Page 4 of Your Echo
“Doesno onecheck the band’s Facebook group?” Matt shouts into my ear.
“Um, no, Matt. No one does. You made a Facebook group for four people. We all told you it was stupid.”
Matt made the group after our label, Atlas Records, coerced our old manager into resigning and basically declared war on our band. It’s been more of a cold war, fought through passive-aggressive emails and deliberate scheduling conflicts, but we’re stuck putting up with it until we get our next two albums out and complete the terms of our contract. Matt uses his Facebook group and ‘Undercover Band Meetings’ to make sure we’re keeping on track.
JP, our man bun-sporting keyboardist, uses the group to send us memes and photos of girls he matches with on Tinder.
I open Facebook up on my phone. “Um, let’s see. That’s a cat. That’s a girl named Dannika. That’s a cat. That’s a girl named Ashley who is holding a cat. Oh, there it is: ‘Urgent band meeting in the basement at 12:30 today. Be there or I will show up at your apartment and drag your useless ass out of bed myself. That means you, Ace.’Sacrement, Matt, did you tag me? In our Facebook group offour people?”
“Just get over here. Now.”
He hangs up.
I chuck my phone on my bed and groan. What I really need is a scalding hot shower and two more of Roxanne’s espressos, but I grab a t-shirt off the floor and slip into my shoes.
My building is just on the edge of the McGill student ghetto and only a few streets down from the Sherbrooke Station metro stop. Our old rehearsal space—and our only one before we signed with Atlas and got access to their state of the art rooms and equipment—is in the basement of a building right across from the station. That’s how we ended up getting our name.
I take the stairs two at a time after making the short walk over. The familiar smell of sweat, old furniture, and the lingering trace of delivery pizza that never really goes away hits me the second I walk in the room. The scent would be enough to make other people turn around and leave, but to me it smells like music. This is what late nights spent hunched over a soundboard smell like. This is what a room smells like after it’s incubated potential for four years and given birth to a hit.
The members of said hit are all sprawled on the musty, second-hand couches, staring at me like I’m about to be sent to the gallows.
“What’s up?” I ask, freezing when I pick up on the tense expectation in the air.
Matt nods toward an empty armchair. “Sit.”
Even JP, who’s usually running around like some kind of French Canadian Christmas elf on crack, looks serious. Cole’s glaring at me like he has the ability to set me on fire with his eyes. Honestly, if anyone could actually do that, it would be Cole. I shuffle over to the chair.
“This,” Matt begins, pausing to dramatically crack his knuckles, “is an intervention.”
I breathe out, sighing half in relief and half in annoyance.
“Don’t go all reality TV on me, guys. It was one fuck-up. Look, Cole, I don’t remember much of last night, but I take it I was more of an ass than usual and—”
“Shut up,” he grumbles, staring me into silence. “Listen to Matt.”
Matt and Cole share a nod.
“We’re nipping this in the bud,” Matt continues. “We’re not going down this road again. A few months ago, we made a commitment to not let this band fall apart. We all set aside whatever fucking problems we had with the Atlas Records situation and we decided to move forward, and you know what? We crushed it. We took Europe by storm. We need to keep building on this momentum, and that’s going to take continued commitment fromallof us.”
He’s drumming out a rhythm against his leg as he speaks, like he’s imagining a musical accompaniment to his speech.
“That was great, Matt,” I tell him. “I feel like you should have a flag fluttering behind you right now. Should we put the national anthem on?”
“Ben là, don’t be a dick,” JP interjects. “You have a problem, man.”
“I don’t have a—”
“You told my girlfriend she could still go back even though she went black, and asked her to give your dick a call once she got over her ‘chocolate phase.’ You might not think you have a problem, but I have a fuckingproblemwith you.”
I can actually hear Cole’s teeth grinding as he spits the words out through a clenched jaw.
So much for avoiding ground zero. I start to stammer out an apology.
“Cole, I’m sorry, man. You know I don’t feel that way. I don’t even remem—”
“Andthat’s your problem,” he growls, cutting me off. “The world doesn’t shut off when you do. The rest of usdoremember. I’ll take a lot of shit, man, but the second you bring Roxy into it...”
He trails off and I see the muscles in his arms twitch. A few moments of silence tick by before Matt clasps his hands together.
