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“Um, yeah.”
“Hey, Ryan, let ‘em listen to some of the stuff we’ve recorded,” Derek called over his shoulder.
Ryan fired up the computer, opened a computer program, and played a couple of songs. They were good – not great, but good, like a lot of stuff you hear on college radio. The tunes were actually pretty catchy. Derek’s singing was strong and occasionally sexy. The lyrics weren’t bad, though they kind of tended towards the melodramatic and self-important.
But the drum stuff was meh. It sounded like it was all done on a drum machine, and by somebody who wasn’t very creative. And the guitar parts, while competent, sounded average.
But holy shit, the bass was crazy.
I never even notice the bass guitar in most songs. It’s usually there in the background, a complement to the drums, just underpinning the beat. But in these songs, the bass was front and center.
I looked at Ryan after one little bass solo. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly.
“That’s awesome,” I said.
He rubbed his close-cropped hair with an aw shucks grin and blushed.
“What about me?” Derek asked, almost on the verge of petulance.
“The singing’s really good, too,” I reassured him.
He still looked grumpy. “It’s not great?”
“Well… it’s just… it’s not as cool as when you were singing the songs ten minutes ago.”
“Give me a break – those are some of the greatest songs ever written,” he said. “I mean, our stuff – it’s pretty good for a band starting out, but we’re not fuckin’ Led Zeppelin or the Beatles.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, afraid I had offended him.
“The drum stuff sucks,” Ryan said glumly. “And I’m okay at guitar, but we really need a great guitarist, somebody who can make it sing.”
“I think you guys are awesome,” Shanna cooed, and grinded against Ryan’s leg a little more.
“We’re going to get there,” Derek said fiercely – to Ryan, to me, and almost to the whole world in general. It was like hearing a general yelling at his troops. “We’re going to get a badass drummer, and Killian Lee already said he’d be in the band.”
Ryan snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“Who?” I asked.
Derek clicked the spacebar on his computer and stopped the playback.
“Okay, check this out,” he said.
27
“So this past winter, this English band came through Athens – Gobsmacked. It’s some weird British slang or something. Nobody had ever heard of them, but they played at the Georgia Theater on a Tuesday when it was dead. They were pretty good, but the guitarist was incredible. I mean, fucking astounding. He was this little guy with long, black hair, kind of puffy and messed up, and he just let it hang loose down his back. He was older than the rest of the band, probably about 30, and he wore black from head to foot – black shirt, black pants, black trench coat down to his ankles. He was just… it was incredible. He’d launch off on these long solos that were just inspired. The band would kind of stand around while he did it – you could tell the lead singer was pissed, because everybody loved the guitarist and not him – and then they’d come back and finish the rest of the song. But the guy was amazing. I asked around afterward and found out his name was Killian Lee.
“They were playing the next night at the 40 Watt, so I told Ryan we HAD to go see him. Ryan was all freaked out – ”
“I was not,” Ryan protested.
“ – cause it was a school night – ”
“Shut up,” Ryan said, and gave me a nervous glance for some reason.
“But I told him if he didn’t go, he would regret it for the rest of his life. Didn’t I?”
“…yes.”
“And was I right?”
“Yeah, yeah, you were right,” Ryan muttered. “Just finish the story.”
“So anyway, Ryan snuck out and we went to the show – and the guitarist was even better the second night. I mean, he blew Ryan away. It was awesome.”
Ryan nodded enthusiastically.
“So after the show, I’m all like, ‘We’ve gotta go meet this guy.’ And Ryan’s like, ‘NUNH-UNH.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I’M going to go meet him,’ so Ryan finally gave in and we go backstage while all the roadies are loading up the equipment and the rest of the band are getting smashed. Killian’s back there sitting on a folding chair, just doodling on his electric guitar, smoking a joint, just kind of off in his own little hippy-dippy world. And I go up to him and stick my hand out and say, ‘I’m Derek Kane.’
