Page 75 of Your Rhythm
18You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid || The Offspring
MATT
Another day,another Atlas meeting. We’re three weeks out from the Metropolis show, and both Atlas and Shayla have been grilling us so hard on all things European tour-related I’m almost sick of talking about it—almost, but not quite. The discussions might be tedious, but they are making the idea of playing overseas finally start to feel real.
Plus, we really do need all Shayla’s last minute reminders to save us from disaster. She only discovered last week that JP’s passport is expired.
I make my way to our usual meeting room at Atlas HQ. Nadine and that asshole from PR, David, who got everyone hooked on calling Kay a snake, are already waiting. Shayla’s sitting on a couch by herself, tight-lipped with her arms wrapped around her stomach. I tilt my head in concern but she looks away as soon as she meets my eye.
I pause in the doorway, wondering if it’s my imagination of if the temperature in here really just dropped several degrees. I can almost smell the dread in the air, sharp and nauseating, like I’m walking into some kind of death chamber.
I was going to say hello, but my throat constricts just as a twisting sensation starts in my gut. Now I have an idea why Shayla’s clutching her stomach. I take a seat next to her on the couch.
“Thanks for joining us, Pat,” David greets me.
I don’t bother correcting him. “What’s going on?”
He shakes his head, staring at me with what almost looks like regret. “We’ll wait for the rest of the band to get into that.”
The guys file in one at a time, doing the same double-take I did when they pick up on the atmosphere in the room. When we’re all finally seated, Nadine lifts a folder out of her bag and sets it on her lap.
“You all know who Kay Fischer is?” she inquires.
The rest of the band’s heads snap towards me. I blink, fighting to keep my cool.
My chin dips down in a nod. “She wrote an article about us inLa Garea few months ago.”
“She’s working on another article about you now.”
Nadine opens her folder and starts to pass several sets of stapled papers around. I hand one to Shayla, but she shakes her head and refuses to take it.
“I’ve already read it.”
There’s a harshness to her tone I’ve never heard before.
I glance down at the first page. There’s a title:
Next Stop: Sherbrooke Station
Underneath that is Kay’s name. I take a deep breath and start reading.
* * *
The topicof Sherbrooke Station prompts a now familiar question among Montrealers whenever it’s brought up: are we talking about the metro stop or the band? In the case of this article, the answer is the latter, an increasingly popular addition to the city’s alternative music scene who seem to generate more concern over where they’ll be drinking tonight than when they’ll be playing their next show.
A series of chart-topping achievements might suggest it’s worth getting up to speed on all things Sherbrooke Station, but a deeper look into the now infamous group’s career, which has blown up after a recent deal with the omnipotent Atlas Records, reveals a band on the edge of toppling over before they’ve even begun to build themselves up.
Sherbrooke Station’s lead singer, twenty-four year-old Ace Turner, has already fallen prey to the typical rock god vices of public intoxication and violent outbursts. The remaining members of the band have little to offer in the way of saving graces. Their attitude as a whole is perhaps best exemplified by band member Jean-Paul ‘JP’ Bouchard-Guindon; when asked what motivates the group to keep getting up on stage every night, he simply responds with: “Girls.” Clearly whatever sense of ambition got Sherbrooke Station up the first rungs in the ladder of success is rapidly on the wane.
Completed by bassist Cole Byrne and drummer Matthew Pearson, the group forms a painfully trendy ensemble of inked-up arms, pierced eyebrows, and fitted leather jackets. Don’t let their apparent ‘edge’ fool you, though; they’re a boy band without the dance routines, trading baby faces for beards and a pervading moodiness that has worked to gain them the same swooning female audience others won over withSeventeen-worthy smiles.
Admittedly, their fame isn’t completely founded in good looks. As Adam Leahy, a concert-goer at the group’s March show in Ottawa who was, “guilted into going by [his] mega-fan girlfriend,” concedes: “At first I didn’t want to be here, but they’re actually really good. I wasn’t expecting that.” As far as live shows go, the band does deliver an unexpected punch, albeit at the cost of a shot to the eardrums, courtesy of all the ‘mega-fans’ screaming out their adoration.
So why wouldn’t a deal with one of the biggest labels in the country be anything other than a guaranteed ticket to international success? Part of Sherbrooke Station’s inevitable downfall may lie in that record deal itself. While Bouchard-Guindon fills the stony silence of his band-mates with assurances that, “[Atlas Records has] been pretty great so far. We wouldn’t have our big tour coming up without them,” not everyone in the group agrees.
After requesting an interview on his own, Pearson informsLa Garethat, “this just isn’t how it was supposed to be,” going so far as to admit, “we’re just the Atlas Records show horse, and once they make us drop Shayla [McDougal, the band’s manager of the past two years] things will only get worse.”
The band’s prospects have indeed already taken a turn for the unfortunate. A physical altercation that took place on April 22ndled to Ace Turner’s detainment by Montreal Police and to a violent photo of him being highly circulated online. Turner defended the episode as an attempt to “protect a girl from a creep.” According to Pearson, however, “[Turner] was being a drunk asshole like he always is. He would have punched somebody over way less.”
