Page 67 of Hot Mess
“I’m not.” She got to her feet and started pacing in front of me a bit. “Look, Ash. We’ve been doing this vortex thing for a long time, for the hell of it. Except for me, it’s more than that. We’ve always talked about music, but we’ve never really made music together. I want that to change. I want to start up a band, with you.”
Okay. I was definitely high right now, but I was paying attention. Summer was a passionate person, and that passion was often infectious. It was what made her such a great DJ. The life of any party.
And I knew when she wasseriousabout something, and she was serious about this.
“We already know we have chemistry, personally,” she went on. “And we both have talent. We both have a fan base. We can pool our talents. Make something fresh and exciting. You know I love being a DJ, but this isn’t my forever dream. There’s an expiry date on it, and it’s approaching, fast.”
“Is it?”
“Yes. I was a pianist first, and honestly, I miss it. I don’t want to play fifth billing at festivals and host parties for my famous friends for the rest of my life. It’s been good to me, really good, but I want more. You know I want to compose more. You know I want to play more keys. Sing more. Produce. And you know I can rock.”
Was that what this was about?
Faith No More… proving to me she could rock? That she was down with heavy alternative shit, like the kind of stuff she knew I wanted to play?
“I know you can rock, Summer.”
“All the work I did with Elle on her solo album,” she said, still pleading her case, “and the songs I got to work on with Dirty on their last album, were the most fun I ever had, musically. You know I can sing. I’m no Ashley Player, but I’ve been doing more vocal training. You know I can bring piano to it, synth, all the electronic sounds we could ever dream of fucking around with. So let’s do it, and let’s make itbig. Like a big live show, with massive sound, that goes beyond mere rock ’n’ roll. We could bring in some huge talent. People like you and me, who just need the right fusion.”
“Like a supergroup?”
“Exactlylike a supergroup,” she said, sparking off the idea. “Fuck, yes. A supergroup.”
“It’s not a bad idea.”
“Of course it’s not.” She stood in front of me with her hands on her hips. “I came up with it.”
I sighed. Every time I even thought about putting a new band together, the idea just exhausted me. My heart really wasn’t in it. Not like it should’ve been.
I loved music.
What I didn’t love was managing interpersonal drama, which I’d had to do—or try to do—in every band I’d ever been in. For some reason, my bandmates had always turned to me to fix their issues, even when I couldn’t.
Maybe we’d never had the right management, so it just fell to me, the frontman, instead. But all that told me was that my bandmates had worse problems than I did. That comparatively, I was the solid one.
Kinda frightening.
The idea of forming a band with someone whowasn’ta fucking mess… Someone like Summer?
It was a tempting offer.
“I’m really not looking forward to putting a band together from the ground up,” I admitted, slowly, thinking it through. “You know that by now. I keep having these nightmares of playing in some shitty nightclub, trying to sing ‘Smooth Criminal.’”
“Michael Jackson?”
“Yeah. Alien Ant Farm.”
“Huh?”
“You never heard that heavy cover they did of ‘Smooth Criminal’?”
“Damn. I don’t think so.”
“My version is just like that, in the dreams. But I have these backup singers behind me that I can’t see, who are singing it perfectly, and I can’t sing it for shit, and the mic keeps cutting out and the band keeps fucking up and I keep losing my place, and I get booed offstage.”
Summer snickered. “That would so never happen to you.”
I took a long drag off the joint and squinted at her. “DJ Summer… I never knew you were such a fan.”
