Page 24 of Verses

“Hayley?”

Oh, shit. I’d been so busy listening to the guys, I hadn’t thought to pickoneband out of all my favorites. Hadn’t thought of justonevocalist. I loved so many bands but when I thought about vocals, I focused on the women making hard rock and metal. And, as I let my mind distill it down to the kind of front woman I wanted to be, the choice came clear. It was her entire band, to be sure, but the lead vocalist sang and wrote the kind of songs I hoped to be known for someday.

“In This Moment.” Maria Brink was the kind of artist I could only hope to become half as good as. She was my North Star.

Wolf nodded, as if to tell me I’d made a good choice. But he said, “Those are all really good bands. Not only are they successful, but they’ve all got a big catalog to choose from. If you want to be like them, you have to play like them. And you can play like them if you learn to play their songs. Your brain and your muscle memory do the work for you if you put in the practice time—and it all happens subconsciously.”

All three of the other guys were nodding, almost wide-eyed as if Wolf was stepping up to be a leader and a mentor.

He was damned inspirational.

“But we all picked totally different bands,” Pedro said, pointing out the obvious.

“That’s good. If you wanted to be a cover band, you could just learn one band’s songs. I could name a few bands who sound just like their own favorite band—and it’s surprising any of them get contracts. If you want to hear Slipknot, are you gonna listen to Slipknot or some unknown wannabe band?”

“Slipknot.”

“Exactly. So we don’t want to sound likeoneband. We want our own sound. I get it, guys. Liam’s songs will always be part of the catalog, but you have to have fresh stuff too—and you have to have songs that come from insideyou.Allof you.”

“How do we do that?” Kyle asked.

“I want you guys to pick two or three songs from the favorite band you just mentioned—and we’reallgoing to learn how to play them, and they’ll be part of our setlist for a while. We need to play them until it’s just as easy as walking across the room.”

“Do you want us to buy the sheet music?”

Wolf smiled. “Only if you have to. Otherwise, bust your chops by listening to the song over and over and over, learning each note by ear. Have you ever done that before?”

“Yeah, dude!” Pedro said, “It’s hard, especially with the bass. You gotta rewind a million fucking times.”

“What songs did you do that with?”

“I did it with ‘Duality’.” Of course…a Slipknot song.

“How long since you played it?” Wolf asked.

“I don’t know. A year or two at least.”

“Could you still play it now?”

Pedro didn’t hesitate. “Hell, yeah. I might be a little slow at first, but I could do it.”

Wolf smiled, looking at each one of us in turn. “That’s what I’m talking about—muscle memory. You’ll never completely forget it.”

I didn’t think I’d ever seen Pedro that wide-eyed before. As I glanced at my bandmates, I realized it wasn’t only him.

We were a captive audience.

“And,” Wolf said, “if we can do that with eight or twelve songs from four different bands, doesn’t it stand to reason that those bands might influence you while you write your own music?”

Kyle nodded. “Yeah—but, like you said, there’s enough variety that there’s no way we’ll lean on just one style.”

Pedro asked, “What about you, Wolf man? What’s your band?”

“Actually, I’m sitting this part out. I know a lot of songs by a variety of other bands that sometimes influence my style—andthis band belongs to all of you. I’m just here helping out. It’syourvision, not mine.”

I said, “That’s not true, Wolf. If you’re joining our team, you have to be part of it. All the way.” Maybe that was a little pushy…but I meant it. He couldn’t just be half-assing his way through. I loved how inspirational he’d been, but his answer to Pedro’s question seemed like a copout.

Kyle asked, “What’syourfavorite band, Wolf?”

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