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With that, she spun and walked away.
When I was a teenager,playing shit gigs, I’d learned to do everything on my own. How to set up speakers, tune guitars, run lines for sound-check. My interest in the way sound worked only grew with the size of my gigs. By the time I was playing stadiums, sound fascinated me. I asked our sound engineers a hundred questions, made them show me mixing boards and explain each dial and switch.
Playing concerts wasn’t simply a matter of standing on a stage and strumming a guitar. Our music didn’t pass directly from our instruments to the audience’s ears. It also didn’t pass from our instruments to our own ears.
When I quit Never Again and got clean, I needed to work. Not because I was broke. I may have been a junkie, but I didn’t squander my money. No, I needed to work to stay busy. To not get inside my head. I started apprenticing under one of the sound engineers I’d met on the road, learning everything he could teach me. It’d been seven years now—seven years of touring and learning my craft.
Hector hired me as the monitor engineer, the one in charge of the in-ear monitors the musicians wore on stage, and I fucking loved this job. Each of them had specific requirements: what they wanted to hear, how loud they wanted the other instruments to sound in their ears. I’d met with Blue is the Color, some of my idols, and worked with them this afternoon, getting their levels the way they liked them.
This wasn’t a job where I could sit and wallow and get caught up in my thoughts. I sat off the side of the stage, watching monitors, listening to the show, keeping in contact with the band. If they weren’t happy, I’d hear about it first.
If someone had told me this would be my career when I had been fighting hard to be the one on stage, it would have broken me. But maybe I was able to love doing what I didbecauseI’d been the one on stage already. I’d done that, accomplished that. It had destroyed me, but I’d done it.
While I got ready for the second show, in Brussels, Nick Fletcher, the lead singer of Blue is the Color, came to my side of the stage and shook my hand.
“Nice job in Amsterdam,” he said. “I could actually hear myself.”
I let out a short laugh. “That’s kind of the goal. Thanks.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m a big fan of your music.”
Ah. This was the part that always made me uncomfortable. Not because I was ashamed by the direction my career had taken, but because other musicians saw what I did as a huge step down—a failure.
I played it off. “That’s cool to hear, considering…you know, you’re Nick Fletcher.”
He chuckled. “I’m surprised we never ran into each other back in the day. We were coming up at the same time.”
“Yeah, I think we missed each other at Swerve by a year or something. To be honest, I wasn’t the best guy to know back then.”
He nodded at my mixing board. “So, you like doing this?”
“I do. It’s just the right amount of pressure.”
He cracked a smile. “I bet you’ve had to deal with some major assholes.”
“I have, but I get it, which is why I’m so good at my job. I understand what it’s like to be on stage and all you can hear is the bass when you need to be hearing the drums—or hell, your own voice.”
“Well…” He clapped a hand on my shoulder, “we’re doing a big family dinner tomorrow since it’s our day off. I’d like to extend an invite. It’s just the core crew and the band, to celebrate the start of the tour. You in?”
I was taken aback, but not so much that I’d be turning him down. “Hell yes. Thank you, man.”
He nodded. “It’s cool.”
When he walked off to get ready for the show, I took out my phone and texted Jin.
Have you heard from her?
Jin:As you know, I don’t talk to you about Tali, and I don’t talk to Tali about you.
Me:All I’m asking is if you heard from her, not the contents of your conversation.
Jin:Yes. I heard from her. She was...perturbed I hadn’t told her you’d be on the tour. That’s all you’re getting from me.
Me:She still hates my fucking face, after all this time.
Jin:I’m not sure what you expected. Yeah, time has gone by, but it’s not like you’ve been around each other. It’s not like you really had any closure.
Me:Closure is a made up thing. It’s not real.
