Page 11 of Your Rhythm
“Well now that we’re all here,”—I pause to stare pointedly at Ace—“physically, if not mentally, shall we get started?”
“We don’t have the synth here anymore,” JP complains. “Why are we evenhereanyways?”
He waves his hands to indicate the busted up furniture and piles of music paraphernalia crowding the basement. Back in the early days we even recorded our demos here, kitting the place out with acoustic panels and all the second-hand gear we could find.
Of course, our recent deal with Atlas Records means we’ve now got access to state of the art rehearsal spaces at any hour of the day or night. I like the idea of still having something that’soursthough, even if the other guys give me shit about it.
“We’re here,” I tell them, “because I don’t like Atlas listening in on us all the time.”
Cole and JP roll their eyes, and even Ace makes himself coherent enough to bark out a laugh.
“They’re not Russian spies, you know,” JP lectures me. “You talk about them like they’re out to get us or something. They’re our label. We help them and they help us.”
“Whatever. I just feel more...creative here, too,” I admit.
“Don’t mess with Matt’s muses, man,” Cole says to JP.
I’m pretty sure anyone who didn’t know him well would miss the note of humour in his low voice. Cole Byrne is one of the most intense dudes I know. If he didn’t wear glasses and have a habit of stroking his chin, I’d think he was fighting off the urge to break someone in half every time he stared off into space. As it is, he just looks like he’s contemplating the inner workings of the universe.
JP picks up on his joke right away.
“Do you want me to light some candles?” he asks me. “Maybe we could burn some of that incense shit. Gotta keep the mood right for the muses,non?”
I try to save some face. “Hey, maybe if you all spent less time messing with ‘muses’ we’d actually sound half decent when we played. We haven’t had a good rehearsal in forever. We haven’t even hadarehearsal in forever.”
“Ça va, ça va. Be chill.” JP pulls off his coat but leaves his hat on as he takes his place at the keyboard. “We don’t play a show for another three weeks, and our shit is still crushing the charts. We can relax for a bit, man. We deserve it.”
I clench my hands around my sticks so tight they threaten to splinter, swallowing down all the bitter comebacks that spring to mind. Lately ‘relaxing’ has been the only thing on any of the guys’ minds.
“Calm your tits, Matt. We’re fine. You’re giving me a headache,” Ace groans.
“Actually it would be your descent into alcohol dependency that’s doing that, Ace,” I answer levelly, still standing there like I’m bracing myself for a fistfight.
He mutters something under his breath and I’m about to ask him to speak up if he has something to say, but Cole cuts in.
“Agreed. If you’re gonna come to practice, you should at least come to practice sober.”
As always, Cole’s words seem to hold more weight than anyone else’s. Ace stays quiet, sitting up a bit on the couch and messing around with his tuning pegs.
“Nous sommes tous corrects, là?” JP’s fingers stray across his keyboard to chime the chorus of our big hit as he asks if we’re all good.
“Ouais,” Cole answers, with his voice and with his bass. “Let’s do this.”
We launch into ‘Sofia.’ Ace can’t sing for shit today and misses half the lyrics, but he at least gets enough of the guitar part down to carry us through the song.
The last few notes haven’t even faded out of the amplifiers before JP pulls a face and mutters, “Ouch.”
That sums up my feelings right now too, but I want to keep the ball rolling so I pick up the drum intro to the next number on our set list.
“Come on, let’s go. One— Two— One, two, three, four!”
We play for half an hour straight, banging out the tunes we all know by heart but never seem to get tired of. Despite the way things have been going, when it comes to music, we’ve always had an unspoken understanding I’m not sure any of us could put into words. It comes out when we play, when we all get so caught up in a song the swell of sound swallows us up like a storm.
That’s the reason I want to flip out when I see this band slacking; I know we’ve got something too good here to ever take for granted.
We’ve almost made it halfway through our usual set when we decide to take a break. Everyone might have been freezing their asses off when they got in here, but now we’re all reaching for water and wiping the sweat off our faces.
“I think,” pants JP, as he pulls off his hat to reveal the dishevelled man bun underneath, “we’re out of synch during the bridge for ‘2 AM.’ I keep missing your queue.”
