli pulling some songs just to give us a feel of what he’d been talking about when it came to working at making the band gel.

He gave some tips too, about toning down the improvising and the solos and looking to nail the songs as they’d been written, so that everyone had the opportunity to focus on the flow and not showing off.

“That shit comes later,” Stoli explained. “Onstage, when you need the crowd to come alive. That’s when you give them everything you have to give. In the studio, especially in the beginning, you want to keep your ear on how you sound together. If someone needs you to slow down, you slow the fuck down. You can’t fuck like a jackrabbit when someone is still trying to get a little swerve into their game.”

I nearly choked on my beer at hearing that. Was damn smooth beer too, though I’d never been much of a beer drinker. Tequila had always been my alcohol of choice. It mellowed me out and left everything a bit soft and fuzzy around the edges. I wrote my best shit on it too, especially once I added a bit of smoke into the game. Crossfaded and blissed out was my go-to writing mood, which reminded me that I needed to touch base with Pressley about whether it was okay to smoke in his backyard. If not, I might have to take a walk around his neighborhood and hope his neighbors weren’t as particular. It was the only drug I’d ever done consistently, well short of a bit of peyote out in the desert. That had been a whole different experience and totally the fault of my uncle when we’d been sitting around kicking it and talking about the trek they’d taken to the very first Ozzfest.

It wasn’t long after we’d finished kicking it and waiting for the food to finish digesting that Wolf said his goodbyes, and Tony and I loaded up into Pressley’s truck for the ride back to his place. I’d taken the backseat that time and leaned against the window, staring out at the lights in the distance and the city that was now my home.

Seattle had always held a particular vibe for me, especially since I’d grown up a major grunge fan, just like my brother Bon. Our Uncle Rick had been a fan too, and being the cool uncle, he’d loaded me and Bon up on more than one occasion, driving us into the city to see the bands we loved.

Someday, there was gonna be a kid like us, a hardcore music fan who dreamed of being on the stage, and he was gonna beg for tickets and someone to sign his merch. It dawned on me then that I needed to find that level of comfort within myself so that, no matter who was in front of me, no matter what they might see, I could raise my head and smile at them and give them the encouragement they needed to push through all the doubt and all the naysayers, to be the person that I longed to be.

Paying it forward.

Hell, Stoli and Joey were already giving Tony and I the perfect example of how that was done. They didn’t have to take the time to break things down so clearly, but they did, and they welcomed us into their home with open arms, not just as mentors, but to show us what was possible.

I knew Tony and I would never forget the afternoon we’d spent with them. Hell, during the drive back to Pressley’s, I was already going through songs in my head, picking and jotting down ones I knew would play off not only my strengths but also Tony’s singing too, in the notebook I was never without. All of Joey and Stoli’s words had resonated with me, but none more than the ones about not using those early sessions as a means of showing off. That was one of my biggest regrets with Axis and my old band. I was not about to fuck up the same way again.

When we arrived back at Pressley’s place, Tony immediately headed outside to hit his vape, while I headed for the shower to wash the chlorine off me. On the way back, I’d jotted ten solid songs in my notebooks, ones every hardcore metal fan knew and appreciated. I still needed fifteen more, and I’d have themtoo, likely before we ever got to the drummer auditions. As tempting as it was to keep to the bands I’d loved the most, I chose one song from each of them, so we’d have a solid variety. A few more came to me in the shower, and I stored them in the back of my mind, repeating them over and over so I didn’t forget any of them as I washed my hair, soaped my body, and let the warm spray wash over me.

It wasn’t until I stepped out of the bathroom with my hair tied back in a ponytail, bare-chested in just a pair of cutoff sleep pants, that I realized my brain was clearly not in braining mode. It was too late then. There, in the brightly lit hallway, with no t-shirt on and nothing to hide the scars on my face, I collided with Pressley and staggered backwards, hitting the wall as my eyes went wide and my breath came out harsh and scared.