Vol.1: Over the Tracks - I [Chapter 1]
Chapter 1: The Apocalypse and Take it from There
I have to be insane or suicidal. Maybe both, because the two certainly are not mutually exclusive.
Pete sits across from me, a lazy smile on his lips. My mouth remains hanging open as I look back to the paper and then back at him again.
“We can still make a few changes,” he informs me reassuringly, and it is clear that he would be happy to squeeze a few more dates somewhere in there. He would be pleased, the money hungry bastard. He is without a doubt the most capitalistic hippie I know.
I pass the paper to Joe, who pushes frizzy, brown locks from his handsome face and peers at the list of tour dates. His blue eyes light up, and knowing him, it’s from the prospect of all the girls and all the partying he will get to do. Brent leans over Joe’s shoulder, making approving sounds. I knew Joe would be pleased, but Brent? Goddamn backstabber. Spencer takes the news like a man, playing the mediator like he always does.
I shake my head, laugh in disbelief, and my bandmates take no notice of me. “Come on!” I cry out to get the attention I deserve, and the words echo back from the walls of Pete’s office. The noises from the outside offices of Capitol momentarily go even muter, and in my mind’s eye, I see their interns and A & Rs; sneaking to eavesdrop outside Pete’s door.
“Is there a problem?” Pete asks calmly, his voice like peaceful waves coming from the sea, gently making contact with the shore, his brown eyes staring at me patiently. Black hair flops to cover his left eye, and that’s right. Hide, you bastard.
“Yes!”
I grab the sheet again and throw it at Pete. My hands are bound as far as firing the fucker is concerned, but I can complain as loud as I can and let him know that this front man is not happy. “What the fuck is this? I had agreed to a summer tour, but this? Fuck! Five shows in New York? Why the hell do we need to do five shows in goddamn New York?”
“They love you there. They love you everywhere, or have you slept through the past few months? You guys are the shit right now, you’re groovy. Also, you really should check your contract – you’ve already agreed to do this tour. You can’t weasel out of this, Ryan.”
Pete has placed a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. My hands are bound.
Spencer nudges my shoulder. “Not like you had other plans, right?” he asks, but his voice conveys almost as much enthusiasm as I feel.
“I did have other plans,” I claim. Get drunk. Get laid. Get high. Write songs. Record them. Refuse every interview that gets thrown at me. Spencer is a good spokesperson; he can handle the press. Call up Dad, remind us both of the constantly forgotten existence of a family and see if I can drive up to Bismarck to spend a few weeks in his cabin, just me and the pine trees.
But no one cares about what I want. They want the fifty-five sold out shows, roughly and clumsily divided into two legs: East and West. The venues are bigger than anything we have headlined in before. Brent and Joe begin to talk about the stage performance, Spencer suggesting that we do a light show. That is exactly what we need, to copy bands before us, to do tricks that in no way convey our uniqueness.
Pete says that the tour dates are still subject to change. Spencer insists on a gig in Cincinnati, and Pete promises to make some calls to promoters in the area.
I imagine tens of thousands of faces that my eyes will land on in the near future. I feel sick.
“Also, now that we’re all here,” Pete says, “I suggest a band meeting.”
“Funny thing, that. You’re not in the band,” I point out.
“We should clear the air before the tour. Start it with a positive feeling. So any thoughts or concerns, now is the time to share.” Pete folds his arms and leans back in his chair.
Thoughts or concerns? Well, let’s see. I don’t even want to go on this tour. We haven’t done anything except fight since we went to the studio to record our chart wonder. If the album is filled with ‘swirls of dark energy’, it’s because we were fucking pissed off. Most bands start with a group of friends who just want to play their music, but then the business gets in the way. Fame distorts reality. You no longer make music for you, but for the fans. What will they respond to? What do they want? What will keep you on top? And everyone has a different idea of it. We’re stuck together, the four of us plus Pete, and the bonds that keep us together are getting thinner and thinner. Pre-tour thoughts or concerns. Let’s start with the apocalypse and take it from there.
“I think I should be a bit closer to Ryan on stage. And up front like he is. Not in the back left,” Joe states firmly. “My fans want to see me.”
“Naturally,” Pete nods.
“More spotlights on me. And I want a mic.”
“You don’t sing,” I smile.
“But I want to engage with my audience,” Joe smiles back.
“Brent?” Pete now asks.
“Cheese crackers in the dressing rooms. Courtesy beer bottles. Only four-star hotels on hotel nights. There always has to be jam donuts and condoms on the bus. I want one roadie to be responsible for my bass and keyboards, no fucking about with that. Just one guy so I know who to yell at. Um... let me think... You know what, I’ll make a list.” Brent grins, a hint of self-adoration on his roughly carved face, like God just couldn’t be bothered to go the extra mile that day. When Brent is in a bad mood, his eyebrows furrow over his dark brown eyes, lips looping downwards, and I am always faintly reminded of a chimpanzee.
“Spencer?”
“I’m good.”
“Come on, now.”
“No, really. We’ve decided on the drum kit, so I don’t need anything.”
Pete turns to me. “Ryan? What do you want?”
I look through the window and watch the spring wind push and shove a tree outside, and I wonder if there could be a wind strong enough to whisk it up into the air, break all the roots that have tangled up in the ground for far too long, and if there is such a wind, then it has to tell me its secret.
“I don’t want to share any hotel rooms,” I mutter.
“Done!” Pete grins, like it’s fixed, sorted out. We’re cured. Joe keeps giving me dirty glances, Brent shifts restlessly, Spencer tries to keep smiling, and I wish I had never gotten up this morning.
* * *
Spencer attempts talking me into it over a few beers. We have already sold out two of the five New York shows, so it isn’t like I even have a damn say in it.
“It’ll be fun, man,” Spencer says half-heartedly, not meaning it, and my head jerks upwards as I realise that the radio is playing our song. The bald bartender of the smoky bar is humming along to it, but he didn’t recognise me when I went over to get our second beers. Good. It’s a rock station, and it’s nearly midnight, which must justify them playing our track. They better not play it during the day when picket fence America is picking up their children from school.
“Ry, are you even listening?”
The bartender is miming the lyrics, mouth opening and closing to accommodate my voice and my lyrics. He doesn’t know what the song is about, how I felt when writing it, what the message is. But there he is, pouring another beer and abusing my words, stealing them, robbing them, dressing them up in velvet when I aimed for satin.
“Never mind,” Spencer sighs and stares at the beer left in his glass, which is not much. Spencer is overwhelmingly gifted in that department. Spencer is used to our radio airplay, but I feel surreal whenever I hear my own voice on the radio. Spencer downs his beer, his blue eyes starting to stand still slightly. He scratches his beard, and I watch the strong muscles of his arm move beneath the skin. He’s got a friendly face, the kind that makes you want to tell him all of your secrets. It’s taken me years to try and resist the urge.
The radio commentator says, And that was The Followers with their single Alienation from their brand new and critically acclaimed album Boneless. I don’t know about you, but the record is definitely already in my collection!
I tune out the rest.
“Look, remember when we supported Floyd back in ‘71?” Spencer starts again, and I nod. Fucking hell I remember. Nine thousand people and the four of us on stage. No one knew us. No one cared. “Venues big like that, it’s like... having sex with a stranger.”
“Something I do regularly, then?” I suggest, and Spencer waves his hand to tell me to shut up.
“My point is that, yeah, we’re headlining this time. But they already like us, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. And the venues are so big that there is absolutely no intimacy. So whatever, you don’t have to impress these strangers. We get on stage, we play, we bow. We leave. A one-night stand,” he explains. It makes sense in its own way. I can bear my soul for the fans to see. They won’t look closely enough to notice it.
“Maybe,” I grant him eventually, putting down my empty bottle. “I gotta get going. Jac said she might drop by.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know how you put up with her.”
“Why shouldn’t I?” I ask and put my jacket on. “She’s faithful most of the time. More than you can ask a woman these days.”
Spencer scoffs, but he’s young. His head is still dazed from heartbreak, but when it clears up, he will realise that we’re not in the fifties anymore. Sixties happened, you can’t take it back. I lost my virginity at Woodstock, you can’t take that back either, not that I would want to because Fauna was a beautiful woman. She didn’t want anything of me except that one night. That’s how women are now – they want to experience something beautiful with you, and they’re not that bothered if you disappear afterwards. It’s 1974, for Christ’s sake – the world has changed, and that change is irreversible. There is a sexual revolution to go with our musical one.
“Is Jac coming on tour?” Spencer asks.
“Nah.”
I don’t want her fucking all of my friends. Spencer asks me to stay for another drink, but I decline. “I know this is the pot calling the kettle black, but you shouldn’t drink so much. Seriously. It’s been months and months, man. She was just a girl, and she certainly didn’t deserve you,” I tell him firmly, and he nods wearily. He knows, of course. She was a girl, he thought it was love, and it’s over now. He made the right choice by choosing the band, even if we are... the knights of destruction. The ambassadors of loss. Coming together, but mostly just falling apart.
“Dime a dozen,” Spencer concludes, and I feel us coming together just a little bit.
I find Jac outside my building, smoking a cigarette that I stop to share with her. She tells me about her bitch of a sister, and a hickey is peaking through the blonde locks of her hair. I don’t really care who left it there, right above her left collarbone. I know she’d want me to be jealous, but I’ve never had it in me. Not for her, not for anyone. It’s not like she loves me.
Fifty-five shows,” I tell her. “We kick off in a month.”
Her eyes light up, and I know that look. It means she’s up to no good, but she will get away with it. She’s a pretty girl with a doll-like face and big, innocent eyes. She’s tiny and astoundingly beautiful naked, and plenty of men know that. A few girls too if there is any truth in her stories, which I doubt there is. Jac uses her looks to get under people’s skin because she is scared shitless no one will like her for herself. She has confidence for the two of us, which is probably why I have stuck around. Or maybe she has stuck around. She keeps me guessing about that.
“Come on, let’s go up,” I say.
We don’t make it to my bed. We are half-dressed in the living room with her panties down to her ankles and my fly open when she finds out I have no intention of taking her on tour with me. She swears and pushes me off, steps out of the pink underwear and heads for the door.
If she never comes back, I could keep the panties as a memory.
“It’s a small bus,” I explain. “There is no room for you, baby. You can fly up to meet us in Detroit if you want.”
“And what the fuck would I want in Detroit?” she barks back. The illusion of her doll face vanishes fast when she hates my guts. Her eyebrows get drawn together, forming a thin line there is no crossing. Her hands are in fists, and she raises them up dramatically and brings them back down, making a sound like, instead of the skinny woman she is, she is a wounded bull staring down the matador.
“I dunno,” I shrug.
“Fuck you, Ryan Ross. Fuck. You.”
She points a finger at me to make sure I know I am the Ryan Ross of her nightmares before leaving with a bang. I mutter a curse and find a whisky bottle, getting out my black electric and playing White Light/White Heat to calm myself down, and I force myself not to think about the fifty-five shows, fifty-five shows, fifty-godddamn-five shows.
I will hang myself in the dressing room in Philly. That’ll show Pete.
The old lady next door starts banging on the wall to shut me up. Count that as one person who will be delighted to hear of my upcoming absence.
* * *
The studio lights are making me sweat. I have makeup on me, but it’s not enough to put me behind a defensive wall. The audience is seated and not a mass of cheering, beer chugging rock fans. They are members of charity organisations, house wives, bored husbands with even the top button done, and they stare at me over their glasses and wonder what my parents did wrong. The woman from makeup is trying to convince Joe to tie his curly, long hair in a ponytail, but he refuses while Spencer swirls drumsticks and adjusts the bandanna around his head. It’s a new touch to his stage look. Brent doesn’t really have a distinctive style of his own, he just lets his dark brown hair hang over his head like a wet towel, the tips sweeping past his shoulders. He doesn’t give a shit. Joe goes for the same impression by obsessing over every belt and skin-tight costume that show most of his chest through a V-cut that goes all the way to his belly button.
I know we’re behind the times with our mix and match approach, riding the wave that could be the last one for prog. I went to see David’s show last summer, when he was promoting Ziggy. When he was Ziggy and the band were the Spiders. It was an amazing show, I admit that, but it would be too much fuss for us to come up with characters and stories. Not that we’re tame. Fuck tame, and forget the boy choir haircuts and matching suits, this is not the fucking sixties. We’re just us. I wanted to have that level of immediacy with the music with no bullshit theatrics involved, but the ship of musical sincerity has sailed. A big show alienates the audience, distorts the music. Big venues are to blame. Money is to blame. I don’t want to become another Ziggy.
But when you hit the charts, you have three options. You either suck it up, gloat in it, or you fall apart. I’m trying my best not to go for the third option.
“Are you ready to play?” the director’s assistant now asks me. I nod, making sure my bandmates are ready too. Spencer clears his throat behind the drum kit, Joe tests his microphone one last time. Our first TV performance.
We wait for some more lighting fine-tuning, and I watch the director snapping at the sound engineer. Behind the cameras, Pete and Jac are watching on beside the bleachers. Jac waves and blows me a kiss, a wild smile on her face, exactly the same as it was on the night I met her. She’s taller than Pete in her green platform shoes. I’m wearing one of her hat designs to go with my tweed vest, t-shirt and jeans. The hat has got red flowers sticking to the side. I didn’t choose it, but I genuinely like it. It’s a nice change when I don’t have to lie to her.
“I thought she was mad at you,” Spencer mumbles when I go have a word with him.
“She was,” I shrug. Her threats and our fights mean nothing. “When do we have the crew practice?”
“Brent, when’s the crew practice?” Spencer calls out.
“Tomorrow,” the bassist says. Already. I need to pack up for the tour.
“You better be there,” Spencer mumbles and shoots me a look. I scoff loudly and silently curse him. I was only maybe thinking about having my grandmother die a thirty-sixth time.
The TV people are finally ready, and the overenthusiastic host introduces us as they begin recording. We play our song. It’s the shortest off the new album, only five minutes and twenty seconds. I forget the cameras and focus on the music, the moment where the drums kick in between the third and fourth part, the second before we change the signature to 11:13. Brent switches between bass and piano halfway through, and I sing. My voice is raw and untrained, just like the music strives to be, though every second has been calculated and obsessed over. I know I have made a decent song if I have driven myself insane and lost sleep over it.
The director keeps motioning for me to look up into the cameras. I ignore him and sing to his shoes.
“The Followers, everyone!” the host says as the audience applauds. Joe and I are directed to the chairs where we sit down for the interview. Joe has insisted that he should be interviewed more. Good. The fewer interviews I do, the happier I’ll be. But still the host mostly addresses me because they know I am the songwriter, front man, lyricist, vocalist. I am the product which they buy.
I give replies to his awkward questions.
“This is your third album. What is it about the new record that gave The Followers the recognition the first two didn’t receive?”
I scratch my cheek. Cameras roll. Smile, Ryan. Be amiable, Ryan.
“Our first two albums got a very good reaction in certain circles. It’s not my fault if they never reached your ears,” I say and play it off with a smile. The audience laughs. My skin begins to itch. I feel thirsty. The host has horribly yellow teeth.
“You are all very talented players,” the host says but frowns. “I only have one question. Why does it have to be so loud?”
Behind the cameras, Jac covers her mouth with a hand to muffle her laughter. I don’t have anything to say.
* * *
The crew practice is like a high school reunion except no one feels ashamed when they head straight for the alcohol to suffer less from the awkward catching up. Andy Hurley and William Beckett listen in and ask questions as we go through the set. On the nights we play Sore Skill, Joe will need his blue Fender tuned half a step down. If Miranda’s Dream makes the setlist, then Brent will need his five-string bass. We fill the practice space with all of the gear that needs to be taken on tour as Pete makes notes on extra strings, bridge pins and drumsticks. Andy has photographic memory, as I recall from our previous tour, and he looks at my effects pedals only once before remembering the correct order. We’ve toured with both guys before.
“Where are Zack and Simon?” Joe asks as we set up to play. The real stages will be three, four, maybe even five times bigger than the room we’re in. I look around for the two missing roadies, and William shakes his head. William’s around my age and has taken hair tips from Joe, but instead of Joe’s frizzy chocolate brown curls, William’s are a lighter brown. He is as tall as me and just as skinny, but whereas I try to hide my bony limbs, William manages to pull on the tightest jeans imaginable. He is too effeminate and emotional for my liking, even his facial features resemble that of a girl’s, but he is a good roadie, and even I have to admit it, though I’m not too crazy about the guy.
“I’m sure Zack and Simon will be here shortly,” Pete hurries to say, fearing mutiny. Spencer throws a vest over his red t-shirt and sits behind his new drum kit, a boyish glee in his eyes. I relax at the sight of it. I need him on this tour. I will not survive this summer if Spencer’s not there, and while I acknowledge that, I resent myself for being a co-dependent leech. I didn’t used to be like this.
There are a lot of things that I once were that I no longer am.
Andy fusses around with cables with a roll of duck tape between his teeth, carrying it like a dog would carry a bone. He tapes my mic cable to the floor, crawling on all fours. “You want it like this or like this?” he asks, looking up at me and pushing his slipping glasses up the bridge of his nose. He’s got thick, reddish brown hair down to his shoulders, slightly bushy eyebrows that hang over his attentive grey eyes. Andy’s the philosopher of the group. He and Spencer have sat down and talked about death, love, the war, and whatever else, until morning. I’ve sometimes sat with them and listened. Andy swears by acid and how it broadens your mind. It broadens his a bit too much at times, but it’s good to have at least one self-professed intellectual on the bus.
Working out how to play the new songs live is hard. We end up fighting and bickering twenty minutes in when Joe magically starts singing the chorus to Her Shadow. I sing the chorus, Brent does some backups. Joe doesn’t sing in any song. He never has.
“You said you wanted the mic to talk between songs and –”
“Well, why can’t I sing too?”
“Because you can’t hold a fucking note!”
“Oh, and you can?”
“Yes, actually!”
Joe turns to Pete. “What do you think?”
“Don’t talk to him! Was he there when the four of us sat down and started this band? Huh? Was he? Don’t fucking ask Pete –”
“I think –” Pete starts.
“Shut up!” I point a daring finger at him.
“Don’t threaten the devil’s advocate,” Brent mutters under his breath but loud enough for me to hear. He isn’t being diplomatic, god no. Brent is just not taking my side.
“If I want to sing –”
“It doesn’t matter what you want! You don’t start raping my music –”
“Oh! Oh! There we have it! His music? Did you hear that, Andy? William? Pete, did you hear that?” Joe asks, looking around for support. The boyish glee is gone from Spencer’s face, a grey, worn out look on his features as he lifelessly stares at his drum kit. My blood boils and I squeeze the neck of my guitar with both hands, wanting to fling the instrument over my shoulder and smash it against Joe’s head.
Spencer stands up. When he speaks, his voice is emotionless. “I am sure that what Ryan meant was –”
“I know what he meant!” Joe storms.
The door slams open, and Zack Hall walks in. He’s a huge guy, roughly the size of a bulky, eighteenth century oak cabinet. He makes me look like a twig if he stands next to me. I’m a tall guy, but Zack is taller and probably weighs five times what I do. He’s got the strength of a bull and he keeps his hair short so that no one can grab it when he gets into a fight. That’s what he says, anyway. But beneath the scary physical first impression, he’s a good guy. Quirky, definitely, mean, sometimes, but he’s not evil in the slightest. He keeps people in their places, and maybe it’s this sudden appearance of his that makes me and Joe both shut up.
Pete exhales. “Zack! You’re here! Excellent! Where’s Simon?”
“At home. He woke up this morning, still drunk from last night, fell down the stairs, broke his left leg in two places. I drove him to the hospital, which is why I’m late, and oh, by the by, Simon will not be coming on tour with us.” Zack stops and takes a long look at us all. “Why the long faces?”
That’s it. The tour is over.
I carefully put my guitar in her stand as Brent realises the damage that has been done to him. “Who will be responsible for my instruments, then?!” Brent asks angrily, and as defiantly as I was telling the guys not to put their faith in Pete, I am now grateful that our manager is there to take the fall. I have double standards just like the rest.
The room is filled with angered and frustrated exclamations as I round Zack and walk out of the room, up the basement stairs, along the corridor and out of the building. Los Angeles is cloudy.
I light a cigarette with shaking hands. That’s it. No tour. We can’t do it.
A homeless man is leaning against the brick wall, and I throw him two quarters. He tells me to fuck off.
“Don’t you know who I am?” I ask, half-serious, half-sardonic.
“No!” he barks angrily, scratching his face with dirty fingers and mumbling to himself incoherently.
“Me neither,” I admit and walk away from him. Damn Simon. My fault for getting him into whisky on our last tour. Only three things can ruin a man: fame, women and twelve-year-old whisky. Damn Joe. I don’t need a guitarist who thinks he’s a vocalist. Joe is the most handsome of the four of us by general consensus, thanks to his charisma, toned body and manly face with a pair of sparkly blue eyes. He doesn’t need to sing to get more chicks, so why is he doing this? To torture me? That’s it, to goddamn torture me.
The cigarette shakes between my fingers as the tension of the practice room makes my entire body tremble. Sweat pours down my neck, and I swallow hard, close my eyes when the world goes out of focus. I want this music. I want this band. But laced within that are a million things I could live without.
“Ryan.”
I open my eyes. Brent takes the cigarette from me without asking, and he is nearly serene as he looks across the street like he doesn’t have a care in the world. “So listen, William said that he has a friend, some guy he knows, who can take Simon’s place. William swears by him.”
“But will he come on such short notice?”
“To tour with America’s most rocking band?” Brent asks, clearly enjoying the superlative. “If he doesn’t, he’s a fucking idiot. He will.”
A new guy might not fit in, though I will most likely get voted as the most antisocial again so it’s not likely to affect me. Maybe it won’t matter much, but I worry. When it comes to this tour, I will worry about every damn thing.
“I was thinking we could just tell the sound engineers to turn down Joe’s vocals during songs. Either that or let him embarrass himself once, and then he’ll stop. The narcissistic fucker can’t sing, you’re right about that,” Brent says thoughtfully. He thinks Joe is an asshole. Brent, by default, thinks everyone is an asshole, and he thinks it of me too.
“Joe can’t mess up the music. He just – I have to protect it. The music.”
“Is that what it’s about? The music?” He sounds amused.
“If it’s not about the music, then what is it about?” I ask angrily. Brent finishes the cigarette and pats my back. He pities me on top of everything else.
“The situation is not ideal for any of us. The new guy will have to learn on the job, and who knows how qualified he is to look after my instruments? But we’ll deal,” he shrugs. “Come on, we’ve got to figure out the rest of the songs.” Brent pushes slightly greasy hair from his forehead and walks back inside.
And I am expected to follow like us Followers do. Christ.
I head back for the door, and two girls walking down the street recognise me as they walk past. My sudden emergence doesn’t give them time to do anything except stare at me, let it kick in, their mouths dropping open, and then they hush, “Ryan” and “The Followers”. I look over my shoulder, and Joe would flash a charming smile, Brent would grin, Spencer would wave, but I turn my gaze away and feel their eyes on my hunched back. Their widening irises feel heavy in my heart.
The beggar is still by the door, looking confused that the girls are staring our way. “You must be famous,” I remark and walk back into the mess we have made.