No Encore!

by Drew Fortune

  People start to talk, and when you get a reputation for being crazy people, that doesn’t really help. I can’t name names for this story, but we were playing the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C., back when it was the old 9:30 Club. We were playing a show with some good friends of ours, and one of the band members had some coke. I wasn’t aware because no one had offered me any. However, one of the guys in my band did a big, fat line, and about three minutes into our set, he turned to me and said, “Uhh…that wasn’t coke.” I’m like, “What’s going on? How do you feel.” His eyes were glazed and he muttered, “I don’t know…I don’t know.” I think it was the first and last time he had ever done a big line of heroin. He was so disoriented that it was kinda funny. Man, get a roadie to test that shit!

  This one still makes me cringe. We were playing a huge festival in Holland called Pink Pop. It was the biggest crowd we had ever experienced. These festivals happen all the time now in America, but back in the early ’90s, it was a European phenomenon. There was one of those ramps that extends into the crowd, which we called the “ego ramp.” I’m not the lead guitarist, but for this gig, we decided I’d have a solo. I’m psyching myself up, as we were just a little punk band from Minnesota. I’m thinking, “I’m gonna walk out on that ego ramp and just rip this solo.” It was a long ramp, and right when I get to the end where I’m gonna rip this amazing solo for Holland the cord comes out of the guitar. I’m standing on this ramp, thinking I’m some guitar God, with no power coming out of my instrument.

  When I realized what had happened and I turned to the band, they were all laughing at me. I was completely isolated on that ego ramp, thinking, “Well…so much for this gig.” I did the slow walk of shame back down the ramp and walked straight off stage. It got to be a grind, where we’d go to Paris and play “Runaway Train” on five different TV shows in one afternoon. It was very alienating. It’s not a song that is difficult for me to play, thankfully. It was way out of my range or something like that, things would have sucked a lot more.

  We stopped playing it. We did a whole tour where it wasn’t in the set. We ended up putting it back in because I started getting the whole, “We drove all the way from Alaska and just wanted to hear one song, and you guys didn’t play it.” I started to think how stupid our refusal to play it was. Why not just play the goddamn thing? One night the booking manager from First Avenue in Minneapolis, who had seen us play eight million times, came backstage with his new baby. He said, “My baby and I were listening to “Runaway Train,” and it was such a special moment.” At that point, I realized it wasn’t really my song anymore. It really meant something to people.

  I remember seeing a guy in a pub once that was playing traditional Irish songs by request on guitar. He had a little sign that read, “Danny’s Song. $10.” He got requested that song so much that he was completely sick of playing it. I began to think that I should wear a “Runaway Train” sign around my neck. I’m past all that. Now, it’s just another three minutes and forty-five seconds out of my life. I can handle it. I’m calloused to touring now. So much has gone wrong over the years that I still want to laugh and cry at the same time. But I still love it so much. Once we’re locked in and playing, I’m comfortable. The rest of it still sucks.

  42

  STEPHAN JENKINS

  (Third Eye Blind)

  Growing up a ’90s kid, “Semi-Charmed Life” is still one of my favorite songs, so I had to get Jenkins for the book. The final paragraph, in my mind, is pure poetry and the best summation of the spirit of this project.

  Whenever I’m the keynote speaker at some kind of music writing seminar, I’ll inevitably get the question: “How do you make it?” Whenever they ask, I always say, “I never asked that question.” Musicians don’t dress, talk, or live the same as normal people. You have to be a bit insane to do it for a living. Before I had a record deal, I was always hustling to get a band together. I’d get one going, hold it together for a minute, and then it would fall apart. Everyone would turn out to be a drug addict, or they’d break off for some other band, and it was really hard for me to get a gig. A buddy and I just decided that we were gonna put on our own gig. This was in San Francisco, and there was a festival called Noise Pop. There was no way we were gonna get in because I could never count on any one band member to show up for practice.

  So, a friend and I decided to make our own festival. He had access to a copier, so we stole posters and made one up. It was a picture of his girlfriend in pigtails smoking a cigarette, but she had stuck her belly out with her shirt pulled up, so she looked pregnant. It was a great shot! We decided we’d be the anti-Noise Pop. We called the fest Cocky Pop and made up these PSAs, which I snuck into the local radio station Live 105. They actually put them on air, so I stole airtime. I rented space, we worked on songs, and invited other bands to play the fest. I worked my hands raw putting up posters all over the city.

  The big day arrived, and my friend never showed up. He was the drummer of our two-piece, so I had nothing. After all that work, and years of trying to get a band going, I was described as sitting ashen and shaky on the floor. That incident set my musical trajectory back a year, where I went back to the musical jail of trying to get something going. I didn’t play a show for another year and a half. That’s how much that one fucked me up. The point of me telling this story is that at no point during that night, or any time after, did I ever consider quitting. That’s why when someone asks me what it takes to make it, I seriously doubt they’re going to make it. No sane person would willingly put themselves through the amount of suffering it takes to make it.

  The first time Third Eye Blind played Japan was at the Fuji Rock Festival, and we got hit with a typhoon. It was us, Foo Fighters, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. We were playing at the base of Mt. Fuji when it hit. Stinging rain was blowing sideways into our faces as we were playing. I was so new and still young enough that I just thought it was amazing. The stage was getting ripped apart, the wind was blowing so hard, and I felt like that guitar guy in Mad Max: Fury Road. By the end of the show, kids with hypothermia were being carted off, and the festival got shut down because of the electrical risk. But man, I was just like, “That fucking ROCKED!”

  There was the incident where Slipknot watched me knock myself unconscious. I can’t remember where it was, which isn’t surprising, but it was some festival where we shared a bill with Slipknot. When you’re playing and the stage lights hit, they tighten up your pupils. When it’s dark and you walk off stage, you’re basically blind, and that’s why there’s always a guy with a flashlight. The last thing I remember was talking to Slipknot, who were watching from the side of the stage. That was strange enough because I was thinking, “Why the fuck is Slipknot into Third Eye Blind?” I shook their hands, said, “Nice to meet you guys,” then I stepped right off the stage into a black hole. I caught myself on the chin and knocked myself out. They had to haul me out on a stretcher, and I was so fucking embarrassed.

  Our big break gig is still so vivid to me. It was right before our record deal, and I met with David Massey, who was an A&R guy at Epic Records in New York. His big artist was Oasis, and this was back when A&R people really had power. I can’t stand it when someone has power over me. It’s my punk rock roots, and I can’t abide authority. We just need to fuck with them, otherwise we wouldn’t be artists. We’d just be song-and-dance people or American Idol finalists. Suddenly, all these labels and A&R people were looking at us, and I felt like a lap dancer.

  I was sitting in Massey’s office, and he has an elegant, officiant British accent. He was dribbling, but not shooting baskets, which is what had been happening with everyone I had met. I interrupted and said, “So, what can I do for you?” It was pretty rude, but I couldn’t talk small talk for one more fucking second. He said, “Well, you can sign to Epic Records.” Finally, someone had offered us a deal. He asked when he could see us next, and I happened to know that Oasis was playing the Civic Center a few days later in San Francisco. I tol
d him we’d like to open the show. He studied me for a second as he was beginning to realize who he was dealing with—someone who had the audacity to ask for something like that.

  He picked up the phone and called Oasis’s tour manager. In his very British accent, he says, “Hello James! How are ya, mate? I’ve got a band here who would like to open for Oasis. Do you have an open spot?” Massey said to me, “OK, you’re in.” My immediate response was panic. Shit, we had only played in front of fifty-five people. This was the Civic Center, which held about 8,000. Keep in mind, this was the peak of Oasis mania as well. We had only played for really small audiences at the Paradise Lounge. Even then, I played the Paradise Lounge like it was Wembley Stadium—playing all the way to the back of the room. My thinking was always to not play the room you’re in but the biggest room in your mind.

  Before we went on stage, we were all shaking like greyhounds. I said to the guys, “We’re gonna bury Oasis. We are gonna destroy and fuck them up. When we’re done, everyone is going to leave because we were the main event. Everyone walk out on stage like you are the baddest motherfuckers who have ever walked on a stage.” I said all of that but didn’t believe any of it. I don’t know what we sounded like that night, but afterwards they tripled our pay. Sherry Wasserman, who was the promoter, has been a friend and mentor to me ever since. They pushed us back out for an encore, which blew us away because opening bands never get encores.

  The next day, the headline was “Unknown local band upstages Oasis.” We didn’t upstage them, but they were really lackluster that night. After our set, we went backstage and Noel Gallagher was looking bored. Liam said, “You were shite, mate.” I said, “Dude, we blew you out. We just buried you.” He respected that because they come from that British pub culture where they’re always testing each other. That was the first moment where I thought that maybe we could do this.

  Live performance is a really important part of my life, and maybe the most important. I’ve always wondered why, and this is the conclusion I’ve come to: It’s not about bearing witness to a DJ while he stands over his computer. A lot of bands are MacBook Pro rock, where they’re playing along to a sequencer. A show can either fly or fall apart based on the actions and empathy of the musicians playing, and if all goes right, the musicians are conjured up out of themselves. You start feeling things, and that’s what music is about. That collective, emotional moment let’s people know that they are not alone. We’re all connected on a very deep level, through fury, folly, lust, and whimsy. I feel a glorious connection, and it’s worth every smashed chin and fucked up gig.

  43

  BUZZ OSBORNE

  (Melvins)

  Osborne throws more shade than hip-hop artists, and we love him for it. Here, he calls out Rob Zombie, the Ozzfest staff, and recounts the time a young, female fan attempted suicide on his stage. Memo to bands that open for Buzz: Don’t piss him off.

  There was a time in the ’90s when we were opening for a lot of bands, which basically means you’re trying to sell your band to an audience that isn’t your own. We didn’t really care that much about that. We did whole tours that were just horrendous, and that wasn’t only coming from the audience. We did a tour with White Zombie that was easily the worst touring experience of my entire life. Everything about it sucked from top to bottom. The crew were a bunch of fucking assholes, and the crowds didn’t care about us. I can deal with the crowd, but Rob Zombie himself was a fucking dick. I don’t know how else to put it. And there was absolutely no reason for it either. I’ve been around guys I consider real rock stars. Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley never treated me like that. Those guys are totally cool! They go out of their way to say hello to me. They’re not acting like prima donna dickheads. So why the fuck would Zombie do it? It makes me hate these lower-level, lower-echelon fuckheads even more. They’re pissing on my lawn. If I had to do that tour over again, I would walk the first day.

  Let me tell you about the Ozzfest people! Total fucking assholes. They couldn’t have cared less about us. We got on that tour because Tool said they wanted one band on the bill that they liked or they wouldn’t do it. We agreed, and even with Tool backing us, the Ozzfest people were like, “We don’t care about the Melvins.” They made sure that we understood that every step of the way. Ozzy doesn’t know his birthday, so he didn’t know what was going on. It’s not like he told everyone to be dicks to us. When you see Ozzy sitting in the kitchen coloring like a five-year-old kid, that should tell you where his head’s at. Does that mean I’m not a fan of Ozzy or Sabbath? Not at all! Ozzy has bigger problems putting two plus two together than worrying about us. But the powers that be, the top brass of that organization, went out of their way to be total fucking assholes.

  It was just like the top brass of the White Zombie people. The manager was OK and was nice to me. But the rest of them went out of their way to be complete assholes for no reason other than to make us miserable. The sound guy came up to us on the first day and said, “I am going to see to it that you never sound as good as White Zombie.” He just told us that to our faces, and guess what? He wasn’t lying. That’s exactly what he did. He was a fucking pain in the ass the entire tour. That’s why I hate that shit! I fucking hate big wheel tours like that.

  I never act like that to people, and there’s a reason why. I am not going to be that guy. It takes more effort to be a fucking asshole than it does to be nice. There’s just no excuse for it. Aside from their shitty music that I’m not into anyway, I don’t have any interest in it. If I’m going to a hockey arena, I want to see hockey, not a show. If you’re a sixteen-year-old kid on acid and you’re just away from your parents for the night. That’s fine. I get it! I’m not saying everyone shouldn’t experience that. It’s just not for me and what drove me to the intimate settings of punk rock as a teenager. That spoke to me more—in a way that seemed more human than an arena.

  Believe me, I’ve moved on in my life. I’ve put my money where my mouth is. I do eighty to one hundred and twenty shows a year and have every year for the last thirty years. I’ve put out at least one album a year, and I’ve done that since the ’80s. It’s not like I’m just sitting around bitching and complaining. I do my job, and these are just my observations. If people want to think I’m just jealous of Ozzy or Zombie, it doesn’t help me to complain about them. If I wanted to help myself, I’d act like these people are amazing and they were great and totally cool with me. I’m not jealous of their fame. If I have to be Ozzy Osbourne to attain that level of fame, I’ll happily stay right where I’m at. I don’t want to be Rob Zombie! I have zero interest.

  My story has not changed one iota over the years. It’s just the facts, and I’m like an elephant. I don’t forget, and my truth is not elastic. Hate me…good! The most offensive thing about me is how our music sounds. But I’m offended by horrible music all the time. Since I was twelve-years-old, I think most music is terrible. There’s a few glimmers that fall through the cracks that raise my hope. You have to understand that I’m a music fan like you wouldn’t believe. No art form ever has moved me the way music has in my life. I talked to a guy once who was an Indy car driver in the early ’70s. He told me that the only other thing that turned him on, apart from driving an Indy car at top speed, was music. That’s how powerful it is.

  Nothing will put a fucking charge up my ass like music. Nothing ever has. It’s what makes me got out of bed and tie my shoes. So when things like Ozzfest or Zombie happen, I am deeply offended because I feel so strongly about the power of music. It offends me so much that I’ll never be able to walk away from it. They are defiling the church. They are cheapening the art and bringing it down to a level where I just want their fucking heads on a stake. If this wasn’t a civilized world, all their heads would be on stakes.

  We played a show with Mr. Bungle in the early ’90s, and this was after Mike Patton was the MTV poster boy with Faith No More. As a result, his other band, Mr. Bungle, also got signed to Warner Bros. Mr. Bungle is a muc
h different band than Faith No More, and they certainly don’t write bright and breezy pop tunes. They’re much weirder, and Mike would do most of those sets wearing a mask. A lot of times people didn’t even know which guy he was. The MTV crowd—or as we called them, the “baby rockers”—had no interest in the Melvins at all. It was a vicious nightmare of people hating our guts.

  Those baby rockers gave us so much shit at one show that backstage, Patton was pissed. Keep in mind, Mr. Bungle had hand selected us to play with them. The audiences never seemed to put it together that we were a band that the headliners liked. I take great offense to that, and I would be pissed if that ever happened to a band opening for us. It’s just totally disrespectful. So, Patton is pissed. He’s fuming, “That was fucked up! I can’t believe this.” He tore up his setlist and said that he was changing it specially for tonight. He wrote out several lists, handed it to his band members, and all it said was, “Tonight, they will pay.”

  They go out and do a total white-noise, nightmarish set that included Patton sticking an eyedropper up his ass, giving the crowd an enema. Most people missed it, but trust me, he did it. He did it more than once at shows. Now it would be on YouTube, but you could get away with it back then. You’d probably be brought up on charges today. The craziest thing I’ve ever seen on tour was with Patton’s band Fantomas somewhere in France. It was me, Patton, Trevor Dunn from Mr. Bungle, and Dave Lombardo from Slayer on drums. We were playing a festival and halfway through the set, a girl climbed the lighting rig. She wrapped the mic cable around her neck and tried to hang herself onstage.