Page 6 of Your Rhythm
“Nothing to say about him?”
He glances away from me and lets out a breath.
“He’s my friend. My best friend. We started the band together. He’s very talented.”
There’s a finality in his tone I recognize as the sign of a source shutting down. I switch tactics.
“Your deal with Atlas Records seems to have made a big difference for you guys. Let’s discuss that.”
He bobs his head, ready to open up again.
“Everything kind of changed overnight once the record deal came through. We went from surviving on Ramen and prayers to watching our YouTube hits shoot up into the millions.” He stops and laughs to himself. “I mean, we’re still not living on much more than Ramen, but for weeks it was almost impossible to keep up with all the phone calls. I think things started getting real for me when I saw three different people wearing Sherbrooke Station shirts on the metro one day.”
For a moment he looks nothing like the suave, fast-talking rock star I walked up to at the bar. There’s something almost childish in his excitement as he tells me about the band’s success. He’s like a kid presenting a science project it took most of the school year to make.
I can’t help flashing him a grin. “And now you guys are on all theBillboardhit lists and heading off to tour Europe this summer.”
He smiles back and shrugs. “The shows in Europe aren’t going to be anywhere near as big as what we play in Canada. We’re only just breaking out there, but still, it’s all kind of unreal.”
“Has it been a hard transition, working with a huge label like Atlas?”
A few lines form in his forehead, just deep enough for me to notice.
“It’s had its ups and downs. Atlas is...” He glances at my phone and shakes his head before continuing. “Atlas is a huge label, just like you said. We’re not used to that.”
Even through the lingering haze of the alcohol, my reporter’s intuition can pick up on the fact that there’s a story here. If I was one beer closer to sober I know I could get the answers I want without him even realizing it, but right now my journalist skills are about as ninja-like as my stair climbing ones. Matt dodges every question I throw at him.
“Tell me about ‘Sofia,’” I prompt, after I’ve decided to let the subject of Atlas go. “It’s your biggest hit so far. Do you ever get tired of playing it night after night?”
He scratches his stubble for a moment and then thumbs his bottom lip while he thinks. My own bottom lip starts to drop open as I watch. I snap my head away to stare at the bottom of the staircase instead, before I literally start drooling over him.
“Back when I was a kid and first started playing,” he answers, “I used to wonder how bands managed not to go insane playing the same songs every night. After my first gig back in high school though, I got it.”
He sits there, contemplating for long enough that I’m about to ask him to continue before he does it himself.
“I don’t know if I should be saying this on record, but when I was sixteen me and some of my buddies formed a garage band we called...uh...Well, it was called Chained Souls.”
“Chained Souls?” I cut in, a snort escaping me.
“Chained Souls,” he repeats, feigning solemnity before he laughs. “Our songs were as shit as our name, to be honest, but we thought we were going to be the voice of our generation. We went in the local Battle of the Bands. We didn’t make it any farther than the second round and broke up pretty soon after that, but I’ll never forget the feeling of the MC announcing our set. It was totally different from playing Nirvana covers at school talent shows. We were filling silence with a combination of sounds no one else had ever made before.”
He leans forward and his eyes find mine.
“Even then, I knew there was a power in that. I knew my voice would never be so loud or so strong as when...when I let it move through my fingers and make itself heard on my drums.”
Great. He’s a fucking poet.
Something stirs in me as we spend the next few seconds staring at each other. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in the long hours and rushing around, I forget why I ever wanted to be a journalist in the first place. Right now the answer is clear, though. That power he’s talking about—I can feel it too. For me, it flows through a pen instead of an instrument, but when I write about a band or a song I really love, I feel like my words have the power to change things.
I wrap the interview up soon after that. Staring into Matt’s eyes has also put my drool reflexes past the point of control, and I don’t want to embarrass myself any further. Thankfully, the alcohol is waning and it’s not too hard to put a bit of frost in my tone to cover up how entranced I was getting.
“Sure you don’t want to know how I got my name?” Matt asks. “Off the record?”
“We can leave that one a mystery. I really do have to get home.”
I straighten up, tucking my phone into my pocket.
“Wait, let me see that.”
