by Dave Hill
“Where are you planning on sending your résumé?” a classmate would ask.
“Nowhere,” we’d respond.
The plan was just to get a big record deal and take over the world with our unstoppable rock attack. We expected a bidding war as soon as all the big record labels in town heard even a couple notes of our music. An entertainment lawyer named Keith thought we were almost as awesome as we did and agreed to play our music for every label in town. We assumed it would probably be just a matter of weeks before we were driving cars into swimming pools, dating eighteen-year-old Brazilian models, and firing pistols at television sets (you know, stuff total rock stars do).
Unfortunately, however, none of the big record labels seemed to hear what we were hearing on that demo tape, and the bidding war we were counting on never really escalated beyond a brief misunderstanding at best. Eventually, however, we managed to get signed to a small independent record label that consisted entirely of a guy named Joe who rented a one-room office with a single telephone in SoHo. The important thing, though, was that he thought we were almost as awesome as Keith did, which made him the second biggest Sons of Elvis fan we had ever met.
“You guys are great,” Joe told us.
“Yeah, we know,” we responded.
With the money Joe gave us, we loaded up our equipment into a van and dragged it to a recording studio in Hoboken, New Jersey, to record what we assumed would be our multiplatinum debut. Keith’s friend Doug, who had worked with bands like Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and others we dreamed of becoming more popular than, flew out from Wisconsin to produce the album. Together, we worked night and day for a week and a half, sleeping only occasionally in an apartment above the studio. There was almost no time for rock ’n’ roll debauchery, though one night John and I drank enough cheap red wine to think it was a really good idea to run around the block naked (for some reason, no one seemed to think it was as funny as we did, though).
We decided to name our debut album Glodean,7 after Barry White’s8 wife since we listened to him constantly at the time. It was released about eight months later and we braced ourselves for the sheer pandemonium we expected to ensue. Instead, however, Joe’s record label ended up going out of business a couple of months afterward and for a while we just handed out copies of our album to friends, whether they wanted it or not. Fortunately, however, Keith and Joe managed to get Priority Records, a hip-hop label best known for putting out albums by N.W.A., Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and other guys we didn’t sound that much like, to rerelease the album a few months later.
Despite not arranging for us to hang out with gangsta rappers as much as we had hoped, Priority succeeded in getting our album into stores and our songs on the radio, especially in mine, Pat, and Tim’s hometown of Cleveland. One day I was driving down the street and heard our single “Formaldehyde” playing on two different stations at the same time. I almost drove into a tree.
“This must be how the Beatles felt,” I told my mom.
“Who?”
“Never mind.”
Maybe even cooler than hearing our music on the radio was seeing the video we made for the song on MTV, which—being 1995 and all—still meant something. After all those years of being glued to MTV as a kid, it was awesome to actually see ourselves on the channel, even if it was almost always after midnight when our video came on. We also got to be the musical guests on an episode of Jon Stewart’s late-night, pre–Daily Show vehicle The Jon Stewart Show, where they gave us our own dressing room filled with mini candy bars and as many cold cuts as we could handle. We felt like kings.
Sons of Elvis also hit the road for our first national tour. Priority loaned us money for a van and we used it to buy a massive state-of-the-art circa 1982 black conversion van complete with a tiny television, VCR, and CB radio. We also hired a tour manager named Pete and a roadie named Mark, who both dressed in black at all times, even when they slept. Pete and Mark had also just finished working for the seemingly Satanic metal band Danzig, which made us feel like we were in really good hands.
“If you want, I’ll see to it that only chicks are allowed backstage,” Mark would tell us. There was rarely anyone—male or female—wanting to come backstage most nights, but we still loved his can-do attitude.
The Sons of Elvis rock assault on the United States lasted six weeks, during which we played just about everywhere east of the proverbial Mississippi. After years of playing mostly to our friends, it was great to finally play in front of a room full of strangers, even on those rare nights when there were more people on stage than in the audience. Along the way, we also managed to play a handful of huge outdoor radio festivals with bands such as Bush, Alanis Morrissette, and other people who sold several million more albums than we did. And even if most of the twenty thousand or so people in attendance might just have been waiting for the headliner to come on while we played, it was easy to pretend they were all there just to see us. We also believed it was only a matter of time before that was actually the case.
One of my favorite shows we ever played was opening up for Slash, who was doing a solo tour while the original lineup of Guns N’ Roses was slowly falling apart.
“Hi, I’m Slash,” he said to us before we had a chance to introduce ourselves.
“Uh, yeah, we picked up on that,” I thought.
By then Slash had already long been one of the most recognizable musicians on the planet, so I thought it was cool of him to actually tell us his name rather than take it for granted that we knew exactly who the guy standing there in a top hat and shades was. As if that weren’t enough, Slash let us take as many sandwiches as we wanted from his sprawling deli tray backstage, which made me feel like my bandmates and I had officially arrived. I wasn’t even hungry, but I still ate a couple anyway just to celebrate. They were especially delicious, too, because they tasted of achievement.
“I’m sure I’ll see you guys again soon,” Slash said as we shook hands at the end of the night. I almost had a seizure. As shocking as it may seem, Slash and I haven’t seen each other since, but I still loved that he made us feel like his rock ’n’ roll peers, if only for one night.
Just as it seemed like things were poised to explode, the endless parade of free sandwiches, Motel 6’s, and teenagers who had gotten a ride to our show from their parents began to slowly die down not long after that show we played with Slash. Our label wanted us to stop touring, ostensibly to make a new album, the one we were counting on to go platinum since the first one ended up selling about 964,578 less than needed to make that happen. Naturally, I had assumed we’d release that new album, hit the road again, probably meet up with Slash at some point, and soon enough the big bucks would start rolling in. It seemed like a solid rock ’n’ roll game plan to me. However, we had been assigned a new A&R9 guy at Priority and he didn’t seem to share my band’s opinion that we were writing hits.
“I, uh … hate it,” the new A&R guy told me on the phone one day, struggling for words to accurately describe how he felt about the new tunes we’d cooked up so far.
“Oh, um, okay,” I replied. “What exactly do you hate about it?”
“Mostly the guitar, bass, drums, and singing, I guess.”
This didn’t seem necessarily good. Not long after that, I got a phone call from Tim.
“We’ve been dropped from the label,” he told me.
Impressively confident under the circumstances, we figured some other label would snatch us up as soon as word got out that we were free agents, but that, well, never happened. We never officially broke up, but after having tasted the sweet life, we were unable to keep the rock machine running much longer under those grim and entirely unglamorous circumstances. And since my parents had started hiding their wallets from me by then, I eventually had to break down and get one of those jobs my mom kept talking about.
To avoid actually giving in and working for the man (a very nonrock thing to do), I ended up starting my own one-man house-painting business (a very
rock thing for the broke rocker to do, you know, as far as actually getting a job goes). Most days, I drove myself to work in Sons of Elvis’s nearly broken-down touring van, the symbolism of which was completely lost on me at the time.
One day I was hired to paint a fifteen-year-old girl’s bedroom while she was away at summer camp.
“Would you like a radio to listen to while you work?” the girl’s mother asked as I stood there in my paint-spattered work clothes, bracing myself for the task at hand.
“Sure,” I said.
She returned a few minutes later with a large portable CD player. It was hard not to notice that there was a giant Sons of Elvis sticker plastered to the side of it.
“Ouch,” I thought. “That’s gonna leave a mark.”
It seemed like just a few months ago I was playing with my band in front of tens of thousands of people at huge, outdoor music festivals where everyone wanted our autographs and sometimes even more.10 Now here I was painting butterflies, flowers, and whatever other girly stuff I could come up with on some teenager’s bedroom wall, my once luxurious, post-grunge rock ’n’ roll mane now encrusted in dried paint and spackling paste. As I stood there letting all that sink in, it dawned on me that rock ’n’ roll can not only be a cruel mistress, it can also be a total fucking bitch when it wants to. But then I thought about it a little more and chose to look at the situation a little differently.
“Whoa,” I suddenly mused. “This girl is away at summer camp and has absolutely no idea that her favorite member of her favorite rock band of all time is painting her bedroom right now. She’s gotta be the luckiest kid in the whole wide world. If she only knew, if she only knew.”
Sometimes it really is all about perspective.11
A Funny Feeling
Being “in the arts” is never easy. In addition to all the clove cigarettes, scented candles, and ultimately regrettable haircuts, the artist is almost guaranteed to experience firsthand either clinical depression or addiction, or maybe even both at some point in his or her creative life. To its credit, though, addiction has plenty of plus sides—addicts often have great parties and even better outfits, for example. But, aside from rapid weight loss and enhanced cheekbone definition, depression just kind of sucks. I learned that for myself shortly after college, a popular time, statistically speaking, for that sort of thing to kick in whether you are thinking of forming a band or going to school for graphic design or not.
Looking back on it, depression had likely been plotting its attack on me for a while. Not only was I a fairly anxious and worrisome kid, but I also come from a long line of people who furrow their brow and grit their teeth for no apparent reason. For the most part, though, it seemed like depression just decided to show up one day like an annoying relative I never even knew I had.
It was a Saturday morning and I had spent the night before—as I did most Fridays—loading up on all-you-can-drink wine and assorted fried things with friends at a Chinese restaurant on the Upper West Side and then stumbling around Manhattan until we were either no longer certain we were going to live forever or one of us passed out on the sidewalk, whichever came first. I don’t blame any of those things for what happened next (though the gallon of wine probably didn’t help much), but when I woke up the following morning I felt extremely off. Sure, I had a hangover—those had been business as usual since college (high-five!). But, in addition to that familiar headache, grogginess, and begging of one of my roommates to buy me a burrito, a tidal wave of paranoia, panic, and despair had also shown up for brunch.
“Whoa,” I thought. “Must have gotten ahold of some bad Kung Pao last night.”
I figured it was nothing a nap couldn’t fix, so I tried to go back to sleep for a bit, only to find it impossible. In fact, lying in bed without my roommates or Saturday morning cartoons to distract me from my brain only made things worse.
“I am seriously calling that Chinese restaurant and demanding a refund just as soon as I find my pants,” I said to myself, groaning. “The Mai Fun is no fun.”1
As the day wore on, I started to feel like I’d been sucker punched in the gut by a prizefighter, the wind permanently knocked out of me. I spent the next few days puking—or at least trying to—even though I ate next to nothing, convincing myself I probably had just about every disease I could pronounce. And suddenly every aspect of my life, even the stuff I was normally pretty psyched about, seemed to suck beyond repair, a perspective that felt extreme even for me and my already dark, twenty-something world view.
Not exactly sure what to do about the situation, I decided to hop a plane to Cleveland to visit my parents for a long weekend that ended up lasting several years. I figured I’d probably still feel pretty crazy back home, but at least then I could just blame my parents for everything. And if these awful feelings persisted, worst-case scenario I could always just move back into my childhood bedroom and spend my days working at the grocery store up the street from my parents’ house and my nights watching Golden Girls reruns on television for the next couple of decades until the fog lifted.
“The way I see it, I put in my time as a bagboy, work my way up to stockboy, then produce guy, and next thing you know—bam!—your brother is a goddamn part-time assistant manager,” I told my sister Miriam. “I’ll never have to pay for cole slaw again. None of us will! Can’t you just taste it already?”
“Are you feeling okay?” she asked, recognizing something besides my often questionable career aspirations might be afoot.
Despite feeling absolutely awful, I was oblivious enough to reality that I still wasn’t sure what she was getting at. Even so, I promised Miriam I would go see a doctor before combing my hair, putting on a clean shirt, and heading up to the grocery store to show off my people skills.
Unfortunately, the psychology department at the local hospital was booked solid for the next two weeks, which might as well have been two years as far as I was concerned.
“I’m not sure I’m going to be around in two weeks,” I told the lady on the phone. I don’t think either one of us really knew what I meant by that. Was I just going out of town or possibly doing something really negative by comparison? Either way, it worked like a charm and I went in for an appointment the next morning, which was a massive relief.
As I sat in the waiting room, I looked around at the other people sitting there with me. It was hard not to wonder what kind of crazy shit might be going on inside their heads. And I wondered if they had similar thoughts about me. Ditto for the cute girl at reception who seemed to grab her pen back from me a lot more quickly than seemed reasonable.
After a few minutes, I was greeted by Mark, a warm and friendly guy in his mid-thirties, who would become my therapist.
“How can I help you today?” he asked, sounding more like an oddly laid-back car salesman than a guy about to analyze me.
“I’m really not sure,” I answered.
Mark had a mullet, which I thought was refreshing given his profession, kind of cool even. Still, it didn’t exactly fit with the Sigmund Freud clone I’d expected. Also, his office looked like a regular doctor’s office instead of being outfitted with overstuffed leather chairs, Oriental rugs, and richly stained woodwork like I’d hoped.
“So much for this being just like a Woody Allen movie,” I thought.
Still, I knew this was a time when I really needed to pick my battles, so I decided to let it all slide.
“Tell me what’s on your mind, Dave,” Mark said, wrinkling his brow a bit in an effort to suggest genuine concern.
“Do you ever get the feeling you might die at any moment and it actually doesn’t sound like such a bad idea?” I asked.
“And what kinds of things might cause you to suddenly die, Dave?”
“All of them.”
“I see.”
Mark and I continued our chat for about an hour before he gave me his diagnosis. As it turned out, I wasn’t crazy (at least not in a way recognized by modern medicine), but instead had a c
ombination of clinical depression and anxiety with a dose of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) thrown in for good measure, an assortment of garden-variety mental illness.
“Is this your way of telling me I’m a wuss?” I wanted to ask him.
Like a lot of people, I had always dismissed the things he’d just told me I had as forms of weakness, the kind of stuff that could be sorted out simply by telling the afflicted to pull themselves together. “Crazy” at least gets you invited to a fun party every once in a while. But “mental illness” doesn’t pack quite the same punch. “I saw that dude drink ten shots in a row, break a bottle over his own head, drop his pants, and then barricade himself in the bathroom with a goat—he totally suffers from mental illness.” You never really hear that sort of thing.
Mark also arranged for me to get a prescription for the antidepressant Zoloft.
“You might find it causes vomiting, diarrhea, fainting, decreased bladder control, dizziness, hives, peeling of the skin, swelling of the tongue, and, perhaps most of all, erectile dysfunction,” he explained. “But other than that you might find it quite helpful.”
“Sounds fun. Thanks.”
While I popped my pills and met with Mark each week to discuss whatever was pummelling my psyche that day, hour, or minute, I tried to make sense of it all. Like skydiving, colonic irrigation, and intimate hair removal, mental illness is unfortunately the sort of thing one has to experience firsthand to truly understand, regardless of whether or not you’ve ever shit your pants or spent three hours in the shower trying to induce an erection. Depression, for example, is a misnomer, if you ask me. It has little to do with just being sad—that would make it almost charming by comparison. It’s more like swallowing a small bomb that is perpetually threatening to go off in five minutes, five hours, or maybe even five days—you’re not sure—and not being able to mention it to anyone. I’ve also heard it described as feeling completely alone in a crowded room, but to me it felt more like not even being in the room at all.