the beginning of a rockstar legend
Back when my chemical romance and weezer and green day were on everyone’s radar, I thought I was the coolest kid in town strumming my electric guitar that I bought off of ebay. I strapped it across my chest and carried it in locker hallways while everyone else were carrying lacrosse sticks and tennis rackets. My home for the term was the deserted auditorium where I played guitar in after school. I was in a band, and back then, it wasn’t popular for girls to be part of boy bands unless they were, you know, on the other side of rockstar, which was groupie.
And I would never ever be a groupie, not for anyone, and definitely not for him.
But some of the other girls had other plans.
“Look, kiddo.”
He looked up from his guitar. And smirked.
“Whazzup.”
“Don’t whazzup me, kiddo. I have some serious beef with you.”
“What beef? Hope it’s strip steak.”
“No, fool, it’s your fan girls.”
“Wha… I have fan girls?” He lazily weaves his fingers through his hair.
GOD. I hate it when he does that.
“Yeah, you have a whole ‘fan club’ now after our stupid show.” I make air quotes.
“Don’t diss that show, man. My Radioactive performance was smokin hot.”
“How about I smokin hot you because your fan girls think we are a couple and they’ve been trashing my locker. Like, how do they even know my combination?” I lean against his locker, drumming my fingers on the metal.
“I don’t know, maybe the secret police? Like maybe one of your Nazi friends told them?”
“You know what, just forget it. I’ll deal with them myself.”
I groan and slide down the locker, sitting next to him.
“Oh shit. Is that the new album?” I just noticed that he’s listening to weezer on his ipod.
“Yeah. It just came out. Want a listen?”
I nod and he takes an earphone out and gives it to me. I pop it in, and I close my eyes, letting the song drown out the insane.
Hip-hip
Hip-hip
Hip-hip
Hip-hip
When you're on a holiday
You can't find the words to say
All the things that come to you
And I wanna feel it too
On an island in the sun
We'll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can't control my brain
Hip-hip
Hip-hip
When you're on a golden sea
You don't need no memory
Just a place to call your own
As we drift into the zone
On an island in the sun
We'll be playing and having fun
And it makes me feel so fine
I can't control my brain
We'll run away together
We'll spend some time forever
We'll never feel bad anymore
Hip-hip
Hip-hip
Hip-hip
I started playing guitar when I was on a religious trip at the age of 5. Back when the beatles still toured the streets on London and catholic church wasn’t just for the tea sipping ladies of the Binghamton Palace, my guardian or “Gardie”, who didn’t exactly enforce the Nazi-esque control over my life the way my mother would have, let me roam the night clubs with my college friends. I used to audit classes at King’s College.
Yeah, when I was five years old. Because I thought I was too cool to hang out with the other preschoolers.
There was this one time when my college crush “Tommy” took me to this rager and I met these cool kids who called themselves “Green Day” and played alternative rock music on weekends. And this one night, they were talking about these American idiots they met at the mall, and I chimed in, saying,
“Hey! Why don’t you write a song about them?”
And they stared at me and were like,
“Rockin. Good idea, kid.”
And they and I became instant chums. Just like that I was part of “Green Day.”
Anyway, long story short, they taught me how to play guitar and I taught them how to play piano.
Fast forward to today.
I was in the best phase of my life. Discovering rock was the best thing that could have happened to me during my pubescent years. It helped me process the shit that’s happened in my life and deal with angst and anxiety.
My mom got me an ipod, which was the it product to have. And I listened to it almost all of the time. It kept me company on the subway train, when I was studying, and on the bleachers of ball games.
This senior guy who was wearing a leather jacket and sporting a blonde pompadour, and who was kind of really hot, was talking to his friend as they passed by me and I overheard them talking about one of their guitarists got cold feet and left their band right before Battle of the Bands. And I thought, this is a golden opportunity, and I interrupted them,
“Hey! Do you need a guitarist? Because I can play.”
And the guys looked at me really weirdly, because I was in seventh grade, 5 years way too young for them, and I was grinning like a Cheshire cat who has discovered his prey. But the blonde guy was like,
“Um, ok. Do you want to show us what you can do before we introduce you to the band?”
And I jumped up and down and said, “Yeah! What time?”
The next day after school, I had an “audition” for the band. I had little time to prepare but I managed to squeeze in a bit of solo time with me and my acoustic guitar before school ended. Mainly consisting of me in the music room jamming to the sound of my vocal chords.
The blonde senior guy, whose name was “Jim”, arrived late. He was supposed to meet me at 3:30, but he actually came at 3:46pm.
“Sorry,” he apologized, sliding into the front row of the auditorium. “Class ran late.”
I smiled at him and said, “No problem!”
“You can begin whenever.”
I nod. That’s my cue.
And I start strumming.
I couldn’t figure out what song to play so I made up my own song. It’s called Demons.
Belting out the lyrics, I sang,
When the days are cold,
and the cards all fold,
and the saints we see
are all made of gold.
When your dreams all fail,
and the ones we hail,
are the worst of all
and the blood's run stale.
I wanna hide the truth,
I wanna shelter you,
but with the beast inside,
there's nowhere we can hide.
No matter what we breed,
we still are made of greed.
This is my kingdom come,
this is my kingdom come.
When you feel my heat
look into my eyes,
it's where my demons hide,
it's where my demons hide.
Don't get too close,
it's dark inside,
it's where my demons hide,
it's where my demons hide.
Curtain's call
is the last of all
when the lights fade out
and the sinners crawl.
So they dug your grave
and the masquerade
will come calling out
at the mess you've made.
Don't wanna let you down,
but I am hell-bound,
though this is all for you,
don't wanna hide the truth.
No matter what we breed,
we still are made of greed.
This is my kingdom come,
this is my kingdom come.
When you feel my heat
look into my eyes,
it's where my demons hide,
it's where my demons hide.
Don't get too close,
it's dark inside,
it's where my demons hide,
it's where my demons hide.
They say it's what you make,
I say it's up to fate.
It's woven in my soul,
I need to let you go.
Your eyes, they shine so bright,
I wanna save that light.
I can't escape this now,
unless you show me how.
I finished singing, the last chord echoing in the auditorium. Jim stared at me, eyes wide and starry.
“That was amazing! You’re hired.”
I stared back, surprised.
“That fast?”
“Yep. Show’s in 1 week. We need to start prepping.”
“Awesome. I’m on board!”
And with that, my venture into rockstar-dom commenced.
Later when I tell the story, it evolves so that the band I was playing for renamed themselves Imagine Dragons. And their hit song Radioactive and even more hit song Demons were both written by me. But that might be my bipolar talking.
As if. I’m not bipolar, bitches.
Anyway, the Battle of the Bands went well. Imagine Dragons won, of course, and not to brag, but it was mostly because of my playing. I could strum those chords and woo the judges to the edge of tomorrow.
Anyway, he wanted to learn guitar, after watching my show. So we spent some afternoons after school together in the music room, and I showed him some chords. And after just a week, he started playing real pop songs.
It was pretty amazing how fast he picked it up. He had a nice voice too so before long, we decided to start our own band.
Yup.
Nice Ties. That’s the name of our band.
We threw our first concert the first week of February.
And then the world blew up.
-
“Do I look ok?”
He nervously fiddles with his skinny tie. We decided to go down Beatles style and decided to wear white button down shirts with skinny ties loosely tied for our first concert.
He gelled his hair, so his naturally strawberry blonde hair stood up.
He looked like a rockstar.
“Passable.” I shrugged.
He punched me in the arm and I laughed, clutching it.
“I’m joking! You look good.”
He looked hot. And he knew it.
“Whatever. I hope the girls like it.”
“The music or you?”
He smirked.
“Me of course.”
It was my turn to punch him in the arm.
“Anyway, I think it’s time.”
“Yeah. Let’s do this!”
We high-fived.
“This could go down in flames. Or this could be the best night of my life.”
Let’s hope the latter.
He shrugged on his electric guitar as I propped mine over my abdomen.
And we exited the dressing room onto the stage.
Girls started screaming once they saw him. He always had this appeal to him. Sex appeal, they call it in rock music. Cool, charismatic, collected.
He runs his hand through his hair, and we start playing.
Screaming into the mic, he repeats,
“Radioactive! Radioactive!”
And it’s like a nuclear bomb just exploded in the auditorium. The girls went crazy.
I smile a bit and shrug and keep on playing.
They’re definitely going to make a fan club for him after this.
Our concert ends after he took his shirt off and threw it into the crowd of hysterical girls. He shrugs his guitar off and leaps into the horde.
They carry him on their shoulders.
Exhilarated, he smiles wide and looks at me. Eyes locking, we just knew,
Today was a good day.
Not a green day.
But possibly the best night of our lives.
