The Chance of a Lifetime
TWENTY-THREE
Eric
?It's A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll) - AC/DC?
“Hold the fucking phone,” Josh said, jaw dropped as we crowded around his phone. “Waves Apart wants to take us on the road? Are you serious?”
“Ryan and Chris were in town and caught your show the other night and called us this morning,” our manager, Shane, confirmed. “You guys ready for your first major U.S. tour?”
We all looked at each other, afraid to move—afraid to breathe. Afraid that if we so much as blinked, we’d wake up and this would all be a dream.
Waves Apart?Holy. Shit. This would be a huge opportunity for us. Very likelytheopportunity. Those guys were one of the hottest rock bands out there right now, selling out venues and topping the charts with four of their last five singles.
“So,” Shane said, his voice cutting through the anxious silence in the room. “Am I right in assuming your stunned silence translates to yes?”
“Hellyes,” I said, the other guys following up with their own versions of consent.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll get back to them with your answer and I’ll be in touch with a schedule once I have it. Congratulations, boys. You made it.”
When the call ended, we looked at each other in silence for a beat before leaping to our feet and shouting at the top of our lungs.
“Is this real life?” Kevin asked, laughing nervously. “That phone conversation actually happened, right?”
“I…I think so,” I said, heart hammering against my ribs.
A tour. A fuckingtour.
I’d only been part of this for six months, so I can’t even imagine what the other guys were feeling in that moment. It took themyearsof grinding to make it to this point. To finally have the opportunity to stand in front of thousands of people every night and play their music.Ourmusic. The idea of being part of a major tour was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.
This would be an opportunity to prove ourselves to an audience that might not have heard of us before. We were going to have to bring our A-game every night to stand out. The pressure was heavy, but there was also an excitement stirring beneath it.
I knew that this could be a major turning point for our career, but it was also a big step into the unknown. The crowds were going to be massive, and I couldn’t help but wonder—will they like us? Will I be able to handle the intensity of the road, night after night? The constant travel, the number of shows, the long drives, the exhaustion. I took a second toremind myself that it was all part of what we were working toward, and as daunting as it seemed, there was no way I was going to let the fear take over.
I was also still trying to wrap my head around the idea of being so close to Waves Apart. Getting to share a stage with them. Getting to learn from them. It felt surreal. I was going to see firsthand how they moved, how they performed, how they connected with their audience. There was going to be so much to learn, and I couldn’t believewhowe would be learning it all from.
“They say ‘never meet your heroes,’ so what was it like on the road with a band like Waves Apart?” Ty asks as she sits back into the booth, pulling her legs up against her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins. She settles into herself, resting her chin on one of her knees, seemingly content to listen to me blather on.
“They were incredible. It’s still one of my favorite tours we’ve ever done. We all vibed really well, and Ryan and Chris took a ton of time out of their schedules to hang with us. You could tell they were invested in us. They wanted us to succeed, and they gave us some really meaningful advice, answered any questions we threw at them, introduced us to a ton of industry people we otherwise may not have had the opportunity to meet, and just…really supported the hell out of us.
“They taught us a lot during that tour but what I still carry with me to this day is how to pace myself on the road. It was easy to get carried away in the beginning—the endless partying, the drinking, the women throwing themselves at you, the appeal of experimenting with this drug or that drug and trying to find the right mix. Something that’ll allow youto forget about the stress and exhaustion, but not get you so fucked up that you can’t perform. The hard part was learning your limits and sticking to your gut when someone just wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“And how did that go for you? Were you able to set boundaries early on or was the pressure to live up to that ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll’ persona too appealing?” she asks.
“I was able to set boundaries, and again, I feel like I owe a lot of that to them. They were all very chill—a shot or two before the show, and maybe one or two after—but they didn’t party hard, and they never did drugs. They provided a very safe environment for us, and I’m still thankful for that, because I was able to control it on the road. The only times I was ever around any sort of drug use was if someone brought people backstage or to party and they had stuff on them.” He pauses and takes a sip of his coffee before continuing. “Drugs always scared the shit out of me, so it was very easy to stay away from that.”
“Okay,” she says, smiling. “Tell meeverything.”
****
I’d always heard people talk about the “calm before the storm,” but what I was feeling? It was nothing like calm. The air backstage was thick with tension, and my mind was running in circles, and my palms were slick with sweat.
The greenroom was a warzone of half-open gear cases, tangled wires, and empty cans of Red Bull. Kevin was pacing back and forth near the door like a lion in a cage. His hair was unkempt, sticking out at all the wrong angles, which had become his “look.” Max was sitting cross-legged on the floor, tweaking the strings on his guitar—again. He’d been doingthat for the past thirty minutes, even though he swore every time that they were perfect.
Josh was the only one who seemed to be holding it together. I glanced over at him, sitting on the couch, arms crossed and eyes closed. He was humming something under his breath, and his face was set in that expression he gets when he’s really focused. I don’t think I’d ever seen him as nervous as the rest of us.
I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
