by Katia Rose
“So they fired you too?” I ask.
“No.” He stares at his water glass in front of him. “I did end up losing my job there, but it wasn’t until later. When they threatened to let me go because of K—because of the story, I lost it. I didn’t want to go back to having nothing, to having less than nothing once my reputation was ruined. My priorities were totally fucked back then. So I just...started lying. I made people think she got all the information somewhere else, that she only dated me to try to force me into talking.” He swallows. “I basically implied she slept around with half the industry behind my back to get what she wanted.”
“You did that to Kay?” I spit out.
I don’t bother looking at the guys’ reactions, although I do hear a few gasps. I keep my attention fixed on Dylan as he raises his eyes to me.
“It’s the biggest regret of my life.”
“It better fucking be.”
He nods. “She’s the reason I’m here. I don’t really for work for Metropolis. She knew you wouldn’t see me if it had anything to do with her.”
“This is bullshit,” Ace scoffs. “This doesn’t change what she wrote about us.”
“She was never going to publish that,” Dylan asserts. “La Gare wanted to print that kind of article about you, and Kay wrote it to prove why they shouldn’t. It was just a mock-up, an example of what not to do.” He delivers his next sentence directly to me. “Maybe if you’d actually asked her about it, you wouldn’t be in whatever mess you’re in right now.”
“That seems way too convenient,” Ace states. JP nods beside him.
“Does it?” Dylan leans over his bag for a moment and digs out a copy of La Gare. “Read this. It’s been flying off the shelves all morning. I even heard them talking about it on the radio.”
We huddle over the newspaper. There’s a photo of Ace onstage at our Ottawa show taking up almost half the front page. One of his hands is stretching towards the crowd, fingers just inches from connecting with those of a girl in the audience. His hair is plastered to his face with sweat, features strained from the emotion of the lyrics as he clutches the mic in his other hand.
If this really is flying off the shelves, I have a suspicion the photo’s got more than a little to do with it. Even so, the anticipation of reading Kay’s story has enough blood rushing to my head that I can barely get the letters on the page to stay still. I shift closer to the table and begin to read.
The topic of Sherbrooke Station prompts a now familiar question among Montrealers whenever its brought up: are we talking about the metro stop or the band? In the case of this article, the answer is the latter. The alt-rock ensemble has risen to recent prominence with the success of their chart-topping single ‘Sofia.’ Stroll up St. Laurent on a Saturday night and you’re bound to hear its catchy chorus booming out of every second bar on the strip.
The song has also won over a legion of fans whose devotion runs far deeper than bobbing their heads along to front man Ace Turner’s raspy vocals; the Montreal Police Service has confirmed they were called in yesterday to remove ticket holders from outside the Metropolis concert hall, where attendees of tonight’s Sherbrooke Station show had started to set up tents.
To put it simply, the band is a hit.
Beginning their career as just another group of college kids, Sherbrooke Station managed to catch the ear of mega-label Atlas Records and secure themselves a three album deal. Completed by keyboardist Jean-Paul Bouchard-Guindon, bassist Cole Byrne, and drummer Matthew Pearson, the group forms an imposing assemblage of inked up arms, pierced eyebrows, and fitted leather jackets that isn’t easy to forget.
No rock legend was ever born without a tragic flaw, though. Turner’s well-documented incidents of public intoxication, including his recent detainment by Montreal Police, have brought the band’s ability to handle their newfound fame into question. Online mockery at the group’s expense has run rampant after a photo of a violent altercation involving Turner took on the role of an internet meme.
Whether their misdemeanours will spur interest in the band on or simply cause their fame to fizzle out remains to be seen, but Pearson is quick to admit the band is struggling: “I thought everything that came with [fame] would be easier to ignore: all the publicity, the partying. Sure, it’s fun. It’s a perk, but that’s it. I never wanted it to be who we are.”
So who exactly are they? When the spotlights are off and the cameras stop flashing, what makes Sherbrooke Station tick?
As Pearson tells La Gare, “I know no one will believe this, but for me, it’s not about fame. It’s not a glory thing. It’s knowing our music has made a difference to that many people.” He shows both humility and determination in admitting, “I’d rather no one even knew or cared what our names are, if it meant they were more focused on what we do on stage than what we do off it.”
What they ‘do’ onstage is certainly worth some focus. As breathless fan Lisa Monet gasped upon exiting the band’s March show in Ottawa, “My entire body is shaking. That was electrifying.” A strange current does seem to charge the air whenever Sherbrooke Station plays. It surges through the crowd the second the group walks on stage, a sort of hair-raising premonition that something big is happening. Something powerful. Something that refuses to let itself be ignored.
As Bouchard-Guindon says, “I think people just really responded to the music, and it took off from there.” He expounds upon the band’s connection to local culture in asserting that, “I don’t want us to just be a band from Montreal; I want us to be a band from Quebec too. It’s my culture. It’s part of me and it’s part of my music.” Pearson cites forming a bond with audiences as a goal for the band: “That’s what this was all supposed to be about: connecting to people with our songs, making moments.”
There’s a depth to Sherbrooke Station’s music that can’t be overlooked, no matter how much drama threatens to overshadow it. As Turner himself croons in the emotionally charged ballad ‘Digging Holes’: “Hit the bottom but I can still stand/ I’ll scale these walls with ragged hands.” While they’ve gotten off to a rocky start, Sherbrooke Station believes they have much more to give us than drunken debauchery and meme material. They’re in this for the long haul and aren’t going down without a fight.
“We get back up [on stage],” Pearson tells La Gare, his voice strained with fervour, “because nothing else is worth it if we can’t. You could cut off both my arms and rip out Ace’s vocal chords. You could break all of Cole’s fingers. You could burst JP’s eardrums, and we’d still crawl our way back onto that stage. For us, that’s all there is. This band is who we are.”
As hundreds of fans line the streets in anticipation of tonight’s show, it’s clear that Sherbrooke Station is the next stop for Montreal’s music scene. In spite of all the controversy hanging over their heads, there’s something promising about these soul-searching rockers that makes any train headed towards them worth hopping on.
When I look up, Dylan’s watching me.
“I told you she was good,” he tells me, “but you probably knew that already. Just don’t forget it.”
He pushes his chair back and tosses a stack of bills down on the table.
“I’m out now. I’m not gonna sit around and make this even more awkward than it already is, but the food’s still on me.”
No one says anything to stop him as he leaves. Kay’s words are still bouncing around my brain and all I can do is watch him go. He’s almost at the stairs when he turns and walks back towards us, staring straight at me.
“Take care of her, okay?” His voice almost cracks. “Not that she needs it, but I know Kay, and the way she talks about you...” He searches my expression for something, and I can’t tell if he finds it. “I wish I could have been that guy for her. So just be good to her, all right? You should call her or something.”
He leaves again, this time without coming back.
“Damn,” Cole mutters. “Didn’t see that coming.”
JP tap
s the article. “She did make us sound pretty cool.”
“So what?” Ace tosses the paper at Dylan’s empty seat and wheels on me. “So she didn’t lie to us. Doesn’t change the fact that you did. Doesn’t change anything about Shayla.”
“I just wanted somebody to see us again,” I plead, “really see us. We were falling apart.”
“So that gave you the right to go all vigilante and start doing things behind our backs?”
“No.” I glance down at the tablecloth. “No, that was wrong. I fucked up and now we’re all paying for it. I know that, and I’m sorry.”
“We all kind of fucked up,” Cole cuts in.
He interlaces his fingers and stretches them out in front of him, making his knuckles pop. It’s the telltale first sign of an impending Cole Speech, a rare event not many have witnessed.
“There’s no point lying about it or pretending it’s not true,” he begins. “We were going down. That first thing Kay wrote about us was actually pretty fucking accurate. We need to stop making excuses about why this isn’t working and just start making it work. We don’t have all the answers and not everything’s perfect for us, but so what? People would literally kill for what we’ve been given. Now we have to prove we deserve it.”
There’s a moment of silence before Ace speaks up again.
“And Shayla? What about Shayla?”
“Like I said, we don’t have all the answers. Maybe we’ll have to make another two albums with a label we don’t trust and work with a manager we don’t like. We’ll move on. We can be bigger than all of them someday, but that only happens when we stop acting so fucking small.” He pounds his fist on the table and I notice a few people look our way. “This is all we’ve talked about for years and I’m not giving it up. I want this. It’s time to decide if you really want it too, and if you don’t you might as well leave this table now.”
He pauses. I realize that while a thousand choices might come afterwards, deciding to go forward from this moment together is going to be the only one that matters.
No one moves. Cole nods.
“Good. That’s what I thought.”
I clear my throat. “If we do this...”
I have to stop. What I’m about to say goes against everything I’ve told myself I stand for, but if I don’t get this out now, nothing is going to change. Kay and I’s words from that day in the Old Port echo through my head.
I can’t abandon them.
You can’t abandon yourself, either.
I try again.
“If we do this, we have to go all in. All of us. I admit I fucked up and I’ll be better going forward, but I’m tired of this being one-sided. I’m tired of putting in more than I know I’ll get back.”
I glance at Ace and find him glaring.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” he taunts.
I could go with insults. I could give him hell for all the shit he’s pulled on us these past few months. I could call him an asshole and a selfish bastard and every other name in the book. Instead, I try some honesty.
“It means I want my friend back, Ace.” I pretend JP and Cole aren’t there and ignore the burning in my face as I force the next words out. “I miss you.”
Five years of late nights and early mornings and thousands of songs on hundreds of stages pass between us in the look we share after that.
“Okay.” He slaps a palm down on the table, his voice hoarse. “All in. All of us.”
JP thumps his hand on the hardwood next. Cole and I follow suit.
“Now,” Cole urges, “let’s go on stage and make some noise tonight. We’re pretty fucking good at it.”
He’s right. We are. For tonight at least, I know that will be enough.
21 Everlong || Foo Fighters
KAY
I drop my copy of La Gare on my desk after reading my article for the fifth time today. If everything went according to plan, Matt will have seen it already. Every time I go over the words I wrote in my head, I imagine him having a different reaction, and most of them aren’t good. I don’t know if this is the kind of story he was hoping for.
Marie-France has been marching around the office with even more gusto than usual today. The actual numbers haven’t come in yet, but according to updates from our street team, the paper is having off-the-charts level success today. I think that might have more to with a photo of Ace we bought from an Ottawa photographer than with my story itself, but I’ve still gotten more congratulations from my coworkers than I can count.
“Sacrement, Kay. Who died?”
“Hmm?” I murmur, as Pierre claps me on the shoulder before swinging into his desk chair.
“You’re the hero of the day, and you look like you just got back from a funeral.”
“Huh.”
He holds up his hands in surrender. “All right, I get it. You don’t want to talk. Le silence de Kay Fischer, je le sait trop bien.”
He’s right; he does know ‘The Silence of Kay Fischer’ all too well.
“No, it’s not that. Sorry.” I dig the heels of my palms into my eyes. “Just tired.”
“Too tired to go out and celebrate tonight? I bet we could even get some of les anciens to go with us after something this big.”
He nods towards all our silent, grey-haired colleagues where they’re bent over their keyboards.
“Not tonight,” I answer, attempting an apologetic smile.
It’s not that I expected Matt to come bursting through the door of La Gare to sweep me into a reconciliatory make-out session. As the minutes without any word from him tick by, I’ve been trying to convince myself that I did the best I could to fix things. I’ll just have to live with what happens next—even if what happens next is nothing. Still, I feel more like burrowing under my blankets at home than toasting to my success all night with Pierre.
The hours crawl by as I work on finishing up a few stories. I’m almost ready to pack up and head out when an email pops up on the screen.
It’s a copy of a message from Metropolis, forwarded to me with a few quick lines from Matt:
Sorry it took so long. Had to do some manoeuvring to get you on the list. I wish I could say more now but we’re booked up with stuff all day. See you tonight?
I open up the attachments and find a ticket to tonight’s show, along with directions on how to pick up a backstage pass. My phone pings with a text before I’ve even gotten through all the information. It’s from Matt again, reminding me to check for the email.
There’s no hint of emotion, no bitterness or enthusiasm, nothing to betray how he feels. I hold my thumb over his name on my phone before sending the only reply that seems safe:
See you tonight.
I don’t get anywhere near the front. My article wasn’t exaggerating; people started lining up for the show before noon. If this were the dead of winter the diehards might have been more deterred, but in the warmth of a June day, there was nothing to stop hundreds of people from settling in on the sidewalk, holding umbrellas up to block out the sun and taking turns to go scavenge for food.
I stare over the churning mass of bodies in front of me to take in the full effect of the venue. It’s been over a year since I caught a show here, and I’m awed all over again by the gilded framework that outlines the stage, towering larger than life and stretching all the way up to the ceiling. The stale taste of dry ice clogs the air, and the crowd buzzes and bobs along to the Modest Mouse song that’s booming out of all the speakers.
Maybe it’s just the research I did about the place for an article once, but it’s like I can feel the building’s history seeping up through the floor, the echoes of all the screams and songs that have reverberated around this room still bouncing between the walls. Existing in some form or another since 1884, Metropolis is a staple of Montreal. It’s opened its doors as a skating rink, cinema, porn theatre, and dance club, but for the past few decades it’s mostly been serving as a concert hall.
Bowie walked across that stage. Ja
ck White played here. A chill runs through me when I think that one day people might say the same thing about Sherbrooke Station with that same tone of reverence in their voices.
Things get loud during the opening act. There are already people trying to crowd surf their way to the front, and I roll my eyes as three girls a few rows ahead of me attempt to climb onto their boyfriends’ shoulders.
The audience grows antsy in the interim between the opener and the main act. I wrap my arms around myself and chew on my lip, trying to keep my rising nerves at bay. This show has all the signs of getting messy. There’s too much energy in the room and nowhere for it to go. I watch security barrel their way through the masses to drag someone with a bloody nose away and flinch when a guy passing by knocks into me, twisting around to mouth an apology as he holds two plastic cups of beer above his head.
Everything changes when the lights dim and the Sherbrooke Station sign flickers to life. People drop their flailing arms and crane their necks towards the stage, like some strange frequency has claimed command over their brains. The hair on my arms stands up like it always does in this moment, the lub-dub, lub-dub of my heartbeat swelling in my ears as a cry I can’t control breaks from my mouth when I see the dark shapes shifting their way onstage.
The sound is echoed by everyone around me. The stage lights sweep their way over the audience in a searing flash of white before fixing on the band.
Then they start to play.
It feels like I don’t breathe from that moment until about halfway through the third song, when reality, or whatever version of it has taken over the crowd, floods my senses. I start to shout the words Ace is chanting into his mic, twisting my body in time with everyone around me.