#and the new drummer mike was great too

[spinef0ryou]

and here’s some wednesday pics! they were great too! from where i was stood i could only really get decent pics of wednesday and troy, but the concert was so much fun!

[sissylittlefeather]

Time for another Elvis movie character story!

Spinout: a Mike McCoy Story

A/N: So I lowkey love Mike McCoy from Spinout. Like, he might be my favorite Mike. He's definitely the one I watch the most! He's such a little shit, but he's so cute I'll allow it. Still, he needed to be brought down a peg, so please enjoy this unorthodox fic 😂

Warnings: 18+ minors DNI, lots of sex in this one, kissing, cussing, fingering, oral sex (f receiving), p in v penetrative sex, unprotected sex, ejaculation, also they drink alcohol in a couple of scenes

Word count: ~5.8k (I know; it's long. But I think it's worth it)

(There are NO GIFS of Mike McCoy, which is criminal. I'll make a few and come back)

After he married off the three women that had insisted on marrying him, Mike McCoy went back to his life of singing, racing, and hooking up with any woman who was willing.

You start as his new drummer not long afterwards and it takes you about five minutes to realize what he's like. You are less than impressed, to say the least. Still, he's cute enough, so you flirt with him on stage when he comes back to play one of your drums. He winks, and you smile despite yourself, but you're not sold on him yet. Once the show is over, he comes to you, fighting off the crowd of women that's gathered around him.

"That was some show, kid."

"Oh, thanks." You start to pack up your drum kit.

"No, I'm serious. You're great. Would you like to-"

"No, thank you Mike." He blinks, confused.

"You don't even know what I was gonna ask."

"I feel like I do and I'm saying no."

"Okay." He looks at you funny and then goes back to the crowd of women.

The one thing that's changed since you came around is you demand that the group stay in motels instead of camping. He agrees only because it makes it easier for him to bring home girls.

You load up the car with the guys and then head back to your rooms. Mike has a girl in the front seat, so you squeeze in between Larry and Curly in the backseat of the Duesenberg. She giggles obnoxiously as you ride to the motel and you roll your eyes. Mike really is insufferable.

Back at the motel, you have your own room, but you share a wall with Mike. Needless to say, the girl he brought home didn't get any quieter once they reached the room. You put a pillow over your head and try to drown out the sounds. You know whats happening; you don't need sound effects.

When morning rolls around, the guys come to your room to eat the breakfast you've thrown together on the skillet you travel with. This was one of the stipulations to joining the band: you have to feed them. Mike shows up without the girl, thankfully. He smiles at you glowingly.

"You like tired, y/n. Couldn't sleep?"

"Was a little difficult with all that noise."

"Oh, I'm sorry honey, were we too loud?"

"Please don't call me honey. And yes." You go to walk away but realize you're in a small room and there's nowhere to go, so you head out the door to get some fresh air. You're out by the car when he catches up with you.

"What do you want, Mike?"

"I really am sorry, honey- I mean kid. I didn't mean to bother ya."

"Mhmm." You nod unconvincingly.

"Listen, why don't you let me take you out tonight after the show? Make it up to you?"

"You really don't need to do that."

"No, but I want to." You look up at him and do a quick appraisal. He's not really your type- too pretty- but he's not bad. His eyes are kind and his smile is sweet. You'd really like to see what he looks like without his hair fixed. And you haven't gotten laid in months. At least this way you wouldn't have to listen to him with anyone else.

"Oh, alright. Just one drink, though."

"Okay. I can work with that." You give him a half smile and head back into the motel room.

******

That night, after the show, you find yourself three drinks deep with Mike McCoy and you're having more fun than you expected. He's only had two drinks, but you go ahead and order a fourth one. Once you finish it, you lean over on his shoulder and intertwine your fingers with his. He looks down at you with the strangest expression on his face. But you don't care. He's warm and strong and he smells good and you're in the mood. When he decides it's time to go home, you grab the front of his jacket and pull his lips to yours. He backs away slowly, same strange expression on his face. He shakes his head a bit and then kisses you again quickly. You put your arms around his neck and slide your tongue into his mouth and he pulls back suddenly.

"Yeah, we need to leave."

"Whatever you say, Mikey." He hurries you out to the car, where he puts his hands on your hips and pulls you in for another deep kiss.

"I'm sorry, honey, I just didn't want to kiss ya like that in the bar." He kisses you again. You let him keep kissing you, he's not a half-bad kisser, so you hope it's a hint at things to come. Finally, he ushers you into the car and you drive back to the motel with your head on his shoulder and your hand in his lap. You can feel his erection through his pants, so you begin to stroke him gently. He grunts.

"Honey, you better be careful. You're gonna have to finish what you start."

"Oh, I plan to." He groans and kisses you again before turning back to the road.

When you get to the motel, he swings into a parking space and practically drags you out of the car and to his room. He gets the key in the door and the door open all without taking his lips off of yours. It's clear he does this a lot and you start to get excited that this might be a pretty good night.

He walks you backwards into the room and pulls your dress up and over your head in one move. You get off all four of his layers on top, though it does take longer than you expected. Once you're in nothing but panties and he has on his slacks, hardness straining against the crotch, he lays you down on the bed. He kisses your neck down to your nipple where he nibbles on one and teases the other with his fingers.

"Ow!" He pinches you just a little too hard.

"Oh god, I'm sorry. Did that hurt?"

"Yeah, it's okay though, just keep going." He keeps moving down your body, dropping hot kisses on your skin as he goes. When he reaches the place between your thighs, you lay back ready to enjoy the pleasure he's about to bring you. But after a few seconds you sit up on your elbows and look down at him. Based on the way he's moving his mouth on you, you'd guess this is the first time he's ever done this. You know that can't be right, though. Still, he's moving all wrong in all the wrong places. You're not quite sure how it's possible the be this wrong about what he's doing.

You let him do his thing, hoping that at some point he'll get to the right spot, but he never does. After way too long, he pulls back and says,

"Cum for me baby." And you'd love to. You really really would, but it's just not there and you're not the kind of girl that fakes it.

"Umm... I can't." He looks up at you confused and exhausted.

"What?"

"I said I can't."

"Oh..." He sits up and wipes his face with his hand. "Too much to drink?"

"Sureee..." You'll let that be the excuse. He seems to be okay with giving up and climbs up your body to line his cock up with your entrance. He's got a beautiful dick, so you hope that this part will be good, at least. But once he pushes into you, you lose hope for that possibility.

He's a jackhammer, and not a graceful one. He pounds into you relentlessly, but somehow also not passionately? He soldiers on, seemingly unaware of how bad he is and you let him, just waiting for it to be over.

"Is that good, baby?" He whispers as he slams into you over and over again.

"Mmm" you give him a half-hearted moan.

"Yeah, it's so good." He grunts and pulls out quickly to pump his cock and squirt his seed all over your stomach. Somehow, he doesn't even do that part right and it gets all over everything.

He rolls over onto his back next to you and you lay there wondering how on earth this is possible. The girl he was with last night sure sounded like she enjoyed it. Maybe it was a fluke? You're not sure you want to try it again though.

"Was that good for you, honey? Did you...?" Again, you're not one to lie to him, but you don't want to hurt his feelings. Still, there's really no other way to say it.

"No, not really." You say it quietly and he sits up, stunned.

"What?" You sit up too and try to ignore the fact that he hasn't cleaned you off yet.

"Well, do you want me to lie?"

"Maybe..." He runs his hand through his hair, legitimately puzzled.

"Can I get a towel or something?"

"Oh, sure." He gets out of the bed and gets a towel from the bathroom. "You want me to...?"

"No, you've done enough, thanks." You take the towel and use it to clean yourself off.

"Why didn't you say anything while we were... y'know... during...?"

"I don't know. How do you tell someone in the middle of sex 'hey, you're bad at this'?" You get out of bed and begin to put your clothes back on.

"That's fair."

"Yeah. I'll see you tomorrow, Mike."

"Hey, can we not... tell the guys?"

"Sure. Goodnight." He walks towards you like he's going to kiss you, but you open the door and walk out, back to your own room.

******

The next few shows you play together are painfully awkward. He tries to flirt with you on stage like normal, but you pretty much ignore him. You're still not sure what to make of the weird sexual experience you had together. Part of you wants to give him an opportunity to redeem himself, but most of you is okay with letting it go. About a week after your encounter, Mike comes to you when the show is done.

"Hey, honey, are you mad at me?" You smile at him awkwardly.

"No, I'm not mad. Why?"

"You just haven't talked to me in a week."

"Oh, well, y'know..."

"Is this because of-" He mouths the next part silently. "...the sex?"

You sigh and put your hands on your hips.

"You want me to lie?"

"It is. Will you give me a chance to try again? Maybe with no alcohol this time." You seriously doubt that'll help.

"Mike, I really don't think it's a good idea."

"Why not?" He pouts and it's admittedly very cute.

"Mike...."

"Come on, please? Just one more chance. I'll make it worth your while." He steps close to you and looks down into your face. His eyes are mesmerizing.

"Um... " He leans in close and kisses you gently. Maybe you could give him one more try. When he pulls back, he smiles.

"Let me take you to dinner tonight."

"Okay. We can try this again." He kisses you on the cheek and then goes back to packing the car.

******

After dinner, you find yourself back in Mike's hotel room naked with him again. He lays next to you on the bed sweating and breathing heavily.

"That had to be better." You look at him and grimace. To his credit, he did try to add several position changes, but that just seemed to throw off his momentum and make it even more awkward. "You're kidding me."

"I'm sorry..."

"What the hell am I doing wrong?!" You look at him skeptically. You're not even sure where to begin.

"Oh, Mike, I'm sure it's just me." It's not you, but you're willing to accept the blame if it means he'll leave you alone.

"No. There's a reason girls don't sleep with me more than once. I always told myself it was because I didn't want to get attached, but they don't usually try again." He almost sounds like he's on the verge of tears. "You gotta help me."

"Mike, no..." He turns and looks at you.

"Please?"

"How would I even do that?"

"Teach me." You roll your eyes and look away from him.

"No."

"You're really gonna just let me go back out into the world like this?" You laugh and turn back to him. "You're doing a disservice to all of womankind, really."

"Maybe you could just keep it in your pants."

"Oh no, honey, you know that's not an option." He rolls onto his side to face you and runs his fingertips down your cheek. "Come on, it'll be fun. You can boss me around all you want."

"That is tempting." You roll over and look at him. He seems so genuinely desperate. "Okay, listen, I'll think about it."

He smiles and for the first time you notice how attractive he really is.

"Thank you, honey."

"I haven't said yes, yet."

"Well, thank you for even considering it." He has the strangest desire to ask you to stay in his room overnight. Thats totally not his style at all. He hasn't slept in a bed with a woman in years. Something about you is different, though. He's noticed it since the beginning, but it just gets stronger the more he's around you. Like he doesn't get tired of you and want you to leave.

You get up out of the bed and start to get dressed again. He watches you quietly. Once you're put back together you turn back to him.

"Goodnight, Mike."

"Goodnight, y/n. And thank you... for your honesty."

"Of course." You walk through the door and pull it closed behind you.

******

Two nights later, you play another show at another bar. Afterwards, you expect Mike to either do his normal hunting routine or try to come talk to you, but he doesn't do either. Instead, he sits at a table alone with a drink and looks at the crowd of people around him. You watch him stare down at his drink and then take a big swig. He looks so pitiful just sitting there by himself. Part of you wonders if this is an act for your benefit, but he seems to really be feeling down. When a girl walks up to him and starts flirting with him, you realize he's not acting. She's pretty, but he barely even smiles or looks up at her. His confidence is shot and it's your fault. The girl finally shrugs her shoulders and walks away. You make your way over to him.

"Alright, fine." He looks up at you nervously.

"Fine, what?" You roll your eyes impatiently.

"Fine, I'll teach you." He stands up and smiles a little.

"Really?"

"Yes, really. Come on. Let's go." You hold your hand out to him and he takes it quickly, following your lead to the car. When you get there, you realize how excited he is and you hesitate.

"Mike, I'm not making any guarantees here. I'm not an expert."

"No, but you're obviously better than me. I'll take any kind of help I can get." You nod and he leans down and kisses you. He wraps himself around your waist and you put your arms on his shoulders. Suddenly, he stops and pulls away. "Wait. Am I bad at this part too?"

"No, surprisingly you're a pretty good kisser. So I know you have it in you. Somewhere."

"Oh, gee, thanks."

"Listen, if we're going to do this, you're going to have to be okay with me being totally honest with you." He straightens up and nods.

"Yes ma'am. I'm here to learn." You laugh a little and get in the car with him to drive to the motel.

******

"Okay, where do we start?" He asks almost as soon as the door to his room is closed. He's obviously eager. You think for a second about how to begin. You've never had to teach someone how to have sex before, so you're not exactly sure what to do. Then, you launch into a monologue about how every woman's body is different and just because you teach him yours doesn't mean he won't have to learn again with a new girl.

"Ah ha. That's where we start. You need to know how to read if you're on the right track."

"That seems like a lot of work, honey."

"You wanna get better or not?"

"Yes. Okay. So how do I know?"

"Well women will respond to certain things when they feel good."

"They usually do moan and say 'yes' and stuff." He offers. You purse your lips. These women are not helping.

"You know that's really easy to fake, right?" His mouth pops open. He had genuinely never considered that a girl might be faking pleasure with him.

"Noooo, I know what an orgasm sounds like." You roll your eyes and then start to moan. You gasp and cry out and moan even louder. You close your eyes and throw your head back, running your hand up your chest.

"Yes, yes, oh Mike, yes!" Then you stop suddenly and raise your eyebrows. When you finish your dramatic presentation he stands there with his mouth hanging open.

"Okay. Point taken." You sit down on the bed and he sits next to you. "So how do I know if it's real or not?"

"Look for body cues. Arching her back, grabbing the sheets, curling or flexing her toes. Also like, gritted teeth, faster heart rate and breathing. Sweating. It's hard to fake sweating."

"And if she does those things I should keep doing what I'm doing."

"Yes. Keep it steady, especially with your mouth. Like change it up a bit but if she doesn't respond then go back to what you were doing before." He nods.

"Okay. This is good. What else?"

"I'm not sure. You know what, just try to start and I'll stop you as we go." You gesture with your hands for him to touch you. He looks at you funny again and stays where he is next to you on the bed. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know. I just got really nervous all of a sudden." He smiles awkwardly.

"We've already done this twice before."

"I know but I just... I know it'll be bad..." He looks down at his lap.

"Hey! Look at me." You put your finger under his chin and tip his face up to look at you. "You're trying to get better. That's good. You could just keep going only worrying about your own pleasure, but you're not. Give yourself some credit."

The way you talk to him fills him with a kind of warmth he's never experienced before. He has the urge to kiss you, but not because he wants to have sex with you. He wants to kiss you because he wants to feel connected to you. Gently, he reaches out and puts his hand on your cheek, leaning in to press his lips against yours.

The kiss is more tender than anything you've experience with him thus far and it makes your stomach flip flop. He parts your lips and dips his tongue into your mouth passionately. The intensity continues to increase as your mouths move against each other and, without thinking, you climb onto his lap and straddle him. He runs his hands up under your shirt and pulls it up over your head. He kisses down your neck and for a second you forget that you're supposed to be giving him lessons. But then he takes your bra off and grabs your breasts aggressively.

"Okay... stop." He pulls back and looks at you breathlessly.

"What?"

"You're grabbing my boobs like they're trying to get away from you. Slow down. Touch me to feel me. Think about the sensation in your fingertips." You take his hands and put them back on your breasts. He looks down at them and squeezes softly. Then, he carefully runs his thumb over your nipple.

"What about my tongue?"

"What about it?"

"Can I focus on that sensation too? Like this?" Leaning forward, he gently licks your nipple until it hardens and you moan softly. He ghosts his lips across to your other breast and gives it the same attention, running his thumb over the other one to keep it hard. Your breath quickens and you run your fingers in the back of his hair. He drags his tongue up your chest to your neck and nibbles on your earlobe.

"There. Was that better?" He whispers in your ear and you nod with your eyes closed.

"Yeah, don't stop." He smiles and moves his hands to your back, kissing the supple skin of your breasts. You grind your hips against him and he groans.

"What happens now?"

"Now you flip me onto my back and use your mouth."

"Yes ma'am." He stands up with you wrapped around him, turns, and then lays you on the bed. He continues the pattern of gentle kisses down your body to the top of your pants. You arch your back and moan again.

"Ha! You arched your back!" He sits up and his eyes sparkle with pride. Something about that really tickles you and you erupt in a cascade of giggles. He frowns. "What? You did! I'm paying attention."

"No, you're doing great. You're just really cute. But don't stop." He smiles again and kisses the place between your bellybutton and the button on your pants.

"Can I?"

"Yes please." He unbuttons your pants and pulls them down and off. Next, he slides your panties down and tosses them to the side. He goes to move his mouth down to your center, but you stop him.

"Okay, now, here, give me your hand." You use your finger to guide his to where your clit is.

"Oh!"

"You feel that? That's where you want to focus your attention. Like this." You show him how to move his finger over and around it and whimper with the pleasure. You move your hand away and he presses down a little too hard.

"No! Gentle pressure." He adjusts to be softer and a small moan escapes your lips. "Yeah, like that. Now, give me your hand again."

He stops what he's doing and you take his middle finger and press it into you.

"I haven't done this since high school."

"Oh lord." You laugh. "You should do it pretty much every time." He moves it in and out by himself and then adds a second finger.

"Like that, honey?"

"Mhmmm." He notices that your breathing picks up again. "Now put your mouth on me where you had your finger a minute ago."

He leans forward and presses his tongue to your clit.

"Oh fuck..." You moan and you feel him smile. He begins to move his tongue the way he had moved his finger over and around you and you grab the sheets and whimper. "Yes, Mike, just like that."

Your hips buck into his mouth and he pumps his fingers in and out as he licks you in a consistent pattern with more fervor. You feel the pressure of your orgasm start to build.

"Mmm mmmm don't stop." You whisper through gritted teeth. He does a tickling motion with his fingers and you groan loudly. He feels your walls flutter and he pulls back.

"Are you close?"

"Yes! Don't stop!" You put your hand in his hair and push his face back to your center. He smirks at your neediness and then goes back to licking you with a new determination. He feels your sensitive bud as it hardens in his mouth and your walls flutter around his fingers again. Finally, the coil of your orgasm snaps and your release spills out of you onto his hand as you shudder and pulse around his fingers. You feel the pleasure rush through you in waves that crest and fall as it crashes out to your fingertips.

"Mike, yes! Fuck!" You squirm under him as he continues to lick you. You run your fingers through the front of his hair and push him off of you. He sits up excitedly.

"Did I do it?! Did you cum?"

"Yeah! Can't you tell?"

"Well, after seeing and feeling that I don't think I've ever successfully done it before now. But I did it!"

"Aw, baby." You sit up and hold his face in your hands. He's unbearably sweet in his excitement. You pull him to you and kiss him, tasting yourself on his lips. He rips his jacket off and you tear at the rest of his clothes until he's as naked as you are. You line his perfect cock up with your entrance, but he hesitates.

"I don't want to do it wrong."

"Think of everything you've learned so far. Be gentle. Go slow. Feel the sensations instead of just driving towards an orgasm. And watch my body for cues." He nods and slowly starts to push into you. You moan as he fills you up and you stretch around him. He starts to pump in and out of you.

"Hmm." He makes a strange face again.

"What?"

"This feels so much better."

"Imagine that." You both smile and he kisses you again.

"Does it always have to be this slow?"

"No. You can go faster and really give it to me, but it needs to be because you're feeling the passion, not just because you're trying to rush through it."

"So, if I do this..." He holds one of your hips with his hand and picks up speed, slamming into you with increasing intensity.

"Yes. God, yes that's good." You grab him and kiss him deeply again and the passion builds between you. Both of you begin to sweat and he watches as your breasts bounce with his thrusts.

"Do you wanna get on top, maybe?"

"Yes." You push him backwards and he sits with his back against the headboard. You put one knee on either side of his hips and he grabs yours and lowers you onto his cock. You bounce on him and his hands go to your breasts again.

"God, honey, that's so good." You grind against him, pushing him deeper and deeper while he kisses your shoulder.

"You like that, baby?" You ask, moaning softly. Again, you forget you're supposed to be giving him lessons.

"I do. Is it good for you?" He asks as he runs his hand through your hair.

"Yes." He smiles.

"I'm gonna cum soon, honey."

"Okay. So when you do, try to direct it to one spot on my body."

"Yes ma'am. Where do you want it?" You pull off and lay with your stomach on the bed. He smiles and climbs on top of you, finding your entrance from behind. He starts with long, deep strokes as he kisses your back. After a few seconds, he picks up speed and reaches around you to gently squeeze your breast again as he continues to press his lips to your shoulder.

"I'm gonna cum. Oh, fuck!" He pulls out quickly and pumps his cock as he directs his release onto your lower back. "Yes, y/n, god, yes!"

He rolls over onto his back, his chest glistening with sweat. Without prompting, he jumps out of bed and grabs a towel to clean you up. He's still breathing heavily when he lays back down next to you and you roll over onto your side next to him. You put your hand on his chest and he grabs it and kisses your fingers.

"Was that any better?"

"That was much better."

"Yes!" He does a fist pump. You roll out of bed and start to gather your clothes. "You wanna stay?"

He's not sure where that came from or why he said it. All he knows is that something about you makes him feel relaxed in a way he never has before. He wants more of that feeling.

"Oh, umm, no thanks. I'll see you in the morning?" His smile falls a little bit.

"Yeah, sure." He gets up and puts his pants on to walk you to the door. When you get there, he pulls you to him and kisses you deeply one last time.

"Goodnight, Mike."

"You too, honey." He closes the door and then stands with his back against it. Why do you make him feel this way?

******

Even the guys notice that things between you and Mike have improved. You laugh and flirt and the next few shows you play have a better energy than they have in weeks.

What they don't know is you're giving Mike sex lessons every couple nights and have been for the last two weeks. He proves to be a pretty good student and he tries hard to implement what he's learned. Sometimes his attempts fail miserably, but you both just laugh and keep moving. He revels in the freedom he has with you to try and fail and still wind up in your arms again a few nights later. He's never really had a relationship before, so he's blindsided by the way he feels when you tell him you have a date and can't come to his room that night.

"But, honey, I thought we had a date?"

"Did you...? Do you..? Mike do you think we're dating?" He blushes a deep pink and goes back to packing up your drum kit, which he has started doing recently.

"No, I just..." His disappointment is palpable.

"Do you want me to cancel it?" You're not sure why you said that. You have no reason to actually date Mike McCoy.

"No! No, it's fine. I'm fine. Have fun." He finishes packing up and goes to get a drink. There's a weird feeling of guilt or sadness or something that settles in your stomach.

Mike decides it might be time to test out what you've taught him, so he goes to the bar and starts chatting up several different girls. He's not feeling particularly drawn to any of them, though, and he starts to really wish you were there. Still, by the end of the night, he's narrowed it down to a sweet little thing with blonde curls and big blue eyes.

Back at the room, she kisses him and he tries to remember everything you've taught him. He imagines your voice telling him to be gentle and go slow and really feel the woman he's touching. Eventually he opens his eyes and he sees you instead of the girl he's actually with. Suddenly, it gets easier to remember your lessons. He reads her body for cues and adjusts as necessary, just like you said, but he still can't get the image of you out of his head. She makes all the right noises and he can tell that her orgasm is authentic. But what should've made him glow with pride really just disappointed him that it's not you he's doing this with. He shakes his head to try to refocus and goes back to what he's doing. But when he cums, he has to work very hard not to moan your name.

He rolls onto his back, sweating and she laughs.

"That was incredible." He pops his head up.

"Really? You're not just sayin' that?"

"No. That was amazing." She rolls onto his chest. "I could stay. We could have round two in the morning?"

He's never had a girl volunteer to stay and have sex with him again. Something about what you taught him worked. He knows he should say yes, but he just can't. The only woman he wants in his bed is you. So, he does something he's never done before and says no to sex with a pretty girl, sending her on her way confused and disappointed.

He hopes your date was really bad.

******

The next morning, you do a morning walk of shame and the guys are already in your room waiting for breakfast. Mike looks at you, tries to say something but can't, and then looks away quickly. The other two laugh and make jokes about you showing up in clothes from the night before. You're surprised when Mike doesn't join them.

"Shut up, guys." Honestly, he's tired of thinking about you with another man, but he knows that can't be his excuse. "Y'know, just... leave her alone."

The rest of breakfast goes by in awkward silence.

As you go to leave the motel and travel to your next destination, Mike grabs you and pulls you aside.

"How was your date?"

"Oh it was gr-"

"Never mind. I really don't want to know. My night was terrible."

"Oh? What happened?"

"I brought a girl home."

"Ohhh and you forgot everything I taught you?" He purses his lips.

"No. I remembered everything. It was great. She wanted to stay and do it again."

"I'm confused." You shake your head, puzzled. Mike looks like he might explode if he doesn't open his mouth and say something, but he also stays quiet. He shifts from one foot to the other nervously. "Mike, just-"

"She wasn't you." Your mouth pops open.

"She wasn't me?"

"No. The whole time I just kept thinkin'... I just wanted you." You're not quite sure what to do with this information.

"Mike..."

"I think I want..." He looks up at the sky and sighs deeply. "I think I want to, y'know, be with you."

"Are you asking me to be your girlfriend?"

"Yeah. Or my wife. Someday. I don't know I just know that I want you. For a long time. And I don't want anyone else to have you. Ever." You stand there staring at him in shock. Did he really just say wife?

"I thought you didn't want to get married."

"Yeah, I know, but then I met you. And I need you with me, so I think that means we should get married, right?" You laugh a little. He really might be the cutest man you've ever encountered.

"I think it means we should try being in a relationship first. And maybe that'll lead to marriage."

"Are you saying yes?" You think long and hard about your answer. But you'd be lying if you said you weren't thinking about Mike the whole time you were with your date. There's just something about him. You imagine walking down the aisle to him at the end of it in a tuxedo. There are worse things.

"I'm saying yes... to the girlfriend part! We'll see about the marriage."

"Really, honey?" He's practically giddy with excitement.

"Yes." He picks you up by the waist and spins you around. Then he sets you down and kisses you deeply. When you pull back, you look up at him and smirk. "You need more practice anyway."

******

The End

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Taglist:

@ccab @elvisfatass @60svintage @deltafalax @aliypop @rjmartin11 @your-nanas-house @tacozebra051 @18lkpeters @dkayfixates @joshuntildawn13 @lookingforrainbows @littlehoneyposts @epthedream69 @louisejoy86 @from-memphis-with-love

[thehuntfortrencherlostmedia]

The Origins, Ramsay Fiction & The Confusing Mishmash of Everything Before Fix Me - A Marianas Trench Retrospective

Okay, so my post got likes, but I only got one actual response from anyone, agreeing with me on the fact they like things in chronological order. So, I guess it's time to talk about the bands early days, eh?

The truth of the matter is, the band as many know them started in late 2003 and early 2004. Anything before that gets placed in this weird murky middle section with a name change, members leaving, and also a complete and utter mess of when Ramsay Fiction came to an end and where Marianas Trench begins. We have located a demo disk from 2001 with the Marianas name on it, but we also don't have any dates as to when certain things were recorded or uploaded onto MP3.com.

Here's what we do know: Josh Ramsay, a teenager dealing with both an addiction to heroin and an eating disorder, loved music from a young age. His father owned a recording studio, and his mother was a vocal coach. Music was literally in his blood, but even though the two had connections into the industry and everything, he set out to make it into the business on his own. And he knew one thing for certain: He DID NOT want to be a solo act, he wanted to be in a band.

The issue for Josh was getting that band together. At first, it was him and his sister Sara (backup vocals), her then boyfriend and later husband Trevor Spilchen (on bass, even though he was a guitar player), Josh's friend Steve Marshall (on guitar and backup vocals, despite being a BASSIST), and a rotating list of drummers, eventually finding Ian Casselman in a series of classifieds in a newspaper late into the bands life. This lineup didn't last long, as once Sara became pregnant with her and Trevor's first kid, they stepped aside... leading to 2 new members joining: Josh's friend Matt Webb (originally a keyboardist), and Steve's pal Morgan Hempstead (the man who bestowed them the Marianas Trench name). It's tough to say who plays what on a lot of the Ramsay Fiction tracks that make up Cooler Than Me, as I think they come from two different recording sessions, if not more. Same goes for a lot of the self-titled EP work too, as we know at least two tracks from that era, an early recording of Fix Me, and a early recording of Skin & Bones, were both first made public to people in 2004... months after Steve and Morgan left, and Mike Ayley joined the group after getting to know everyone as Ian's roommate.

In fact, for the longest time, a lot of the Ramsay Fiction stuff was lost media, songs that nobody outside of a rare few had ever heard. As of April 1st this year, this is no longer the case, and all the songs have been found and preserved (yes, even PMS... despite it being taken off Youtube, has been saved.)

To talk about these songs is hard. There's definitely a lot of emotion and pain in these tracks, and the overall sound is very 90's, going for more of heavy grunge and alternate rock sound, very reminiscent of Matthew Goode. But you can also hear those other elements creep in from other acts Josh has referenced time and time throughout in small snippets. The biggest thing holding a lot of these songs back is a mix of production (which is still insanely impressive for the time period and the fact it was done by a teen no less), and lyrical ckunkiness, making them semi hard to decipher.

What do I mean by this? Take track 1, the one everyone knows: Primetime. The song's verses speak about how something is this, but the person is the opposite... bu we don't get a clear picture of who the person is.. only that supposedly a hit of heroin will make everything feel better. It's odd that this is the song that's somehow lasted the test of time out of all these tracks. But hey, it did lead to a great callback on End of An Era.

Track 2, Shiny Like Dirt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG-OoIsFbow), is truly a song where Josh took a ton of ideas he had for songs, and threw it against the wall to see if it would stick. And... it does stick, but also doesn't? The chorus is super catchy, basically admitting he's a confusing person, and that nothing he does makes sense... and yet, despite it all, he still has fears of the unknown. The "coming up for air" bridge is probably my favourite part, but it's definitely an earworm I return to occasionally. I've also linked it in case you've yet to hear it.

Track 3: Shallow. The song we've known about for the longest time, the one the fandom cherished like a baby... and honestly, it's probably my least favourite? I've tried to decipher the lyrics on this one for ages, but I can't come up with anything concrete. I do think the song has a good tone, and the guitar solo is totally awesome. In fact, there's a lot of great guitar and bass work throughout a lot of these songs. But there's something missing for me on this one.

Track 4: Playing Dead. This seems to be the earliest recorded song of this bunch, going off Josh's voice here. And honestly, I think it's the closest tonally to a current day Marianas Trench song. There's a bit of a swing sound going on in the drums, the harmonies.... and it's an interesting number overall. Also, it's our clearest sampling of Steve's voice, and just how close it is to Matt's vocals xD... it seems to be a simple love song about a girl and how he's open to roleplaying almost anything with her, using "playing dead" as his main metaphor. It's the black sheep of the CD, but a good one.

Track 5: Hideous. Here we go... the first track Josh ever wrote about his bulimia and depression... and how it was eating him from the inside... and how he was asking for help, even though he wasn't fully ready to accept it at the time. The beginning parts are very slow, and methodical.... only for the song to pick up energy in it's second half and become truly one of the standouts on this album.

Track 6: PMS. Okay... so... this one is tough to talk about. We knew for years it was supposedly very comedic in nature and that it was also politically incorrect, but that was it. For those of you who still have not heard it, there's a copy of it in this Discord server in the links and archive section: https://discord.gg/d5M3xVN9

As for the song itself, I personally really love it. It's a song about Josh being petty to a girl and truthfully telling her off. It's definitely of its time period, but in the best way possible. And once again, the guitar work here is SO GOOD. If you can stomach a song that truly is a time capsule and understand that Josh would never write anything as juvenile today, give it a listen.

Track 7: Don't Touch Me. The song that holds a special place in my heart... as I was the one to LOCATE IT after 18 years in the massive pile of MP3.com links that were given to the Internet Archive in 2021. And it's a ballad all about Josh dealing with both the arguments and turmoil he would feel when coming down from getting high. Truthfully, this might be the most emotional song of this batch, and one that definitely sticks its landing.

So, my overall thoughts here are to give these songs a listen, and understand them for what they are: the start of a musical prodigy finding his footing and his sense of style while getting clean and hoping somebody, anybody, would give him a chance. While the tone might not have influenced Josh’s style fully going forward, there are elements from these songs that were taken and repurposed into later Trench tracks.

Luckily, and also sadly... Jonathan Simkin & Chad Kroeger gave him that chance. And thus, we got ourselves a self titled EP... and a full title debut. But that'll be next time.

[gameyface46]

Hey, they look pretty good together!

So yeah. Good Together by Lake Street Dive released a few weeks ago, and this was supposed to come out in June for the June project, but I’m counting it for June so I don’t have an excuse to not do a July project.

The roles were picked based on the 30th Anniversary Music Festival art, so Dedede represents drummer Mike Calabrese, Bandee represents pianist Akie Bermiss, etc. Marx is actually really cute! I should draw him more. He’s representing bassist Bridget Kearney here.

I actually really like how this turned out. This was supposed to be finished in a day, but… I couldn’t.

Signed and color versions below the read more!

Yes it is read Cake Street Dive.

Now, thoughts on Good Together? I love it.

They really know how to start a song off. Most opening instrumental is so funky! I really like it! Favorite song is hard to pick… Dance with a Stranger, Seats at the Bar, Far Gone, Good Together… they all are great! Set Sail is so… wistful… I love it so much! It was the PERFECT album closer. Help Is On The Way is so groovy… ach! I love this album. The only song I kinda disregard is Twenty Five. Wistful like Set Sail, but personally not my cup of tea. I don’t prefer overly sad songs. But it’s still good, don’t get me wrong. But I won’t have it on loop like every other song. Please listen to Lake Street Dive if you have the chance! New favorite band besides Sammy Rae and the Friends. Hey, if you like them, I think you’ll like this group too!

Now for other matters.

Playing OneShot. Pretty good game so far. Niko is SO CUTE. Cold take, I know, but it’s the truth. The character designer designed so hard when creating them. Also I’m going in blind, which is a treat. I hear the story is VERY important, so yeah. I watched the Ace Attorney anime before playing the game, ruined it for me. Playing the Apollo Justice trilogy was a treat.

AAI2 released in the West, very glad about that. You KNOW I’m getting it.

That’s basically June, so see ya, and GOOD LUCK MY EARTHLY COMRADES! THE SUN IS COMING.

♪ We could be good together! ♪

also wtf there’s a tag limit.

[aishnico]

#𝙅𝙀𝙍𝙍𝙔 𝘾𝘼𝙉𝙏𝙍𝙀𝙇𝙇: 𝘵𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘬 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯

» summary: you promised to be by your boyfriend’s side, even though you weren’t together anymore (?)

» word count: 3k

» warnings: fluff, major angst towards the end (w/a happy ending, i guess?), alcohol & drugs, grammar issues

— 1988

"come onnn, you should definitely go with me. they are all amazing, i'm not saying these because my brother is in there." your friend, melinda, was trying to convince you to go to show of her bassist brother mike's and her drummer boyfriend, sean's new band.

"i don't know, mel, tomorrow evening i will be hella exhausted from work and i don't think i will have enough energy to go see them."

"i can take you there with cab after work!" she suggested. you shrugged. "then, maybe..." she didn't even let you finish and hugged you. "you won't regret it! you know how good my brother is at bass, and this guy, layne, oh my god... you would be fascinated by him i swear. and the guitarist, jerry, he's—"

"okay, okay. let it be a surprise to me."

like you told yourself, you were exhausted as hell. gladly you saw melinda inside a cab and she was waving at you. you smiled and entered the cap, sat next to her.

after about 40 minutes you arrived at the place. you grabbed drinks for you two and stood close to the stage. you really wanted to go and rest, or sitting somewhere here, at least

a couple of minutes later, the show started. melinda was right, you were fascinated by their frontman's voice. he was a brunette man with big, blue eyes. his voice was just, so unique and powerful you couldn't even describe it.

then you laid your eyes on the blond guitarist with blue eyes. he was wearing a white vest and revealing his torso. you first watched how his fingers were moving on the neck of his guitar. he was absolutely talented. you then looked at his face. damn, you thought. his platinum yellow hair was looking majestic while he was headbanging. your cheeks flushed and you felt melinda's smirk on you. you shake your head and start to pay attention to the rest of the band.

after about 30 minutes, the show ended. you clapped at them loudly like everyone else. they really were something else. you felt like they were going to be an impactful band in the future.

"come on, you already know mike and sean. let me meet you with layne and jerry." you wanted to protest at first but she was already dragging you backstage. when you two approached the guys, melinda hugged everyone except her boyfriend, sean. she kissed him and you saw mike's gaze at them. you then hugged mike and sean. melinda then coughed. "jerry, layne, this is [name]. a good friend of mine and mike's."

"hi, nice to meet you!" layne smiled at you. you returned the smile at him. "nice to meet you too. i, i don't know how to say but i've never heard a voice like yours, you're very talented." you saw his cheeks get slightly pinkish and responded with a cheerful thanks.

"let's get some drinks!" you heard sean's voice and started to follow him. jerry was walking beside you. "hi," you muttered to him. "what's up?" he responded. "nothing much, i should ask you this. how do you feel after your first show?" he yawned. "it wasn't my first show but today was great." you pressed your lips together. "okay," you simply answered and found nothing to talk about.

you never talked again, or let's say when you would encounter, you would talk 2 sentences. you thought he didn't like you, or you were just boring to him.

it was until one day, you were at a vinyl shop, the owner of the shop let you put rumours by fleetwood mac on the phonograph. you were dancing and care less about the people who were watching you. you then met with jerry's crystal blue eyes and his smile.

"you like fleetwood mac?" he asked.

"i love fleetwood mac." you answered while smiling at him.

that's how you become close. you talked about your favorite bands, and you learnt that you and him were listening to the same bands mostly. when he asked you what other music genres you're listening to, you told him that you like country music. and he immediately knew he wanted to know and meet you more.

the guys were shocked. because they thought you two didn't like each other. and look at you two now, you were sitting next to each other. you were playing an old, country song on an acoustic guitar while he was singing the lyrics with his angelic voice. layne sure had a powerful voice, but he couldn't sing peacefully like jerry right now, you thought.

sometimes, you would invite him over to listen to your favourite bands, he then either would sing, or play the song you wanted on acoustic guitar. music was the most important thing to connect you two.

you later discovered that he was great at arcade games you were great at too. so you would challenge him often. and the person who lost had to either buy a drink or food.

it came to the point where you would just invite him over and cook for him, or he would take you out to a good place (one day, he invited you over to their apartment and tried to cook for you, but it didn't result good. so when he would come over to you, you would teach him how to cook properly.)

after a while, you decided that you had mixed feelings about him. he was silly, talented, creative, and a good person. you loved his presence. and you loved him. but did you love him as a friend, or as a lover?

eventually, you decided you loved him as a lover.

two years later, they released their first album, facelift. it had a huge impact on the grunge scene for sure. you knew it from the beginning. you all met at your usual bar, celebrating their success. you then realized jerry was quieter than usual. you wanted to talk with him after.

everyone was either asleep or drunk. you were the only sober person there. when you looked at jerry, he was tipsy. "jer, is everything alright?" you asked him worried. he gulped and then looked at you.

"i, i don't know where to start." he mumbled softly. you then caressed his hands. "it's okay, take your time. you know i won't judge you." he nodded.

"i believe we did something really explosive. and i don't know what our way is going to be after this. i always wanted to be a rockstar. but this rockstar life makes me wonder about our future. what if some of us die because of alcohol or drugs? i don't want that, i want all of us to be together in the future." he then stopped and caressed your hand. this action made your cheeks flush.

"and i want you by my side too, now and ever. i love you, [name]" he said looking deeply into your eyes. you couldn't help but smile to yourself. "i've loved you first." he leaned close to your face. "but i'm pretty sure i've fallen in love with you harder." he smiled at you, your foreheads then touching.

"i promise to always be by your side, even if we break up in the future."

he grunted. "and i promise, i won't let it happen."

and before he could, you connected your lips slowly. he wasn't surprised so he kissed you back. after a couple of seconds, you heard someone's whistle. it was layne, he was smirking at you two. you didn't pull still, you didn't want to.

— 1996

promises were made to be broken, you thought. both of you couldn't keep your promises.

after releasing their first album, they got hella popular. they've attended various shows and tours, made friends from the music world. and besides their drinking habit, they've added drugs into their habits. these wouldn't reflect their career at that time, though.

but things got serious then. mike already had his drug habit before the release of facelift. and it got worse. in the beginning of 1993, he left. (or should you say 'fired'?) their new bassist's name was also mike. you liked him, he was talented and a humble guy. but the thing is, he kinda looked like old mike and it made seem pretty weird to you, at least.

you didn't even realize how your relationship with jerry got into after the release of jar of flies. he would come back to your arms again after an exhausting day, but he started to barely talk to you. you thought maybe he was just exhausted. but no,

not only that, when you two would go on dates, he would look soulless, or bored. you knew he was having a busy and hard time and you were trying to make him happy in the simplest ways. but you felt like it was going to nowhere. you were tired of picking up him from bars, being his trip sitter, and begging him to stop all of this. you were having a hard time in your work too. eventually, you got fired.

words could not express how furious you were. you were furious at your life, job, boss, and even your boyfriend. and seeing him after a rough day with a blonde girl, lying on his chest in your shared house, absolutely didn't help your problems.

"[name], please listen to me." he was trying to talk to you with a pleading and tired voice. but you just kept ignoring him. you were trying to find an empty cap on the busy roads of seattle.

"she's my cousin, god damn it!"

"cousin, my ass! why you didn't ever tell me about her then?! are you keeping things hidden from me, is this what we became now?!"

"i haven't seen her for almost 20 years! i only have her picture from our childhood, and i'm pretty sure i showed her before. i swear!"

you just rolled your eyes, not even looking at him. to your luck, an empty cab approached you. he grabbed your wrist and made you look at him. his eyes were bloodshot now. you didn't know if it was from cocaine or something else.

"i'm sorry, jeremy. i promised to be always by your side, but i don't think i could keep this promise anymore. i'm sorry, i'm sure that you'll find your true one." you said before entering the cab.

you came to pack your things from your house the next morning when you broke up with jerry. you found him wasted on floors. when he woke up, he held your leg, refusing you to leave and begging you to stay with him. you felt sorry for him, but you were tired of all of this. you had to leave even if he was right. and you hated yourself.

you then moved and found a new job in new york. you felt so lucky and you worked your ass hard not to lose your job again. in summer, you saw alice in chains on mtv unplugged. when you looked at their faces, you thought they were so done, so done with all of this. they weren't looking full of enthusiasm like in the old days.

and layne's girlfriend, demri's death absolutely didn't help to this situation. she also was your friend so you wanted to attend her funeral. but guess what? you were already on a business trip so you couldn't go. you could manage to go there after a couple of days. and when you went to see layne, well, you actually couldn't recognize him first. he was screaming and crying. his eyes got bloodshot. you felt so bad for him.

you then went to see the rest of the band. they were looking helpless. you hugged sean and mike but hesitated to hug jerry. you stayed with them for a while. you tried to support them as emotionally as possible you could. layne was yelling at all of you. he was yelling at guys that they didn't care about him, they cared about their frontman. and he was yelling at you for leaving them years ago and not attending her funeral.

it wasn't true, you thought. they all loved layne. especially jerry, he was his best friend after all. you knew it was making his heart broken when he saw him like this. you felt like you needed him to talk personally. you saw him at balcoon all alone, so you made tea for both of you. and went next to him.

"i hope this eases you even for a little." you said looking outside. "nothing can ease me right now." he responded. his voice sounded raspy. from cigarettes and some other shit, you thought.

"you just need to be by his side, he eventually will understand the truth."

he didn't say anything for a while. "then why did you leave me at that time, i really needed you."

"you know why i left, jeremy. i can't keep up with your shitty habits. not only is it killing you, it also kills me." he again didn't say anything. "are you happy there?" you shaked your head. "not even a little. two years have passed and i still feel like i don't belong there."

"then move here again, i don't ask you to be with me again. i just need to be around you again. didn't you say you would be by my side even if we broke up in the future, keep it again.”

you chuckled and turned your head at him. "i already broke it, i'm a shitty girlfriend, i guess." he chuckled too. "if you think that you're a shitty girlfriend, i don't imagine myself how a boyfriend i am." you two laughed. he then gently caressed your hand. "please, i need you." you thought about it. your new company's branch office was here too. maybe you could talk with your boss about it. "i'll think about it." you said while smiling at him.

your boss was kind enough to assign you in seattle. you started to set things to right again. guys helped you too. and you started to hang out with them like usual. but you started to see layne less and less.

you saw him again when jerry released his debut album. he looked more unrecognisable to you. even though he continued to live, he couldn't move on from demri's death.

— 2002

they had been on hiatus for the last 6 years now, everyone was at different projects, except layne. you didn't know what was he doing right now. you would check on him yourself or with jerry often, but he would always not have the energy to talk with you. he was like a walking dead.

in 19th of april, it just became dead. he actually died two weeks ago. you couldn't describe how you and others felt.

it broke all of you. you lost your best friend now and ever. you wish you could force him to go to rehab. you would try to convince him but he was just not listening to you. it felt like you were stabbed from your heart. nothing would make him come back.

the guys were more broken than you. they were closer to him than you were to him, after all. they lost their layne, their star, their soul... even though you were broken such as them, you still needed to be by their side.

you went to the funeral. the other thing that broke you was layne and demri were actually supposed to marry here. his family, his bandmates, and other friends from the music world were there. you hugged his mother, nancy, and the guys too. you couldn't find jerry.

you sat with them for a while. trying to support them with your words. then, you saw jerry outside. he came here from his tour.

"hey..." you approached him and touched his arm. he didn't look at you. he didn't say anything. but you knew, you knew he wanted to cry however much he wanted.

"i know you two were best friends. you were everything to him, so he was to you. so it's okay to let your emotions out. nobody would judge you, jer." you then opened your arms at him. he looked at you slowly and you tried to put a smile on your face. but you felt like your eyes got filled. his eyes too,

he then quickly hugged you. he was sobbing and mumbling this like "i've loved him so much, i wish he listened to us when we offered him to go to rehab. why do i have to lose the people i love the most? my grandmother, mother, layne..." he then continued to cry.

you caressed his back gently. after a couple of minutes, he calmed down for a bit. you held his hands.

"you won't lose anyone, you won't lose sean, the mikes, and your other friends. well, i can't promise it. but i can promise you one thing, you won't lose me. and i want you to promise me too, promise me i won't lose you. get clean, i beg you. my heart can't take it anymore." you didn't realize but you were crying too. he hugged you tightly.

"i will, i promise." he then kissed your cheek and then connected your foreheads.

"thank you, [name], for being by my side" you smiled at him. "always," you responded. "i know it's not a good time to ask but, do you think we can try again?" he asked.

you just smiled at him and took his hand to yours. "we will talk about when you'll come back after your tour." you leaded together to the stage where nancy and chris from soundgarden were singing ring them bells and wild horses together. it was a great tribute.

and you couldn't wait for his return, to talk with him about getting together again.

[black-arcana]

DISTURBED Shares Video Of 'Don't Tell Me' Performance With HALESTORM's LZZY HALE In Brisbane, Australia

DISTURBED has shared video of the March 24 performance of the "Divisive" album track "Don't Tell Me", featuring a guest appearance by HALESTORM's Lzzy Hale, at Knotfest Australia in Brisbane, Australia. Check out the clip below.

DISTURBED played "Don't Tell Me" with Lzzy for the first time three days earlier at Knotfest Australia in Melbourne. A short time later, DISTURBED singer David Draiman shared a couple of backstage and onstage photos of him with Lzzy and he included the following message: "Thanks so much to @officiallzzyhale of @halestormrocks for absolutely nailing @annwilson 's part in #donttellme last night at @knotfestau".

In January, DISTURBED released the Matt Mahurin-directed music video for "Don't Tell Me". The song, an epic emotionally charged duet with HEART's Ann Wilson, marked the first time the band had included a guest feature on an LP.

Regarding how the collaboration with Wilson came about, DISTURBED drummer Mike Wengren told Terrie Carr of WDHA-FM 105.5 FM: "That was always supposed to be the 'power ballad,' per se. And as we were tracking it in the studio, David just threw out the idea, 'Hey, let's do a duet on this song.' We've tossed around the idea before, but there wasn't ever either the right material or the right time. So in this particular case, we kind of said, 'Well, who you've got in mind?' And he didn't even have a list; he just had one person, and that was Ann. It was a no-brainer. 'Hey, let's hit up Ann. Let's see if she'd be into it.' And she was on board right away; we didn't have to convince her."

Mike continued: "[David and Ann] sort of struck up a bit of a friendship, a little bit of a rapport. When [DISTURBED cover version of] 'The Sound Of Silence' came out years back and had its success, she was one of many artists and celebrities that took it up themselves to go on Twitter and praise the song and praise our version of it, which we couldn't have been more honored. Iconic, legendary Ann Wilson thinks that we did a great job with a SIMON & GARFUNKEL cover. That's pretty incredible, a pretty great honor. So when we reached out to her, she was more than willing to jump on board. And she came in and she killed it… And she's super cool and down to earth too, and just incredibly talented. It's such an honor to have her be on our record. And to me, the blending of her voice and David's voice, they really, really work so well together. I'm so proud of David and just so honored to have her a part of our record."

In September 2022, DISTURBED guitarist Dan Donegan, whose divorce inspired "Don't Tell Me", told Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station about the band's collaboration with Wilson: "Early in our career, we wanted to really establish ourselves without having any guests. We didn't really talk about it much, but just [felt], 'This is the band.' Not that we were ever against it, but this far along in our career… We're always pushing ourselves, trying to do stuff that's different musically. And there's so much talent out there and so many people we would love to do collaborations with now or later in our career.

"Ann Wilson had mentioned before — she tweeted about us before," he continued. "A few years back, somebody asked her in an interview or whatever if there's anything new out there, or newer, musically that she's heard that she's fan of, and she mentioned she really loved our version of 'The Sound Of Silence'. And that kind of opened the door to a social media friendship between her and David a bit. And then when we wrote this song, it just seemed like it would lend itself to Ann's voice and then trying to see that merge between her and David's voices together. She jumped on the opportunity. Immediately she responded, and we were, like, 'Holy shit. She just said yes to this.'"

Asked by Meltdown if "Don't Tell Me" is a more mellow track than the standard DISTURBED fare, Dan said: "I can't give it away, but their voices, it's like Fergie and Jesus — a little 'Step Brothers' [2008 movie] quote there… It was a pretty magical moment to be in the room and to hear the two of them harmonize together.

"We tracked David's vocals in Nashville, and we wanted to make it easy and convenient for her, 'cause we were, like, she said yes, she's gonna do it," Donegan continued. "Let's make it as easy as possible on her.' We flew out to California to meet with her. We went into a studio out there for just a couple of hours, and she sang against David's tracks. And he was there kind of going over the harmonies with her and stuff too. So it was kind of a really magical moment to see the two of them working on those harmonies together. It was pretty impressive. And she's such a pro, and she's so damn good. She's a legend. So it was pretty exciting. And it's not like she sits there and jumps on people's albums either, so we take that as a badge of honor to think that there's not many times where somebody as big a legend as she is that she would jump on any album. She doesn't have to, and she chose to be on this one. And she loves the track. And it just came together great."

Released in November 2022, "Divisive" was recorded earlier that year with producer Drew Fulk (MOTIONLESS IN WHITE, LIL PEEP, HIGHLY SUSPECT) in Nashville, Tennessee.

According to Billboard, "Divisive" sold 26,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release, with 22,000 units via album sales.

On the all-format Billboard 200 chart, "Divisive" debuted at No. 13.

DISTURBED has had five No. 1s on the all-genre chart, beginning with "Believe" in 2002.

[beyondthemic]

The Emptiness Machine

Yeesh. Linkin Park has had a MONTH.

On reflection, I like the Emptiness Machine, the new single. It's definitely Minutes to Midnight vibes. More simple guitar licks and nothing crazy, but definitely still LP. I do like the split of vocal duties between Mike… and the new… EMILY. They seem to fit pretty well together, and if this indication of what's to come.. I'm excited for this album. I mean, it's new LP. How can you not be at least somewhat excited?

I do think a buddy of mine is right though - with a new singer, honor Chester's legacy and create a new band. Let LP be LP and make a new thing. Everyone will still know it's LP, and its hard to imagine that you'd 'drop' fans because people don't know who you are, so there is some stomach churning that this does feel like a cash grab from Mr. Shinoda more than anything. I mean, of course he wants to make music, and has continued to do so, but like, you just couldn't do a new thing? What's the PRO of keeping the LP name? You're not continuing exactly as you were.. you've got a new singer, a new drummer, the guitarist isn't coming back.. so .. it's new, isn't it? IDK - that does feel a bit icky to me. I half get it, but still.

However, to Emily's credit.. I think she does pretty decent job replicating Chester's vocal range (minus his low low end which is why I think you've heard some key changes on a few tracks), and has some cool grit that carries pretty decently. And having never heard of Dead Sara before (who's apparently been around for quite some time!?) the girl definitely has chops that she can translate what she was clearly comfortable doing in a past band, to what LP is. You also gotta give her some credit here. She's stepping in ABSOLUTELY massive shoes to fill. The confidence that this girl has to have and the armor to go out there and sing Chester's stuff has got to be hard. Maybe that's a bit of what scientology offers a person? Man that was an interesting controversy too - LP (and Mike) HAD TO HAVE KNOWN that was coming and it just seems like either they didn't think it'd blow up in the way that it did, or .. IDK man. I feel like her apology post was about as good as it could have been, but the whole mess does still rub you in slightly the wrong way, and for a return announcement of one the biggest bands in the world, to have TWO issues that make you feel .. not the best, is probably not the best.

I mean, at the end of the day, i'm still a music guy at heart. So, of course not forgiving behavior, but if the music is awesome, i'll keep listening. I just hate it when people are assholes. So, hoping Mike is doing this for the right reasons and the legacy of this great band won't be tainted in the wrong way.

[doomedandstoned]

Albuquerque’s BLUE HERON Reveals Gnarly New Music Video “Dinosaur”

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Get ready for gritty heavy rock from Albuquerque with a new album from BLUE HERON. Raspy, terrifying roars meet brooding, turbulent low end. "Dinosaur," the band's latest music video, comes midway through the new 9-tracker, 'Everything Fades' (2024), their second full-length, which is just about as down to earth as you could ask for.

"Dinosaur" begins ominously with a dank, questioning riff that leads into a mysterious cool-of-the-morning desert-stoner metal groove, with bittersweet bluesy touches throughout the song. Jadd Shickler's vocals are reminiscent of those epic early High on Fire tracks, somewhat cleaner than Matt Pike's singing approach but no less gravelly and fearsome. Meanwhile Mike Chavez on guitar and Steve Schmidlapp on bass rustle up a storm of gut splitting heft, driven by a fierce and determined rhythm from drummer Ricardo Sanchez.

Towards the 4 minute mark things get slow and doomy like the steady advance of pregnant rain clouds draping across the sky, perhaps an omen of whatever great and mysterious calamity befell the alpha predator's of planet earth's past (and a warning that we too may go the way of the dinosaurs).

Blue Heron's Everything Fades is rooted in the mood and verve of the High Desert. The band's sound on this record has a tangible feeling of mass, weight, and depth. It comes out on September 27th on Blues Funeral Recordings and can be pre-ordered on vinyl, compact disc, and digital formats right here. Stick it on a playlist with High on Fire, Egypt, Lamassu, Forming The Void, and Red Messa.

Give ear...

SOME BUZZ

Blue Heron expand on their unyielding desert sound with a new slab of propulsive, sun-scorched riff-heaviness. 'Everything Fades' (2024) finds the band reveling in low-tuned roil and amplifier hum, churning out swerving grooves as if the primordial spirit of the desert itself compels them.

Balanced between laid-back, meditative atmospherics and heavier, more aggressive lunges, Blue Heron’s cruising jams and gritty stoner romps call to mind echoes of Kyuss, Clutch and Monster Magnet, as well as modern contemporaries Valley of the Sun and Greenleaf.

Full of rhythmic intensity, sledgehammer riffing and vocals ranging from clean and moody to howling and raw, 'Everything Fades' covers a wide expanse of musical ground that shows how familiar influences can always be molded into inventive, exciting new forms.

Surrounded by endless horizons, Blue Heron formed in 2018 out of a compulsion to fill the vastness with massive volume, saturating their piece of desert with rolling, thunderous riffs, drums that pummel and swing, deep, thrumming tones and vocals that rip and roar.

Everything Fades by Blue Heron

Blue Heron’s guitarist and singer were founding members of Spiritu, possibly Albuquerque, New Mexico's first desert rock band, whose brief burn in the early aughts included a Jack Endino-produced LP, a European tour with Clutch, Spiritual Beggars and Dozer, and a compilation appearance alongside Entombed and Mastodon.

Their debut LP "Ephemeral" arrived in May of 2022 via Kozmik Artifactz in Europe and Seeing Red Records in the USA. Substantial appreciation in the underground led to performances at Ripplefest Texas and Monolith on the Mesa and opening slots for The Well, Elder, Black Mountain, Ruby the Hatchet, Howling Giant, Heavy Temple and The Obsessed, along with a swath of positive reviews throughout the heavy media.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

[multifandomrandomgirl]

The Ropes That Bind Us - Peter Tork x Female!Reader PART ONE

Thought I'd drop a Peter fanfic as he is my favourite and it's my birthday, so I have to celebrate by Peter Torking!

Masterlist

Cold.

Dark.

Peter gasped for air as he struggled against the ropes that bound him to the chair. He had no idea how he’d got himself into this situation yet again. “I’m just going to buy more bread.” He had told Michael as he opened the front door three hours earlier. Knowing his bandmates, they wouldn’t notice his absence for another few hours.

“Shit.” Peter groaned, his chair nearly tipping over as he continued to fight the rope. Suddenly, out of the darkness, he heard a feminine voice.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, if he sees the ropes loosen, he’ll tighten them so much that it’ll really hurt.”

Peter had expected to be alone in the dark room, so he jumped slightly at the sound of another voice.

“Who are you? How’d you know that?” Peter babbled. He was curious, he wanted to know everything; where he was, why he wasn’t alone et cetera.

“I’m Y/N. I know this because I’ve been trapped here a while, I have no clue how long. Do you know the date? But each time I struggle, he, whoever he is, tightens the ropes. He punishes me.” Y/N’s voice breaks slightly.

“Crap, I’m so sorry Y/N. I’m Peter. It’s the sixteenth of July nineteen-sixty-seven if that’s of any use.” Peter relaxes into his ropes, it brings him some comfort to know that he isn’t alone, but it also makes him sad, Y/N’s been alone for fuck knows how long.

“Fuck, nineteen-sixty-seven? I was taken in nineteen-sixty-four. Shit, I hadn’t realised it had been that long, it does feel like an eternity but I thought that was all down to the being alone in a dark room.” Y/N’s voice cracked more than it had done before.

Three years she’d been stuck here and no one had found her. He wondered if anyone had looked for her at all. Peter shook his hair, it made him fear that perhaps Mike, Micky, and Davy may never find him.

“I’m so sorry Y/N. I don’t know what to say, I’m angry that someone would do this to you, and that no one’s found you.”

“Hey, you found me! I know that isn’t a great thing as you’re now stuck in the same boat as me, but in a selfish way, I’m kinda glad that I have someone to talk to. It’s gotten boring talking to the walls, very one-sided.”

“It isn’t selfish that you’re happy you aren’t alone anymore. It’s not great that either of us are here, but you being here is helping me, I’m not as sacred now I know someone else is here.” He smiles in the direction of Y/N’s voice, before he remembered that she couldn’t see him, and he grimaced.

“So, Peter, tell me about yourself.” Y/N said softly, hoping to get to know her new friend.

“Well, let’s see. I was born February the thirteenth, nineteen-forty-two, making me an Aquarius. Um, I have hazel eyes, and dirty blonde hair, which my friends joke about because I’m the dummy, I always end up in stupid situations or say the wrong things. Anyway, I really love sushi and music! I’m in a band, I play piano, and bass, as well as a handful of other instruments.” The musician rambled. “What about you?”

Y/N gave him an equally as long rant,s he told him her birthday, star sign, her hair colour. She told him her favourite food and how she too was the dummy of her friend group, and always ended up in sticky situations. 

“Tell me about your band. I’m interested.” Y/N glanced towards the voice of her new companion.

“We’re called The Monkees, with two ‘e’s instead of a ‘y’. There’s me, Michael - our guitarist. Micky - our drummer and vocalist, and Davy - our resident fuckboy, I mean singer and maraca player.” Peter quickly corrects himself, making Y/N giggle.

Peter began to sing Saturday’s Child in an attempt to ease himself as well as introduce Y/N to his band’s music.

“You’ve got such a nice voice! I really like it.” Peter was thankful that it was dark as he felt his face heat up at the comment made by the girl.

“Thank you! Hey! Are you much of a singer?” He asked, secretly, he had hoped she’d say no out of fear of him pulling a Davy and falling in love.

“I used to be in a band in school, I was the guitarist and one of the lead vocalists.” Y/N began to sing ‘Words of Love’ by Buddy Holly.

Peter’s fear was correct, he felt a warmth in his heart as he slowly realised he was falling for someone that he had met only a matter of hours ago.

[warmglowofsurvival]

Twenty One Pilots’ Josh Dun Builds His Dream Studio, Part 2

Drums rule inside the Boom Boom Room, the new home facility of Twenty One Pilots drummer Josh Dun and his wife, voice artist Debby Ryan.

By: Steve Harvey

Ever since its 2015 breakthrough album Blurryface, Twenty One Pilots has been flying high with a string of platinum-selling albums and worldwide arena tours. There’s no knowing when the creative urge will strike, however, so both drummer Josh Dun and lead vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Tyler Joseph have home studios. Don’t pass up Part 1, which explores how Dun worked with Charlie Griffey of Griffey Remodeling, Josh Dun, TJ Bechill of NEAT Audio, and Gavin Haverstick of Haverstick Designs to create his ideal home facility, The Boom Boom Room; now let’s dive into how he puts the studio to good use.

SETTING UP TO RECORD

“Tyler and Josh don’t work with engineers; they work by themselves,” Bechill observes, noting that during his technical design process, he likes to understand an artist’s workflow and what tools they need. “I always build around the concept of the artist being able to walk into a room and ‘put pen to paper’ as quickly as possible.”

Bechill quizzed Dun about the favorite drum tones he had recorded in his favorite rooms before deciding what gear to load into the control room’s Dangerfox desk. “A lot of them featured vintage Neve consoles,” he recalls. “Josh has API and Audient pre’s in his studio in California, and he said, ‘I want transparency, but I also love the vintage vibe of a Neve console and the glue that you get from the transformers.’”

The desk’s lefthand bay houses two Rupert Neve Designs 500 Series racks holding 14 of the manufacturer’s 511 mic pre modules, with variable Silk control. “The Coles 4038 overhead mics go into a pair of 517 preamps, into 1176s and then into the converters,” he adds.

Mike Picotte, senior sales engineer, artist relations at Sweetwater, also consulted on gear choices, then tuned the control room with Smaart and optimized the DSP on the room’s PMC 6-2 main monitors. “PMC checked all the boxes and has been an incredible system,” Bechill says. “We don’t really mix in there, but we wanted an accurate reference. You can do multiple EQ settings, so we created two zones—one for the mix position and a second for the couch, if friends come in to listen to music.”

Picotte also dialed in the drum sounds. “After 15 minutes, Mike leans back and says, ‘Well, there you go,’” Bechill recalls. “There’s no processing on the tracks; it’s just a great room, great microphones, and solid preamps and conversion, so we saved it as a template. We’ve got a Furman sequencer, so now Josh walks in, turns one key and the whole studio turns on. Within seconds, he can press Record and sit down and play.”

Sweetwater sales engineer Patrick Cobley supplied much of the equipment and, with NEAT sales engineer John Krempel, helped assemble the control room during the two-day installation. Ryan’s brother, Chase, who works on the video side, designed the audio patchbay. “I love having a normalized patchbay where I don’t have to use cables if I don’t need to,” Bechill comments.

Speaking of patching, Bechill installed a dedicated Rupert Neve Designs Shelford Channel for Ryan’s voice work so that she didn’t have to disturb Dun’s signal flow. “She’s an absolute professional, but I wanted a channel strip so we could give her dynamic control in case she got too animated or too close to the mic. I really like the FET-style compressor in the Shelford, and I’ve always loved 1073-esque tones.”

Haverstick included a small vocal booth in the studio layout, which doubles as an amp closet for visiting guitarists, but Ryan can also take a shotgun or a lav mic into the live room: “She can do ADR in that room if her producers don’t want a completely sterile vocal booth environment.”

TRACKING DRUMS

The tracking space, a room-within-a-room design, looks out onto the woods surrounding the house and features a floating floor. Although Dun has tracked in big rooms like EastWest in Hollywood, Haverstick says, “He wanted a controlled but not too dead-sounding live room, because Twenty One Pilots do get more of a controlled sound on their drums.”

And what about those drums? Dun wanted something special for his home studio setup, so Mike Ciprari, owner of SJC Custom Drums, his longtime supplier, ran with Dun’s treehouse concept (he proposed to Ryan in a treehouse in New Zealand). The all-wood kit, with moss and leafy accents, uniquely features a completely wooden front head on the kick drum. “No joke, it actually sounds pretty solid; I was shocked,” Bechill laughs.

Bechill’s idea was to mike the drums using just two or three stands, making the most of the design flexibility and weight capacity of Triad-Orbit’s products. An Audix D6 and a Solomon Mics LoFReQ hang off one stand, he reports, with multiple Sennheiser MD 421 tom mics hanging off another. “If you were to try to do that with any other stand, it would just tip over,” he comments. “I spent $1,500 on three mic stands, but we had committed so heavily to an aesthetic that I wanted them.” The Coles overhead mics are supported by two ceiling-mounted boom arms.

During construction, after Dun mused about what his drums might sound like in the 20-foot-high sunroom, Bechill had Griffey install a four-inch conduit so that he could run a Whirlwind 24-channel snake to a stagebox upstairs. “John [Kremple] did all the wiring with me, and it took us four hours just to get the W2 mass connect from the second floor down to the studio. I don’t know if Josh will ever actually track up there, and, if he does, if it’ll ever be used—but for some reason, in the moment, it felt like the most important thing,” he chuckles. “After that, everything else was easy.”

It seems likely that Twenty One Pilots fans will hear the results of all that hard work soon enough. Previously, while Joseph could work in his own studios, Dun had to go to a commercial room to track his drums. Now, Bechill says, “Between this studio and Tyler’s two studios, we can track and mix in these rooms—although I believe they’ll still send their sessions out to be mixed—because we have the proper environments.”

[the-prsc]

Day 9 

Previously on PRSC... 

David has abandoned the ‘Court of the Crimson King’ to stay with Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, a man whose presence was not announced to the other bands. 

As a result of this Fripp has become more paranoid and sent out his, ‘defense’ and ‘foreign intelligence’ secretaries out into the wood to find him 

Genesis have spiraled out of control at the loss of Phil 

On a lighter note, Rick and Alex have formed a comedy duo, ‘Two Dumb Blondes’ 

Death Count: 2 

In the Conglomerate... 

For the most part, progress and comfort in The Conglomerate continue smoothly. They have by far the most efficient workload distribution of any of the camps. Everyone has a particular job to which they can dedicate all their energy, and the new addition of the ‘Two Dumb Blondes’ comedy troop is keeping almost all of them in good spirits. Their strong points at this stage of the game are community, attitude and numbers.

Sadly, however this is not the case for everyone in the camp. Since his murder of Greg on day 3, Keith has not been trusted by any of his peers and has been emotionally exiled from their community. His pain and loneliness are brought to the front of his mind with the formation of our jolly duo of blonde gentlemen as he feels a great jealousy for the companionship they share after only a week of pleasantries. 

All the while in perfect time... 

Genesis’ tears are falling on the ground! There is less humor within the Genesis camp, especially where Tony (who hasn’t picked up his Etch-a-Sketch since Phil’s death) is concerned. Peter has progressed further in his insanity and has begun wearing his flower hat while prancing and leaping around the forest exclaiming, ‘I am the prettiest sunflower in all the isles!’ We at the PRSC believe this is some form of act of denial brought on by his intense grief. A more obvious sign of his growing delirium is his refusal of food. The rest of the band have tried to feed him, but he doesn’t even seem to listen to them as he just leaps off into the shrubs. We theorize that he is attempting to photosynthesise…

Steve and Mike are still knuckling down to their work, albeit far from efficient. They are the only camp (other than David and Ian) who only have only two functioning members and neither of them have done any sort of camping since Mike’s ‘combined cadet force’ days back in 5th form at Charterhouse. Does Phil’s death spell doom for the boys in Genesis? They will have to start making friends before it's too late or survival in the plummeting autumn climate will be impossible. 

What do you do when the old man’s gone? 

A question David regularly asks himself since his departure from the court (Fripp’s real age is unknown to the rest of the band, but he makes sure they know he’s older than them to establish a good pecking order). Ian has become a protective figure for David reassuring him that he is safe from Fripp where they are, and he’ll never find them. He has been stern but gentle with him. He doesn’t want to show any weakness around David, but Ian has grown very fond of him in recent days and their unlikely friendship fills in the hole he didn’t know needed filling with human interaction. 

Back in the court... 

Muir and Bruford continue their search for David unaware of Ian's presence in the wood. Bruford believed that following his ‘dispute’ with their ex-drummer three days prior, it would be best for Muir to handle the visit to the Genesis camp. 

*Written in retrospect* Sadly, I was out on my lunch break when this meeting took place, so am unaware of all the details. From what I have heard through my colleagues, Muir turned up with his sheet metal ready to ‘fuck shit up’ and find wherever they have stashed David but got overwhelmed by their negative vibe and a bit freaked out by Peter so ran for the hills with a plan to come back another day with backup. 

The rest of the court continue their labor works under the (false) impression that Fripp cares for them and that the court is a democracy and isn’t entirely run on his word. 

And you and I reach over the sun for the river... 

In case any of you fine readers have forgotten, Jon Anderson and Alan White are still in The Arena. We haven’t been reporting on them because, quite frankly, we couldn’t find them! They have figured out how to light fires pretty well and have been setting up new camps most nights making them rather difficult to track. By the time we’d found them, they had ventured far from the other bands and their relationship had deepened exponentially. We only managed to locate them when following Fripp's secretary for ‘Foreign Intelligence’, Bill as he got lost in search of David. A VERY awkward encounter ensued as he was met face to face with Jon or as he calls him, ‘Napoleon’ (because he is short and autocratic) and his Yes replacement, Alan. Bruford was the second king crimson spy to chicken out during intelligence missions today as he scurried back to the court to find Muir. 

Otherwise, Jon and Alan, this game hasn’t been so bad. The reason being, they chilled the fuck out! For almost a week they have strived not to get bogged down in the shit. Luckily, Jon has had (and probably will keep having) amazing luck with cosmic connection to nature and hasn’t had to try for things just to go his way. One area of concern is their new reliance on ‘special’ mushrooms that grow in this forest. Unbeknownst to them, most of Jon and Alan’s diet for the last week has been magic mushrooms and they have been asphyxiated most of that time. At least they're happy. That’s all for today, so we’ll see you tomorrow for... 

The Prog Rock Survival Competition!

[4birds-of-a-feather]

Chapter 27 - Wonder whose arms will hold you good and tight (when it’s exactly twelve o’clock that night) [part 6]

Birds Of a Feather

Look who Monty the cat dragged in! Hope you guys are fine and are gonna enjoy this, let us know what you think about it ✨

(In the previous chapter: despite their mutual attraction, Layla and Eddie decided to spend some time together in a platonic way; Stone wasn’t able to make Sara come out from the bathroom but has instead confessed her his feelings; Jeff has seen his bandmate go inside the bathroom and he knows Stone is with Sara, but what he doesn’t know is that the two of them are making out)

Seattle, 31st December 1984

“Here you are! Thought you had deserted us” Sara snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Jeff’s voice coming from behind: she turned around as he was already strolling in her direction, and she immediately felt her mouth dry. “I’m sorry, I-I came here to get some fresh air – I thought I was about to faint inside” the girl stammered, pointing at the room where It’s My Life was playing out loud “The balcony seemed like a clever idea” “It was, just like me bringing you some fruit punch” Jeff grinned, handing her a red cup that she gladly took. “You’re a lifesaver, thank you” “No problem” he went to sit on the railing, next to where now Sara was chewing the edge of her paper cup “Penny for your thoughts?” “Just a silly recollection…” the tips of her ears instantly reddened “You’d make fun of me” “I would never! I won’t, I promise” “Well, I was thinking about last New Year’s Eve, wondering how I spent it” “And…?” “... and I just realized it was probably me still crying because Dennis Wilson had died a couple of days before” she rested her elbows on the railing, then leaned her cheek on a hand “You know, Beach Boys’ drummer? And a year later I’m at a party, but I fled to the balcony because inside there’s too many people I don’t know… so yeah, a year may have passed but I’m still socially awkward, ugh” “Hey, I wouldn’t call ‘socially awkward’ someone who’s having zero problems chatting with a guy she’s known for seven months” “What, you’ve been counting or something?” she smirked at him, her voice showing amusement at his corniness. “Every single day” “Oh, shush” the girl immediately flushed, and Jeff couldn’t help but grin triumphantly because she was trying so hard not to smile but the half dimple on the right corner of her mouth said otherwise. “No, but seriously – you’re doing great” he was quick to make himself clear “I mean, you said it yourself: going to a party full of people you don’t know, with other people you barely know? In my book you sound like a total badass” “You think so?” “I do” he looked her in the eye “But that doesn’t mean that last year you were an utter loser because you spent New Year’s Eve crying over some dead musician… sounds like he meant a great deal to you”   “He does, yeah” “I know my Brian Wilson and my Mike Love,” he began, while she frowned at the last person mentioned “but the other members… not so much, I’m afraid – except for the drummer’s association with Manson, obviously” “Yeah, I guess that’s public domain” Sara wrinkled her nose “Well, Dennis was the first one in the band to come out with a solo project, which I think has to be one of the saddest albums ever… still beautiful, though I haven’t been able to listen again to it after last year” “Understandable” “And he also made a movie with James Taylor that I have yet to watch but my father tells me it’s great – kind of a road-movie, made in the early ‘70s” “Sounds like something I’d like” “I think so too; he also wrote some pretty cool songs for the band, but he was obviously overshadowed by his brother” she sighed “Anyway, it’s all over now so I guess it doesn’t matter anymore” “It matters to you, that’s what’s important” She adjusted her scarf, avoiding his glance, then abruptly changed topic: “I listened to your tape” The bassist almost lost his balance but was able to recover at the last second: “Yeah? Verdict?” “You should seriously start to listen to some good ol’ folk, you can’t live just with punk music” “... that’s your feedback?!” this time he had begun to fall backwards, so he wisely jumped off the railing. “Yeah, that’s it” “Uhm, I-I guess I can see your point, but I also put Bowie and Beth by KISS! C’mon, you can’t tell me they’re punk, that’s-” “Honestly? That’s the sweetest thing somebody has ever done for me – and my dad is a worthy opponent in this competition, but you beat him anyway” the girl winked at him “You could have made a Barry Manilow compilation and I would have appreciated it all the same, because in any case it would have been something you made thinking of me” “Woah, I-uhm… thank you? I mean-” “Anyway, I need to lend you some tapes that I think are fundamental in the education of a person – especially for a musician like yourself” Sara kept on talking, then noticed he was giving her a funny look “What, what did I say?” “Nothing, just… I’m happy you liked it, I was hoping the tape could make you understand what you mean to me” Even though her feet were on the ground, the girl was still able to trip over an invisible obstacle. “Errrrr, thank God I didn’t drink the vodka they offered us before, otherw-” she babbled, but was interrupted by Jeff moving closer. “... Wanna go out with me?” “Like, right now? We shouldn’t ditch the others, it wouldn’t be f-” “No, silly!” the guy chuckled, the wrinkles around the corners of his eyes instantly giving her butterflies in her stomach “I agree with you, right now it would be really improper: wanna do this next week?” “You’re… serious” “Why shouldn’t I be? We can go to the movies and then grab something to eat” “Just the two of us?” “Unless you want that pain in the ass of Stone to tag along” he joked, trying to ignore the annoying thought of his friend being the third wheel. No words came out Sara’s mouth, so the guy panicked. “... you know what, I didn’t want to mess this up – just forget it” he dismissed the previous idea with frantic gestures of his hands “I’m sorry I embarrassed you, I-” “I’d love to” the girl had come closer and taken his hands in hers “I’m sorry if I made you believe I didn’t wanna go out with you, I just… I’m surprised you invited me, that’s all” “Hell, to be honest I’m surprised you accepted” Jeff let out a nervous chuckle, squeezing her hands in return “You sure? Just the two of us?” “Just the two of us” she said in a resolute tone, grinning at him, and he finally mirrored her relaxed smile. 1985 was about to start in the best possible way.

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Seattle, VedderAment’s place, 31st December 1990 (but not for much longer) “It’s barely a couple of minutes to midnight!” Layla yelled into Eddie’s ear as they held to each other and swayed to the music. <Excuse me, Miss Boulais, is it midnight? I’d check my watch, you know, but I just can’t take my eyes off you… JEEZ, I DIDN’T SAY IT OUT LOUD, DID I?> Eddie had a mind full of cheesy kissing pick up lines as it often happened when he was drunk or stoned. “Really? Uhm we’re almost there then hehe” he awkwardly replied as he couldn’t say if he was more inebriated by the booze, the song’s atmosphere, Layla’s delicate flowery perfume, the warmth of her breath against his face or her body pressed against his. “Yep!” Layla knew she should have said something earlier because now, right in the middle of the party, it was impossible to have a proper conversation about anything or even say anything more than best wishes. She tried to tell herself to enjoy the moment, which wasn’t bad at all, but she couldn’t help but regret her lack of courage. She was an overly worried type of drunk. <I’m here, slow dancing with a nice guy, who also happens to be very hot, and instead of just enjoying it, I keep on brooding over what I did and didn’t do...> 10! 9! 8! They kept dancing without saying a word, until Chris started shouting the countdown and everyone at the party followed him. Eddie and Layla stopped but were still holding each other as they were howling every number too. 7! 6! 5! <Wanna start the new year with a bang?> he couldn’t help thinking as they smiled at each other during the count. 4! 3! <Ok, that’s enough, I’m done! I’ll kiss him! Just like that. But what if he doesn’t want to? What if he pulls away? How can I save the situation? I could kiss him and make it seem like it was a mistake. Like I could be aiming at the cheek and then oops! And then just see where it goes from there… If he gets into it, that’s great, but if he doesn’t I can always say “sorry” and laugh about it and pretend nothing happened then go cry about it in my room later> Layla’s train of thoughts was very fast in those two seconds, as she pondered about her kissing attempt. 2! 1! <Can I be your first mistake of the year?> Eddie was disgusted but also surprised by his own creativity for pick-up lines as the last seconds of 1990 were ticking away. HAPPY FUCKIN’ NEW YEAR!!!!! Cornell screamed from the top of his lungs as chaos started around in the apartment at the stroke of midnight, so much that the music was barely audible, although Chris had turned back up at maximum volume. “Happy new year, Eddie!” Layla jumped and cheered and went to kiss him on the cheek. Right, on the cheek. Her previous determination gone out of the window, as always. Eddie kissed her cheek in turn and stood staring at her with a drunk smile, considering telling her that, talking about new year’s resolutions, he had a new one now and he was looking at it right at that moment. “Thanks, happy new year to you too” he said instead, keeping some dignity. <Why can’t I be uninhibited drunk instead of overthinking drunk?> Layla sighed internally as she took in Eddie’s disheveled beauty right in front of her and regretted their loser-style new year’s kisses. “1991 will be great for you and the band, I just know that!” the girl shook him by his shoulders and it was like he snapped up from sleep. “I trust you. You know, talking about resolutions…” Eddie started saying and it was like he could hear himself talking but couldn’t do anything to prevent it and was terrified of all the stupid shit that could come out of his mouth. “Yeah?” she asked as Eddie wouldn’t go on but just started dancing with her instead. “Uh, I have a new one. I didn’t mention it before because, well, it’s new” he said after Layla’s encouragement and was already saying a silent goodbye to his dignity. <I just hope she had enough alcohol to believe I’m charming and cool> “Ok, that’s great” “Yeah” he said as he kept swaying in time with the music. “And what is it?” she prompted him to talk as she thought the booze was probably starting to kick in and have the best of him. “Not be a loser anymore” he spoke into her ear as he stopped moving and subtly tightened his hold on the girl’s hips. “Oh. Well, that’s, that’s good” “Pucker up now, please” he looked up into her eyes and she saw an extremely serious expression on his face. “Wha-” Layla didn’t have time to understand what Eddie was talking about before his lips met hers in a sudden kiss. Layla wanted so badly to let her mind wander and mull over what was happening and the possible aftermath and consequences of it but she just couldn’t. The kiss was so surprising she was caught off guard and it was just that deep type of kiss that leaves little room for thought. The rush of sensations crawling across her body was the only thing she could focus on, together with the taste of him. Eddie pulled away only to look at her face, searching for reassurance, any hint or reaction that could tell him whether he had just fucked up big time or she liked being kissed. He had his answer in a couple of seconds, when the silent double stare broke into a mirrored dumbstruck smile. “... Fuck it” Layla said and he thought that it was serious if she used the F word. He managed to smirk before the girl decided that whatever it meant, whatever the consequences might be, whatever his lips were bringing, she wanted more and pulled him into a new kiss. They were lost in each other’s lips and it was like the outside world had ceased to exist. That was until a loud crash that sounded like an explosion broke the air and their kiss and brought them back to reality.

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“Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ, what the hell was that noise?!” Sara startled, then finally realized what had been happening for God knows how much time and immediately pushed herself away from Stone. “Sounded kinda like the roar you hear during an earthquake...” he casually observed with a smirk, touching his lips without taking his eyes off her. “Oh, that’s magnificent… fuckin’ A, we’ll be the first ones to drop like ants!” she growled, then kicked him in the leg “What the fuck are you waiting for?? Stand up, I need to go out!” “After all the trouble I went to come here? Over my dead body, missy” “You’re asking for it” she kicked him again “I’ve got zero problems with killing you to save myself: you’ll be just a fatality caused by the earthquake” “Only if you’re gonna cry at my funeral – first row, with a Hepburn LBD and this exact perfume” he went on, grabbing her ankle and trying to pull her close. “... you’re a sick motherfucker, you know that?” Sara shook him off, pushed him aside while he was guffawing and finally reached the handle “I’m not done with you” “That’s exactly what I was hoping you would say, Scout” “Go eat a dick, Boo Radley” she gave him a last fake smile then stormed out the bathroom with her ears and cheeks boiling. <Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, let’s hope nobody noticed my absence… that son of a gun needs a good kicking> The girl stopped for a few seconds, trying to catch her breath and wondering if her lipstick had survived the havoc that Gossard had bestowed upon it, then craned her neck to see if anybody had seen what she had been up to, to no avail: the hall was empty, because apparently everybody had gathered in the living room. “Ames, I already told ya I’m fuckin’ sor-” “What the fuck should I do with your apologies, Chris?? Wipe my ass, that’s what I’m gonna do!” Jeff was shouting at his (ex) friend “What am I supposed to tell the landlord?? ‘My friend thought that shooting a goddamn confetti cannon against the ceiling would be a brilliant idea’?! That would surely make everything easy for me, yes sirree!” <Do not think about that idiot’s ass, Fancini, and focus on the main news: no earthquake and Mr. Montana’s imminent ass-kicking provided by his landlor-fuck, I thought about his ass, didn’t I?> Sara looked up, first of all trying to figure out how much did Chris actually fuck up and also to take her mind off the bassist’s butt. She noticed quite a large hole in the ceiling and a few confetti remains hanging from it. “You can always say it’s installation art” Steve suggested as Lukin on his side couldn’t seem to take off his squinting eyes from the confetti cannon disaster. “Yeah, it surely… uhm, transformed the perception of the space” Layla remarked, as Sara briefly looked at her friend and couldn’t help but notice Eddie’s arm looped around her waist – she didn’t think too much of it. “Sure! And it will transform the landlord’s perception too as he won’t hesitate invading our personal space to kick our asses!” Jeff flailed his arms around in frustration, while Sara silently cursed him for mentioning his cute ass once again. “Come on, it’s not bad! I mean, it is bad, but not that much. Nothing that can’t be repaired” Matt pointed out, trying to save his bandmate from the homicidal instincts of Ament. “Sure it can be repaired. At our expenses, of course” Jeff rubbed his face with his hands, trying to stay calm, but the people around him didn’t help. “Oh! You could ask the construction company that’s fixing our apartment! They’re not too expensive” Layla thought this would cheer the guy up a little but apparently she was wrong. “Well, thanks a lot, Four Eyes! They’re cheap and all but considering how quick they’re working at your place, do you think they’ll have the fuckin’ hole fixed on time for the next New Year’s party?” “Come on, Jeff, let’s not ruin the party now” Vedder exchanged a reassuring look with Layla and went to lighten up his bandmate’s mood. “Me? It wasn’t me, Chris ruined it” Ament shrugged and Cornell rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time. “How many times do I have to apologize to you?” “Listen, we’ll think about something tomorrow, I’ll try and see if I can do something. Tomorrow, though. Today we’re celebrating, ok?” Eddie went on and his attempt at keeping his friend calm wasn’t totally uninterested. <The sooner Jeff relaxes, the sooner we’ll all go back to the party and the sooner I’ll go back to the smooching> he thought, hoping he was really just thinking and not saying the word smooch aloud. “How sweet of him, improvising as a mason… I bet he’d pass himself off as a firefighter or a fuckin’ astronaut just to resume his favourite activity” Turner murmured under his breath, still bearing a sort of grudge against him because of Layla. “Hey, what’s happening he-OH. Jeffrey, how many times did I tell you not to do jumping jacks at home? You know you’re not exactly as light as a feather” Stone appeared out of nowhere and Sara had almost forgotten their escapade and was chuckling at his joke – at least until she turned to look at him and noticed a faint trace of her lipstick in the corner of his bottom lip. “HAHAHAHA OH, SHUT UP GOSSARD, GIVE HIM A BREAK!” the girl laughed exaggeratedly and shoved her hand upon Stone’s mouth as to playfully shush him up, but actually to subtly remove any evidence. <A flamethrower would be more effective but this will do for now> she thought as she felt a sort of satisfaction in almost suffocating the guy. Stone didn’t lose his composure and with a quick move he took her wrist, twisted it lightly, kissed her hand and smirked. “As you wish, Miss! How can I say no to such a gentle request?” Everybody turned to look at them with their faces scrunched up like crumpled paper; the color drained immediately from Sara’s face when she realized that all her previous caution had just been destroyed by the cocky attitude of her ex-friend. Silence was reigning until Ament cleared his throat: “Ok ok, considering everybody’s at least as wasted as Stone, we clearly can’t do anything now anyway” he paused and looked at Stone and Sara with a weird feeling gnawing at him that he couldn’t put a name on “You’re right, Ed, we’ll think about it tomorrow” “... Confetti hole” Lukin said out of the blue, while Chris turned the music back up and everyone went back to their own business. “Yeah, 1991 started with a bang” Steve snorted. “It looks like the sun” his friend said seriously. “Midnight sun” “Confetti sun, like it looks like the sun but it’s fake” “Uh-uh” “Confetti hole sun. Wouldn’t it be a great song title?” Lukin’s face suddenly lit up like a Christmas tree. “Yeah yeah, sure. Come on, let’s go have a drink” Steve shook his head and led his bandmate to the kitchen as the party slowly started again.

[fuckyeahvanhalen86-95]

A little over a week ago, we spoke with Sammy Hagar about his new album Crazy Times, which he cut with Nashville producer Dave Cobb and his longtime band The Circle. “It’s a concept record,” Hagar said. “It’s about how I feel about everything that has gone on since the pandemic started.”

Near the end of the interview, the conversation inevitably turned toward Van Halen and the possibility of a tribute concert to Eddie Van Halen featuring all the surviving members of the band. A few days later, we heard from Hagar’s camp that he wanted to get back on the phone: He had a lot more to say about his former band. “I really think that it’s OK just to speak how I really feel now,” he said when we reconnected, “because there is no animosity left in my heart, in my soul, anywhere.”

We wound up talking about Van Halen for more than an hour. The conversation touched on everything from his initial departure from the band in 1996 to his emotional reunion with Eddie Van Halen a few months before his death in 2020. Along the way, he revealed that Irving Azoff, Van Halen’s manager since the early 2000s, reached out last year to gauge his interest in a possible Las Vegas residency with drummer Alex Van Halen, bassist Michael Anthony, and a superstar guitar player. There are no concrete plans at the moment to make that a reality, but he does hope to finally make peace with Alex Van Halen in the near future and reestablish a friendship that has suffered from years of estrangement.

Here’s a slightly edited transcript of the conversation:

Let’s go all the way back to the Twister soundtrack in 1996. The story you often hear is you guys couldn’t agree on the lyrics to “Humans Being,” and everything just unraveled from there. Is that accurate?

“Yes, it really is. But that was the temperature of the band at that time. It didn’t matter what we were going to do. We were fighting about everything. That was because, I think, we were poisoned by the management that came in at that time. But that particular argument was about the lyrics.

I talked to the director [Jan de Bont], and he sent me the script for the movie and said, ‘Study this. There’s some really great terminology that they use in relation to the tornado chasers.’ And so I drifted through it and I got a bunch of cool lines out of it. I don’t remember them all now, but I just remember that the chorus was ‘dropped down.’ It was like ‘Right Now’ in that it was a very percussive lyric, and a great phrasing to start the chorus.

But Eddie and Al went nuts and said, ‘Oh, my God. This is corny. You can’t talk directly about the movie.’ It’s not like they had an idea, but at that time they just didn’t want to use too much verbiage about actual twisters. I thought, ‘Well, I think they’re wrong, but OK, whatever.’

I come back into the studio to do it with producer Bruce Fairbairn. He gets Eddie out of the room and says, ‘Look, how about just a bunch of imagery?’ And then Eddie had said ‘Humans Being’ for some reason. That was the first time he ever really titled a song that I was involved in writing. And I thought, ‘Humans Being. Yes. That’s fine. I like it.’

So I just blurted out this stuff. I sat on the hood of a car in the back of the studio with Bruce Fairbairn, and I just started writing things down. ‘You break this, I’ll break all that/You break my balls with all your crap/Spread your disease like lemmings breeding/That’s what makes us humans being.’ I had just watched a documentary about lemmings jumping off cliffs in Alaska. I was just thinking of anything and everything that was in front of me. And Ed loves it: ‘Yeah, yeah. This is what I was talking about.’”

Did you quit or were you fired?

“Oh, I was fired. I was told that I quit by Eddie. It was Father’s Day, Sunday morning, 9 am. The phone rings and I’m laying there with my brand new baby. He goes, ‘You know, you always just wanted to be a solo artist, so go ahead and be one. We’re going to get Dave back in the band.’ And when he said that, I flew up out of bed like I’d seen a ghost. And I said, ‘Wow’ and a few expletives went back and forth from me. That is not what the song ‘Eagles Fly’ is about, but it’s the opening lines of it. [Sunday morning, nine A.M./I saw fire in the sky/I felt my heart pound in my chest/I heard an eagle cry.]

I called the manager that was poisoning all this stuff and I said, ‘Guess what just happened?’ And he went, ‘Oh, fuck. He did it? He made the call?’ I said, ‘Yes, he made the call.’ And he goes, ‘Let me get back to you. I suppose you want a golden parachute.’ I said, ‘I want to know what the fuck is going on. I don’t need anything. I just want to know what the fuck is going on.’

That’s what happened. It wasn’t like he said, ‘You’re fired.’ He just said, ‘You’re quitting the band. You’re leaving the band. We’re moving on without you.’ Whatever. It was not my call, whatsoever.”

I’m sure you had sympathy for Gary Cherone because you’d been in his position a little over a decade earlier. He didn’t have it easy.

“Oh, I have total sympathy for him. He’s such a great guy, and he’s a talented guy. But he was so wrong at that stage of the band. He might have been able to replace Dave [in 1985]. The band still had a lot of legs left back then. When Cherone came, that type of music, even Van Halen, the mighty Van Halen, was going down, because of the grunge movement and all that. I mean, it was kind of over for us. We weren’t getting all the positive press. We weren’t getting the spins on MTV. We weren’t getting the spins even on radio. And so that was bad timing for Gary. So whether or not it didn’t work for whatever reasons, it was just a bad time to be making that move. That was the biggest mistake the band has ever made, I think.”

Let’s move onto the Sam and Dave tour of 2002. Did that go as well as you hoped it would?

“Yes and no. That tour was successful. I did very well on that tour as far as the comparisons went [between us as vocalists]. And the idea was to get Van Halen’s attention and get us both back in the band and do what was inevitable. A reunion tour with both of us would have been the biggest thing Van Halen ever did.

But it didn’t work out that way because Dave doesn’t play well with others. He just made a mess out of it. It could have ended with us both standing there with our arms in the air going, ‘Hey, good job, buddy. Let’s go talk to the brothers.’ That was my intention, and it didn’t happen. Instead, I got a reunion out of it. It wasn’t my favorite reunion, but that’s what happened.”

I read stories in the press that things were so bad on that tour between you and Dave that they physically built a wall backstage to separate you.

“Yes. I think that’s production managers and tour managers getting in the middle of our bullshit. They made the wall since we nearly got into fisticuffs one night. They promoters were like ‘Oh, we gotta keep these guys apart. This tour’s doing too good. We don’t want to see it break up because there’s some lawsuit.’ And so they put up a barricade between our dressing rooms.”

It’s like you guys are the Israelis and the Palestinians.

“Yes. It was the wall that Trump wanted to build. It was so thin though. It was just a bunch of plywood on little stands. If you really wanted to get to somebody, you could just kick it down. I used to knock on the plywood to yell at David when I was getting ready to go on stage because we flip-flopped: He would open one night, I’d open the next. And when he had already played, I’d be beating on the thing and I would say, ‘Dave, I’m going on. Come on up in about an hour and we’ll play a couple tunes together.’ He wouldn’t even respond.”

You got into a lot of sordid details about the 2004 Van Halen reunion tour in your book. Eddie was deep into the throes of alcoholism back then. He was a very sick guy. Do you have any regrets about revealing everything that went down?

“You know, I was so angry after that tour with everything that had gone on. I wrote about it all, yes. Everything I said was true. I regret it now only because if someone reads it after Eddie’s death, they can’t go to Eddie and ask him about any of it. Back then, it was my word against his. But I don’t remember if anyone in their camp ever spoke up about any of it. I think everyone knew what condition Eddie was in. It wasn’t any frickin’ secret.

Rolling Stone has that whole article about that guy that befriended him. Just read that through the lines, and you’ll see it’s the same guy that I was dealing with. I just wish I knew he was sick at that time. He had had his tongue cut off, but he was adamant that he was cancer-free and he was healthy and fine. He wouldn’t listen to anyone. If someone would say, ‘Ed, you need to not drink so much, and you need to get some food into you,’ he was like, ‘Fuck you.’ Nobody, not even his brother, could get through to him.

But in writing about it, I broke a rule. I broke the locker-room rule amongst athletes and amongst friends and clubs. It was a boys’ club. ‘None of this gets out of here. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’ I was just so angry. I really wanted to get my side of the story out because a lot of people thought, ‘Well, maybe it was my fault.’”

That tour does sound like it was absolute hell for you.

“There are things that I can tell you now that I didn’t waste my time on in the book…He was so out of tune and playing the songs so wrong that there were times I couldn’t sing well. I had a hard time staying on key. I’d go over and I would sing with the bass because Mike would always be in tune. I’d sing to the bass, but the problem is they had Ed’s guitar so loud because he would go out there every day during soundcheck and make sure his guitar was screaming. He would insist that his guitar was extremely loud in the mix. Hey, it’s Eddie Van Halen. I wanted to hear it loud too. But if you’re just hearing my voice and his guitar, you’re going, ‘Man, Sammy’s not singing too good.’ Or if you’re really a good musician, you’d go, ‘Well, wait a minute. Eddie’s not playing so good. So what’s going on?’”

You mentioned that recent Rolling Stone article. I want to read a few things that Eddie said about you in it. Let’s start with, “It’s all about the money when it comes to Hagar. He used the band to elevate himself.”

“No. That’s when Ed was in that frame of mind where he wasn’t thinking straight. He was being fed weird information. He was doing a lot of drugs and alcohol and he was paranoid. He wasn’t thinking right. Everyone knows it. Look at the pictures of him on the internet from that era. He was a mess. He wasn’t thinking straight, and somebody was poisoning him with that.

I am not about the money. I am about fame and fortune, yes. That’s what I wanted my whole life. Once I got it, the question becomes what you do with it. You use your celebrity to enlighten people and to bring awareness. That’s what I’m all about, and I’ve always been about that.

I’m a business guy. I love business. I love creating things, and seeing them make it. That bothered Ed and Al to death because they didn’t think like that. They just would say, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘I’m making a bicycle.’ ‘Why are you making a bicycle?’ I’m going, ‘Because I ride bikes. I want to make a good one, and make one better than everything else.’ And that’s always my premise. But my ambition and my creativity just drove them nuts because they didn’t understand it.”

Here’s what Ed said about Michael Anthony: “When Hagar quit, Mike went with him instead of staying with Alex and me. That was as much of a betrayal as Roth blindsiding us when he quit. We didn’t see either one coming!! All we had was ourselves.”

“That is so not true. Mikey didn’t leave Van Halen. Mikey was replaced in Van Halen by [Eddie’s son] Wolfie, and he found out about it in the press.”

Ed’s perspective was that Michael essentially quit Van Halen when he started doing gigs with you.

“Yes. That’s because he wasn’t in a very good frame of mind. Mikey sat around for five friggin’ years. And then he started coming out with my band as a special guest. It was really cool because it made me feel comfortable, especially on the Sam and Dave tour, to have Mikey there. It warranted me playing more Van Halen material.

Before that I was only playing two or three Van Halen songs. With the Wabos, I was not about trying to be a Van Halen cover band. And Dave had come out with this Van Halen cover band playing all Van Halen. He didn’t even play ‘Just a Gigolo.’ He didn’t even play ‘California Girls’! These are his biggest hits. And I thought, ‘What an idiot. I don’t think that’s cool.’

Having Mikey there made it more fun for me to play the Van Halen stuff. And still today, in The Circle, we play more Van Halen than we ever did because Mikey’s in the band, number one. And number two, there is no more Van Halen. So now, I feel great about playing it. It’s part of my life. I was in that band for about 11 years.

And when Dave came back to the band, they pretended like I’d never been in it. There weren’t those Number One albums, those Number One hits. Those 40 million albums never existed. That’s stupid. It’s not what I do right now with Mike.

But with Mike, they just interpreted it that way. The second Mikey would’ve got the call to be in the studio, he would’ve been the first guy there, like he always is. Mikey would join Van Halen today and quit The Circle, if there was such a thing. Mikey never betrayed anybody. He would just say, ‘I’m going out and having fun with Sam.’”

Tell me about getting back in touch with Ed in the final months of his life.

“It was the craziest thing. I heard he was sick, and I heard it from pretty good inside information, so I knew it was true. Every now and then, people would send me photos of him on the internet. He did not look good at all. I’d be like, ‘Fuck.’

So I called up [Steve] Lukather. Him and Ed are dear friends. I said, ‘How’s Ed doing?’ He goes, ‘Aww, Sam, not so good.’ I said, ‘Would you please give him my phone number and tell him if he wants to, to please call me. I would love to talk to him. I don’t want anything. I’m not trying to get a reunion. Trust me.’

He told me later, ‘I gave it to him.’ And I said, ‘What did he say?’ He said, ‘He loves you, man.’ So then [the comedian] George Lopez calls me and said, ‘Sammy, you got to call Ed. He’s in real bad shape, and you need to call him.’ And I said, ‘Well, fuck. Here’s the number I have.’ And he goes, ‘No, that’s not his number anymore.’ So I said, ‘Give me his number.’

I had told a couple other people the same thing. I told Irving Azoff to have Ed call me. I left Alex Van Halen voice messages and emails, which he never returned. I said, ‘I would love to talk to Ed if he’s willing to talk to me.’ And I told everybody the same thing. I didn’t want to call Ed in his condition and have him say, ‘Fuck you, you asshole. You quit the band.’

I’d have a hard time not grabbing the rope and arguing with him. So I didn’t know what his headspace was because that’s where we left off, and I didn’t know if he was still there. So anyway, I called George and I said, ‘George, I’ll do it.’ And he goes, ‘You’ve got to do it Sammy. You’ve got to do it.’

So I hung up and called Ed. I said, ‘Ed, man. How are you, man?’ He said, ‘I’m hanging in here, dude. I’ve been fighting this for fuckin’ 15 years.’ I said, ‘I know, it’s terrible.’ And we went right into that. We didn’t try to bury any hatchets or apologize for anything. We just went right into how he was doing and he told me.

I said, ‘I’ve been wanting to reach out to you. I just didn’t know what kind of headspace you’re in. I called your brother. I called Lukather. I called Azoff…’ And he goes, ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ And I go, ‘Well, that’s a good question, and I’m calling you now.’ We had a big laugh about it. He said, ‘You want to talk to me? Talk to me.’

I felt like he was in a really good headspace. It really touched me hard when he said it like that. ‘If you want to talk to me, call me.’ He was never that kind of guy before. Ed was always a humble, quiet, sweet little guy. Then he went crazy…with a different kind of attitude, too.

But this time he was purely solid in his head. He had really come to terms, I felt, with his illness. I told my wife, ‘Ed really sounded like the most together Eddie Van Halen I’ve ever known, of all times.’

He said to me, ‘I’m going to beat this shit… I think I’m going to need to finish up [my treatments] this year, and maybe next year we can get together and make some noise.’ I said, ‘Ed, that’s not what I’m calling about, but if that’s going to happen, then you can always count me in to play music with you, my friend.’

So then a couple other times, about a week later, I started texting him and sending him pictures of funny shit that I had stored up, things that happened when we weren’t talking. He started sending me stuff and we texted a lot back and forth, maybe a couple of times a week.

And then all of a sudden, I didn’t hear from him and he didn’t answer my texts. I left him a voicemail. ‘Ed. I ain’t hearing from you. Don’t make me nervous.’ And so he gets back and says, ‘Dude, I just got out of the hospital. I got a fucking tumor on the side of my neck that just popped up that they had to remove.’ I said, ‘I want to come and see you, Ed.’ He’s going, ‘I’ll let you know when.’ I said, ‘I’m going to come over. I’m going to cook for you and fuckin’ make a big old pot of spaghetti, man.’

When he lived next door, I used to cook for him all the time. So I said, ‘I’m going to come over and cook for you and really catch up and hey, maybe we can even write a song. Blah, blah, blah.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I’ll let you know.’ And then I started getting less and less communication. I think the last one he wrote said, ‘Sorry. I’m not responding. I’m in the hospital.’

We had been doing FaceTime and shit before that. I’m looking now and the last video I sent was October 1, 2020. He died that week.”

That must have been just an unimaginable gut punch.

“Yes. [Choking up a bit] I don’t think I’ve cried that hard since my mother or father’s death. Even when you know it’s coming, you always have hope. You always hope for that miracle. You hear about people that had stage four cancer, and had friggin’ everything removed but their brain, and all of a sudden, a miracle, they come back. So yes, you’re always hoping. Ed had the money, he had the fame to where any doctor in the world would’ve dropped anything to try to save his life. So obviously, he had the best you could get, and it didn’t work.”

In those e-mails Rolling Stone recently published, he said he wanted to do the big tour with you, Dave, and Michael. Wolfgang confirmed this in many interviews. It’s going to go down in rock history as one of the best tours that never happened.

“What a shame, huh? I mean, honestly, the shame is that Eddie Van Halen’s no longer with us. That’s the shame. But if we would’ve done that…All the damage that I did with my book, the damage Ed did with his actions and his stuff he did in public, and the Cherone shenanigans, and the Roth reunions, my reunion… That would’ve righted everything, if we would have did that tour. That would have righted everything, and I wanted that so bad. Just to all of us to go, ‘We’re clean again. We’re angels. We’re spotless.’ I’m sure this’ll become clickbait if you run it, but there was a time there where I was embarrassed to say I was in Van Halen.”

When was that?

“About six or seven years ago, when they were out with Dave, and Ed was still really in bad shape. They were out there making a lot of noise as Van Halen, and somebody would say, ‘Sammy Hagar from Van Halen.’ And I would go, ‘Hey, hey. Just Sam Hagar. That’s enough.’ I wanted people to know, but it was almost like it was a black mark because Roth was doing crazy stuff, and Ed was doing crazy stuff. I didn’t want anyone to think that I was Diamond Dave.”

Let’s move into the present now. Joe Satriani jammed with Alex and Jason Newsted last year. Did Joe call you up before doing that to say it was happening?

“No, because the Van Halen camp is 100% secrecy. I bet when he walked through the door, they made him sign something, and I’m dead serious. Alex is a very, very secretive guy. I don’t know how he can keep his lips so sealed. I could probably say something horrible about him right now and he wouldn’t even respond. Don’t take that the wrong way. I have nothing bad to say about him. I’m just talking about how stubborn he is. He does not budge.

But Joe told me about it later, after it happened. I knew there was talk of it because Irving Azoff had called me. He said, ‘I want to do a residency in Vegas with you and Mike and Al and a superstar guitar player.’ And I said ‘Like who?’ And he said, ‘Like Joe Satriani.’

I said, ‘It just sounds like Chickenfoot with Alex Van Halen instead of Chad Smith.’ I wasn’t much for that, as much as I love Joe. He could do that job best, without a doubt, because he’s so friggin’ anal about the way he plays, and every single note. I said to Irving, ‘I’m going to call Joe.’

When I did, he told me what happened. And I said, ‘Jason Newsted? What the fuck is going on here, man? Whose idea is this? This must be a Dave idea.’ And Irving said it was a Dave idea.

Why would he want anyone but Mike? It’s probably because he knows that Mike and I are so close. I would imagine if they would’ve called Mike, Mike would’ve said, ‘Yes, I’ll do it with Sam.’ Because without Ed, there is no Van Halen to start with. So now, you’re going to go out and just play the early songs, and not play the second era?

That would be the biggest failure Van Halen ever had if they call themselves ‘Van Halen’ if they didn’t have Mikey. If it’s just Alex with other guys, that’s like what Jason Bonham does with Led Zeppelin. There’s a million bands out there doing that. It would be totally nuts. Also, I’d prefer that nobody attempts to replace Eddie Van Halen. I think that’s blasphemy and should be illegal.

Anyway, I think that Irving boohooed it, and Dave went around him and did it anyway. I’m surprised that Alex went that far, but Alex might have just been his methodical self and said, ‘Well, let’s see what this is like. Let’s see how it feels.’”

If they wanted to do a Vegas residency, or any kind of tour, with you and Alex and Mike, is that something that you may be interested in pursuing?

“Not a tour, no. I wouldn’t leave what I’m doing for that. I would make myself available to have a rehearsal, and see which guitar player would work the best. I’m telling you, Joe would be the best. But like I said, then it’s just kind of Chickenfoot with Alex, which there’s a problem there. And I think that’s probably what they were thinking when they tried to get a different bass player, but that’s stupid, too.

I would definitely love to play with Alex and Mike with a great guitar player that doesn’t try to just mimic Eddie perfectly. There’s so many great guitar players. There’s Steve Vai. There’s frigging John 5, who is a great guitar player."

Do you like the idea then of a short Vegas residency or are you thinking of merely a one-off tribute show?

“I’m thinking of one-off weekend or something where we give the money away to some cause. It can’t just be, ‘Hey, we’re going to grab some money.’ I got plenty of money. There’s nothing that I would do for money that I just wasn’t in love with the idea of doing. And I’m not in love with the idea of being Van Halen without Eddie Van Halen.

Matter of fact, I’m dead against it. But I would love to play music with Alex and Mike again. I would love to play those song agains. And if we did a residency or a tribute, I would sing 50/50. I would sing half the Dave songs too for the Van Halen fans. And those songs are great. I don’t mind singing some of them. The lyrics don’t fit in my life today, but neither does ‘Rock Candy’ or ‘Bad Motor Scooter.’”

I think at this point, I’d rather hear you sing “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love” than Dave. He just really can’t sing anymore.

“It sure sounds that way to me, everything I’ve heard. But I just think it’s crazy to do anything that’s called Van Halen without Eddie. I would love it if Dave wanted to do a tribute where he’d sing ten of his songs, and then I’d come out and do ten of mine. That would be great with Alex and Mike and maybe a bunch of different guitar players. Look at what Dave [Grohl] just did for Taylor [Hawkins]. That’s one of the greatest events in rock history. That’s right up there with the early Farm Aids, and right up there with Live Aid. That was a great event, and that could be done for Ed with everybody playing.”

Why don’t you just call up Alex and talk this stuff over?

“Well, I’ve left him many messages, but not for this one. But I always think about Alex. I just dreamt about him two nights ago. I dream about people constantly. I believe it’s real cosmic shit that happened on another dimension. I dream about Eddie all time. But Al, I dreamt about him and it was so wonderful. It was friendly. I said, ‘Come on, Al. Let’s do something and let’s do it right.’

The only way to do it is to put both eras together and do it for a cause, for a purpose, not for a money grab, not like the whole tour, where we’re going to make 10 million bucks apiece. None of that shit. It could be a residency, it could be two or three nights. I wouldn’t do more than that unless the rehearsals blew my mind and I’m going, ‘This is the most fun I had since the original Van Halen.’ That would cause me to be more open. I mean, if we do it and it’s wonderful and successful and the fans love it, I’d go, ‘OK, let’s go and do 10 cities.’ But I couldn’t just go out as Van Halen. There’s no friggin’ way.”

When’s the last time you spoke with Alex? Was it 2004 on the last tour?

“Yes. At the end of the tour. We finished in Albuquerque, and Ed went completely off the rails. Irving Azoff grabbed me at the end of the show and said, ‘Get in the car and get the fuck out here.’ We were supposed to go on the same plane together. We had a plane and we were going to fly home, and he saw what was going on earlier and he chartered me another plane by myself with my wife and my tour manager.

I was walking off the stage, somebody goes and grabs me and said, ‘Keep on going. Get the fuck out of here, right now. Go.’ Well, he just knew a fight would have broken out because Ed was so belligerent on that last show that I wanted to beat his ass.

So Alex came up to me right there at the same time and gave me a big hug and said, ‘I love you, man. Thank you. Be careful. Safe flight.’ And that was the last time. And I think we talked on the phone a little bit, but I don’t know what happened with Al. He kind of drank the Kool-Aid or something.”

They haven’t done much with the catalog from your era of the band. Are you hoping they re-release it?

“Well, I think it’s going to have to be inevitable because we sold 46, 47 million records with me in the band. They were all Number One albums. You can’t just leave that and have it sit in the Dumpster. Warner Brothers has been pushing forever to do something, but I know Dave is against it. Dave likes to pretend like I was never in the band.

Alex is not active. He’s not out there pushing it and talking to people like you. He’s not making plans. I think he’s still licking his wounds from his brother’s death, and God bless him, man. I don’t know how he could deal with it. I’m having a hard enough time myself.

I think when Alex comes out of his shell, he’ll probably do it. And like I said, I’m thinking about reaching out to Alex. You’re pushing me in that direction, and I’m feeling it because it’s time. It’s been a couple of years now that I gave up on him.”

Do you think the albums need to be remixed or just remastered?

“Remastered. Remastering can bring out more of what’s on that tape that you don’t hear in the old mastering. It doesn’t hurt anything. I don’t like changing things too much from the vintage. I’m a purist. That’s why people love vinyl. They like to put them on and have them sound like the old records…I’m thinking of the early stuff like OU812. That didn’t have enough bottom on it, and it had no bass. It was one of those…I hate to tell you why, but everyone was so fucked up. They had the bass so loud in the studio since everything was really loud. It was so loud on the playbacks. But if you turned it down, the bass was not there. It needs to be remastered more than any of them.”

Album box sets are also a chance to release demos, studio outtakes, and live stuff from the era. Fans would love to hear that.

“I don’t know how much of that stuff is around. It’s all in 5150 studios somewhere. I shouldn’t be saying where it is, but I know it exists. And I do believe Wolfie is in charge of it. I heard things were turned over more to Wolfie than to Al.”

Have you spoken much to Wolfie since he was a kid on the 2004 tour?

“Yes, but not a ton. I really gave him a lot of love when he made his first record, and he gave me some back. It was very cordial, not like, ‘Hey, let’s get together’ and stuff like that. I mean, Wolfie blows my mind. Look what he did over in London for that Taylor thing. When he played Eddie’s stuff, man, that was fuckin’ really good. He just keeps impressing me with his talent. That song ‘Distance’ is so soulful. I had no idea he could sing like that.

He’s really got his pop’s talent. It’s kind of like Jason and John Bonham. I mean, Jason’s just like his dad, man. He plays fuckin’ that good. And I think Wolfie, maybe not as innovative because nobody is, but yes, he’s definitely doing it right. I praise him for not trying to be Eddie.

But now, I’ll make a statement. If there was ever a situation where there was a Van Halen tribute in some kind of way with Alex, Mike, myself, Dave, if he would cooperate, and Wolfie playing Eddie’s parts, now that would be worthy of calling ‘Van Halen,’ for a moment. Wolfie would be crazy to drop his life and his creativity and his career to be his dad’s mimic. But for a moment, it could be great.”

Just to clarify a few things, when did Irving Azoff call you with the idea of the Las Vegas residency?

“I’m trying to remember. It was six months ago or something. It was probably a month before [the rehearsals] hit the press.”

There’s been nothing since then?

“Irving said, ‘Alex isn’t yet ready to do anything. He’s still in mourning.’”

In your mind, it’s still a possibility though?

“I guess so. But it’s not on the top of my agenda. Waiting on someone from Van Halen, I don’t care which guy it is, it’s how the band broke up to begin with.”

Roth was asked recently about a tribute show. He said, “I was the one who named the band. Are you talking about a tribute to me?”

“[Huge laugh] There you go! [Even bigger laugh] I should start following Roth. He would keep me laughing, I’m sure. Oh my god, this guy! What the fuck? Just imagine if I said that. I was in the band. I wrote all the songs with Eddie, just like he did. He wrote the lyrics and the melodies. Warner Brothers mentioned wanting to name the band Van Hagar when I joined. Eddie and I said, ‘No, no, no. This is Van Halen.’ I was joining Van Halen. And so imagine if I went around talking like that? I’d get thrown out of the business. How can Dave get away with that shit? Oh, what a fuckin’ screwball.”

In that same little interview at the airport, he said you’d need two of everything for a Van Halen tribute. He mentioned Lukather and Satriani, Jason Newsted and Michael Anthony, Tommy Lee and Alex Van Halen.

“They don’t need two bass players. Michael is a better bass player today than he was in Van Halen. He’s as good a singer, if not better, than he was in Van Halen. I’m sure Alex can play as good as good. He’s a great, great drummer. I know what I can do. I’m probably better than I’ve ever been. I think Diamond Dave is the one we want to worry about here.”

He mentioned Pink as one of the possible singers.

“I love her. I bet she could crush his era of songs. She’s got that husky voice. She’s got the range and the power. She would erase him if she jumped up there and started singing that shit. I wold love it. I would throw my hat in the ring with Pink any day.”

The reality is that Dave is basically retired. Wolfgang is wisely doing his own music. Alex is off the grid. You and Michael are the only ones keeping the music alive.

“One hundred percent. Alex, he’s not going to try to put a Van Halen tribute together. He would never. Alex has got more dignity, and it’s not his style. When Dave goes out, he just does his stuff. But Mike and I together, we’re The Other Half. There’s two of us from the band. We’re two out of four. And it’s that vocal sound between Mikey and I, with his background vocals, and my lead vocals, that really has all the identity for the Van Hagar era.

Jason Bonham’s father was Alex’s hero. All he ever wanted was the John Bonham drum sound on ‘Poundcake’ and these other songs. Those songs are pure Led Zeppelin as far as the drumming, and Jason plays this stuff as good as anyone on the planet. Vic Johnson is a genius. He’s the most underrated guitar player in the world, in history. I think we play it as good as anybody except Van Halen…

And look, everyone thinks I changed [Van Halen]. This is really important. I’m glad you put this into my head. Those ballads, Eddie presented them to me. ‘When It’s Love,’ ‘Love Walks In.’ Eddie was so horny to show off his keyboard playing because Roth hated it. And Eddie was a good keyboard player, almost as good as he was on guitar. And when I heard what he was doing, I’m going, ‘Holy shit.’ I got inspired. And we wrote those songs. When he played me ‘When It’s Love,’ the words just started pouring out of me.”

If you were to get Alex on the phone today, what would you say to him?

“I’m going to say what he always said to me. I’m going to say, ‘Alex. We ain’t getting no younger.’ Every time he came to me for a reunion or to get back in the studio after taking a break he’d say, ‘Sam, we ain’t getting no younger.’ So I would tell him that. Then we’d have a big laugh and catch up. I wouldn’t start with business things since they wouldn’t be first on my agenda. I’d want to see how he’s really doing. Hopefully he’s doing well, and then we’d be able to reconnect instantly, like we did for the reunion.

Alex is a really sweet guy. He’s just tough. He’s really hard, man. He’s Dutch, man. You know what I mean, he’s like some old 1700s kind of guy. He’s really a tough, old-school kind of person. He’s closed up, but he has a big, big heart. That’s probably why he’s so closed up.”

The fans really want this tribute show. It’ll be really cathartic, and it’ll be closure.

“I agree. I think it’s necessary.”

[black-arcana]

DISTURBED Performs 'Don't Tell Me' With HALESTORM's LZZY HALE In Sydney, Australia

Video of DISTURBED performing the "Divisive" album track "Don't Tell Me", featuring a guest appearance by HALESTORM's Lzzy Hale, on March 23 at Knotfest Australia in Sydney, Australia can be seen below.

DISTURBED played "Don't Tell Me" with Lzzy for the first time two days earlier at Knotfest Australia in Melbourne. A short time later, DISTURBED singer David Draiman shared a couple of backstage and onstage photos of him with Lzzy and he included the following message: "Thanks so much to @officiallzzyhale of @halestormrocks for absolutely nailing @annwilson 's part in #donttellme last night at @knotfestau".

In January, DISTURBED released the Matt Mahurin-directed music video for "Don't Tell Me". The song, an epic emotionally charged duet with HEART's Ann Wilson, marked the first time the band had included a guest feature on an LP.

Regarding how the collaboration with Wilson came about, DISTURBED drummer Mike Wengren told Terrie Carr of WDHA-FM 105.5 FM: "That was always supposed to be the 'power ballad,' per se. And as we were tracking it in the studio, David just threw out the idea, 'Hey, let's do a duet on this song.' We've tossed around the idea before, but there wasn't ever either the right material or the right time. So in this particular case, we kind of said, 'Well, who you've got in mind?' And he didn't even have a list; he just had one person, and that was Ann. It was a no-brainer. 'Hey, let's hit up Ann. Let's see if she'd be into it.' And she was on board right away; we didn't have to convince her."

Mike continued: "[David and Ann] sort of struck up a bit of a friendship, a little bit of a rapport. When [DISTURBED cover version of] 'The Sound Of Silence' came out years back and had its success, she was one of many artists and celebrities that took it up themselves to go on Twitter and praise the song and praise our version of it, which we couldn't have been more honored. Iconic, legendary Ann Wilson thinks that we did a great job with a SIMON & GARFUNKEL cover. That's pretty incredible, a pretty great honor. So when we reached out to her, she was more than willing to jump on board. And she came in and she killed it… And she's super cool and down to earth too, and just incredibly talented. It's such an honor to have her be on our record. And to me, the blending of her voice and David's voice, they really, really work so well together. I'm so proud of David and just so honored to have her a part of our record."

In September 2022, DISTURBED guitarist Dan Donegan, whose divorce inspired "Don't Tell Me", told Meltdown of Detroit's WRIF radio station about the band's collaboration with Wilson: "Early in our career, we wanted to really establish ourselves without having any guests. We didn't really talk about it much, but just [felt], 'This is the band.' Not that we were ever against it, but this far along in our career… We're always pushing ourselves, trying to do stuff that's different musically. And there's so much talent out there and so many people we would love to do collaborations with now or later in our career.

"Ann Wilson had mentioned before — she tweeted about us before," he continued. "A few years back, somebody asked her in an interview or whatever if there's anything new out there, or newer, musically that she's heard that she's fan of, and she mentioned she really loved our version of 'The Sound Of Silence'. And that kind of opened the door to a social media friendship between her and David a bit. And then when we wrote this song, it just seemed like it would lend itself to Ann's voice and then trying to see that merge between her and David's voices together. She jumped on the opportunity. Immediately she responded, and we were, like, 'Holy shit. She just said yes to this.'"

Asked by Meltdown if "Don't Tell Me" is a more mellow track than the standard DISTURBED fare, Dan said: "I can't give it away, but their voices, it's like Fergie and Jesus — a little 'Step Brothers' [2008 movie] quote there… It was a pretty magical moment to be in the room and to hear the two of them harmonize together.

"We tracked David's vocals in Nashville, and we wanted to make it easy and convenient for her, 'cause we were, like, she said yes, she's gonna do it," Donegan continued. "Let's make it as easy as possible on her.' We flew out to California to meet with her. We went into a studio out there for just a couple of hours, and she sang against David's tracks. And he was there kind of going over the harmonies with her and stuff too. So it was kind of a really magical moment to see the two of them working on those harmonies together. It was pretty impressive. And she's such a pro, and she's so damn good. She's a legend. So it was pretty exciting. And it's not like she sits there and jumps on people's albums either, so we take that as a badge of honor to think that there's not many times where somebody as big a legend as she is that she would jump on any album. She doesn't have to, and she chose to be on this one. And she loves the track. And it just came together great."

Released in November 2022, "Divisive" was recorded earlier that year with producer Drew Fulk (MOTIONLESS IN WHITE, LIL PEEP, HIGHLY SUSPECT) in Nashville, Tennessee.

According to Billboard, "Divisive" sold 26,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release, with 22,000 units via album sales.

On the all-format Billboard 200 chart, "Divisive" debuted at No. 13.

DISTURBED has had five No. 1s on the all-genre chart, beginning with "Believe" in 2002.

[greensparty]

Concert Review: Pearl Jam

9/17/24 @ Fenway Park (Boston, MA)

Just last week I got to see Jane's Addiction literally implode onstage. This week I got to see their alt-rock peers in Pearl Jam play a lot nicer. This was PJ's second night at Fenway Park of this tour. Let me just say at the onset of this review that there is a reason Pearl Jam is considered one of the greatest live bands on the planet! I was lucky enough to see them in Aug. 2000 at Great Woods in Mansfield, MA. I, then, had the pleasure of seeing them in 2018 at Fenway Park (read my review here) and was struck by how they had actually gotten better since the first time I saw them 18 years earlier. I also got to review their 2017 live CD / DVD Let's Play Two, which covered their 2016 shows at Chicago's Wrigley Field, and it showed the sheer fandom that singer Eddie Vedder had for the Chicago Cubs. Which is why it was classy to hear him speak so respectfully about Fenway Park and its history and place in baseball history. Bassist Jeff Ament wore a Larry Bird t-shirt and guitarist Mike McCready wore a shirt of the band Boston. So the fact that PJ are returning to Fenway Park was something super special!

PJ onstage

Going into this concert, I knew it was going to be an epic show, but I was speechless by where I was watching from. I was on the turf at Fenway Park, easily the best seats I've ever had for a concert at Fenway Park! I felt like I was at the center of the universe - unbelievable! I missed opening act Glen Hansard, who performed with Olivia Vedder (yes - the daughter of some guy in PJ). I was a fan of the 2021 Flag Day soundtrack that featured Glen, Olivia and her dad, so it's too bad I missed it, but fortunately Glen Hansard came out in the middle of PJ's set and sat with Eddie Vedder for a cover of "Falling Slowly", Glen's famous song from Once.

One of the many cool visuals during PJ's performance

PJ brought their A-Game to Fenway. Not just Eddie, but Guitarists McCready and Stone Gossard, bassist Ament, drummer Matt Cameron and touring keyboardist Boom Gaspar and multi-instrumentalist Josh Klinghoffer (he appeared on Eddie's 2022 solo album Earthling) were all in top form. They did a ton of hits off of Ten, Vs., and Vitology, and some songs off of albums they've released since (although surprisingly nothing off of Binaural, Pearl Jam, or Lightning Bolt), but what I was most excited to see in this concert was hearing them do songs off of their most recent albums Gigaton and Dark Matter. Sadly for everyone Gigaton had the misfortune of being released in March 2020 shortly after lockdowns and we didn't get a proper Gigaton tour. At this show, the only song they did off that album was "Superblood Wolfmoon". It would've been cool to get some of the other songs off that album like "Retrograde", but beggars can't be choosers. But since Dark Matter is the newer album, that overshadowed Gigaton and they played five of the 11 songs off the new album.

Vedder takes center stage

Gossard's solo

no this wasn't taken during "Red Mosquito"

McCready's solo

nothing like playing Fenway Park

Highlights of the show for me were "Daughter", "Untitled", "F***in' Up" (a Neil Young and Crazy Horse cover they've been doing for decades now), "Why Go", and "Yellow Ledbetter". Earlier this year, Eddie hinted in the press that the band may only be around for another album or two. While I hope that's not the case, this particular show is very much a tough act to follow. But if anyone can top themselves it's PJ!

For info on Pearl Jam

[oddygaul]

Russian Circles 20th Anniversary at Metro

I think I might start writing about shows here too, now and then. I’ve never kept a record of all the shows I’ve been to, and it feels weird thinking about all the road trips I did in high school to catch my favorite bands that I’m now starting to forget.

Pelican was not particularly interesting. I’ve always said a post-rock band lives or dies by its drummer, and, well, their drummer was not really bringing the heat. My favorite post-rock is about the rise and the fall, the quiet interludes and the crescendos, and few of their songs brought that feeling; even when the other instruments would move into a quieter section, the drummer was hitting as hard as he could. No dynamics on that guy.

Russian Circles was pretty killer. I haven’t seen them in probably a decade; I truly love Enter and Station, but the style they pursued on later albums strayed away from my tastes a bit, so I stopped being as motivated to travel for them. Gotta say, though, live? Even the recent tracks that weren’t my favorite on recording hit hard. The opener of 309 straight into Harper Lewis was immense. Each member of the band continues to be staggeringly talented. Dave Turncrantz, one of my biggest inspirations while learning drums, continues to have a level of dynamics that seems like it should be impossible in such a loud live setting. Getting to see Brian Cook live now that I uh.. know how bass works brought me a ton of new appreciation for his parts – the chords and texture he adds are powerful, and his tone is downright nasty, especially on tracks like Geneva. And it’s still wild how Mike Sullivan manages to get away with using a loop pedal as constantly as he does live without so much as a single hitch.

Music aside, a few things struck me.

-It was kinda fun to see both Brian and Mike just come onstage during soundcheck to set up their whole rigs and tune every guitar – pretty rare move for a band that big.

-The light show was fuckin killer - they legit had some crazy visual trickery, like light sequencing that perfectly mimicked the shadows cast by a crackling fire, and some layered fog / light patterning toward the end that defined separate volumes across the stage… and this was on top of great timing for standout moments like fills / breaks.

-For being the hometown stop on their 20th anniversary tour, it was surprising for them to not say a single word to the audience. I mean, respect, fine by me – but usually that’s the kind of show where folks open up and get a little sappy, y’know?

-...especially cause they definitely had time – there were pretty long interludes between most of their songs for tuning / prep. I didn’t mind it too much, but I typically consider one of the hallmarks of a great live band to be intentional transitions and pacing – one of the many reasons Arukara are my GOAT – and the interludes here felt a bit unintentional.

-Boy, I guess it’s just been a while since I’ve made it to a post-rock show, but the crowd is different these days. Ten years ago it was mostly awkward silence and a group of weirdos enjoying the atmosphere; here there were constant cheering and yells during every possible quiet moment, no reflection allowed.

setlist

309 Harper Lewis Conduit Mota Quartered Ethel Fathom / Geneva Betrayal Gnosis Vorel Youngblood

bonus car