Maybe because my problems—plural—had all become such a giant clusterfuck.
I needed a band.
I needed Cary to get better.
I needed his sister out of my head, and I needed my dick to get the message that she wasn’t on the menu.
Not all problems I could wave a magic drum stick at and solve in one afternoon.
After I’d worked up a good sweat and drummed my way through a decent catalogue of songs, felt like I’d put in a decent day’s practice… I was thinking about stopping for the day—quitting while I was ahead. But then I changed my mind.
I made the really fucking bad decision to play “Lateralus.”
For me, this was the toughest Tool song to play and one of the most enjoyable, for various reasons. It was also the most frustrating. It was a really fucking difficult song, which I’d managed to master after goddamn years of trying to get it just right.
You could play a song and give it your own flare, but that wasn’t really playing the song. To play a songright, as in the way it was written and recorded, you had to do it note for note. And “Lateralus” was my go-to song when I wanted to challenge myself.
Besides that, it just felt motherfucking good to play it.
In theory.
It was heavy, it had some of the trickiest drum work I’d ever tried to play well, and as always, it left me drenched in sweat.
Danny Carey was a fucking god.
Drumming fast was a challenge. Drumming hard and loud was tiring. But layering that kind of gorgeous, orgasmic sound into a song, with drums, without overpowering everything else that was going on, the other instruments… that took sheer mastery. And sure, I couldplay“Lateralus”—but I could never have created it, and that was the part that really choked me.
It was what set the Danny Careys of the world apart from a drummer like me. I knew I was fantastic on drums. But I wasn’t an innovator at that level. At least, not yet.
I wasn’t a rockgod.
Luckily, not many people on Earth could really hear or understand the difference. And I was only thirty. I had time to immortalize myself.
I might not be Danny Carey or John Bonham or even Dylan Cope, but one day, I’d be a legend, too.
Cocky, sure.
But that’s what you got when a former geek had a chance to become a god.
* * *
I left the studio and headed over to my place downtown so I could shower. While I was driving, Ash called.
He asked me to come out for drinks, hang with him tonight, and I told him I might.
I wouldn’t, though. I already had plans with Jordan, but I didn’t tell him that. Maybe I still wanted to make him sweat a little?
I hung up from that call wondering if I was going about this wrong. If I was gonna stonewall him too hard and he was gonna give up. Find another drummer.
But fuck it. I had reasons for making him sweat.
I knew I wanted to join his band, in theory, but was I really gonna trust him?
When I got home and got in the shower, I turned on the massage spray and stood there for a long while thinking it over.
Because maybe this was a problem Icouldsolve in a day?
All I had to do was make the fucking decision.
