His eyes flitted over to me and froze. His mouth dropped open the slightest bit.
“Hi,” I said, raising my hand.
“H-hi,” he stuttered, his eyes never leaving mine. I noticed they were a pretty brown.
“I brought a looker for you, too,” Derek said. “This is Shanna.”
Ryan broke away from staring at me and glanced over at Shanna – and his eyes almost immediately dropped down to her cleavage. He blushed slightly and immediately raised his eyes.
Shanna ate it up.
“Hi!” she bubbled, flinging out her hand to shake his. I could tell she liked him.
An innocent for her to corrupt.
“Hi,” he said, taking her hand, then looked back guiltily at me, as though he’d done something wrong.
“Alright, let’s get started,” Derek said, brushing past him and stepping inside. “You can mack on the ladies later.”
25
The basement was another surprise. I was expecting a teenage boy’s cave, grungy and messy and stinking of musty shoes. Instead, it was immaculate. The walls were all painted white, there were flower arrangements on wooden tables, and it smelled like lavender sachets.
It was the perfect Real Simple daydream.
Except for the instruments.
They were everywhere – neatly stacked on stands or hung on walls, but there were tons. Two different electric guitars and several bass guitars, along with numerous amps. There were also two acoustic guitars, a drum set, an electronic keyboard, and a computer and monitor with a whole bunch of wires running out of it, hooked up to various mixing boards and whatnot. There were also a couple of microphones on stands – fairly expensive-looking ones, too.
“Holy shit, you guys have a whole studio down here,” Shanna marveled.
“Yeah… just no real good sound baffling, so the acoustics kind of suck. My mom won’t let us put any up,” Ryan said, then blushed, embarrassed at the admission.
“Ah, she’s cool, his parents let us practice every afternoon till six and sometimes after dinner, so you can’t expect ‘em to give us everything,” Derek said as he went over and grabbed an acoustic guitar. “I thought we could wow the ladies first with some covers.”
“Yeah, well, if you wanted to ‘wow’ them, you brought them to the wrong place,” Ryan joked.
Derek lightly punched his friend’s arm. “So modest.”
“Unlike you,” I said.
“Well, somebody has to balance me out. Sit over there,” Derek commanded us, and Shanna and I sat down on a very nice sofa along the wall.
Derek sat down on the ground as Ryan grabbed an electric bass.
“Eh, I was thinking just acoustic at first,” Derek warned him. “Plus, you know I can’t play for shit.”
“Okay,” Ryan said, and grabbed the second acoustic.
“Oh, maybe you are the slightest bit modest,” I said.
Derek smiled. “No, I just always tell the truth, that’s all.”
I think you’re absolutely gorgeous, and yes, I want to sleep with you.
I’m in love with your roommate… I didn’t plan it, and I don’t really know if she likes me, but I fell in love with her as soon as I saw her.
I crossed my legs uncomfortably as I pondered that.
Derek started strumming – nothing special, but not bad. Ryan tuned his guitar first, then started playing scales – quickly and accurately.
After a minute, Derek turned to us. “Any requests?”
“‘Under The Bridge,’” I said.
Derek grinned. “‘Under The Bridge’ it is.”
He looked over at Ryan, who looked at me and Shanna nervously… and then started playing.
He was good. Though it was on an acoustic guitar and thus was softer, all the notes were recognizably the same as the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ song.
Then Derek started singing.
Holy shit.
I had convinced myself that I would come here because I might discover that Derek and his friend were two no-account losers, with no talent and no futures, and thus Derek’s spell over me would be broken.
To the contrary.
They were good.
Damn, they were good.
Derek’s voice was very different from Anthony Kieidis’s, but in a good way – deeper, huskier, smokier.
Sexier.
The parts he’d described to me about the song – the plaintive wail, the pain – he brought his own darkness to it. It was different, but it was good.
And Ryan was quite good on the acoustic guitar. Maybe not professional level, but good nonetheless.
Together they were better than any street musician or coffee shop performer I’d ever seen. And better than most of the local bands I’d heard as I walked past clubs on Friday and Saturday nights.
As they neared the big climax, Derek turned to me and Shanna. “Okay, ladies, we’re going to need some backup for this. Ready?”
“What?” I said, immediately panicking.
“Sure!” Shanna agreed enthusiastically.
When the choral part came in, Shanna and Derek both sang while Derek howled Kiedis’s part. Ryan was good, Shanna was okay, but Derek was amazing. The emotion on his face was real, and matched the intensity in his voice. Chills ran up and down my spine as I listened to him – and heat ran through my body as I watched his muscular form and that beautiful face contorted in pain.
After it was over and the final chords from the guitar died away, Shanna burst into clapping.
“Oh my GOD, you guys are GREAT!” she squealed.
I joined in with her clapping, kind of stunned, as though I were coming out of a daydream – or a great kiss.
“Yeah, you are,” I agreed.
Ryan grinned shyly.
Derek looked at me disapprovingly. “You didn’t sing.”
“What?” I asked, alarmed.
“I told you you were supposed to sing, and you didn’t.”
“I… I’m really bad,” I said lamely.
“I don’t care. You have to sing if we need you.”
I shrugged. “You want me to ruin your song, fine by me.”
“Did you like it?” he asked, and a hint of unease crossed his face.
I stared directly into his green eyes. “It was beautiful.”
Relief washed over him, and he grinned. “Thanks.”
Then he looked at both me and Shanna. “Okay, what next?”
26
They ended up taking requests for quite a while. Shanna really wanted to hear something by Katy Perry, so they did “I Kissed A Girl,” with Derek and Shanna singing together on the chorus. Shanna was giddy.
It was really interesting hearing the song where one half was in a deep male voice. And uncomfortably sexy whenever Derek would look at me while singing.
I have to admit, it also freaked me out a little to hear my roommate – who had seen me half-naked more times than I could count – singing a song about being bi-curious.
Ryan switched instruments to mimic the deeper, driving notes of the backup music.
He’d been good on acoustic, but he was outstanding on bass guitar.
Afterwards, I teased Derek a little. “I didn’t know you liked Katy Perry.”
“Ryan’s little sisters love Katy Perry, so we do it for them,” Derek said, scowling at me for impugning his manliness.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about ten-year-olds (or however old they were) being huge fans of “I Kissed A Girl.” It made it even weirder that the person singing it to them was the hottest guy ever, but… whatever.
They also did a great cover of a song called “D’yer Maker” by Led Zeppelin. I’d heard it before on classic rock stations, not to mention Sheryl Crow’s cover. Though Derek and Ryan’s version wasn’t nearly on a par with theirs, it was pretty damn good for a basement jam.
Derek’s singing was amazing; Ryan’s playing was fantastic. Ryan’s voice was nice, but had nowhere near the power or sexiness of Derek’s. And Derek
was basically an amateur compared with Ryan’s ease with the guitar. By now Derek had abandoned his instrument and was just lounging on the floor, relaxed and completely at ease as he sang.
They did “Say It Ain’t So” by Weezer, “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters, “Patience” by Guns ‘n Roses, “Flake” by Jack Johnson, and “I Give Her All My Love” by the Beatles.
They nailed every one of them.
And I was getting more and more turned on the entire time.
Derek was so damn good-looking to begin with… and now to hear this astounding voice coming out of him?
And to think, Yeah, he could actually GO somewhere with this?
I imagined him and Ryan as part of a band, playing at the 40 Watt or the Georgia Theater. I imagined hundreds of people shouting and screaming and singing along – not a far-fetched scenario at all.
It was… I don’t know. I guess I shouldn’t be that shallow, but it was seductive to think of me backstage, watching from the wings, Derek winking at me every so often as he played to the roaring crowd.
Then I would think, But what about Kevin? and the daydream dissipated… only to start up again with the next song.
After awhile they took a break to stand up and stretch.
Shanna raved about them and basically attached herself to Ryan at the hip.
“What’d you think?” Derek asked nervously while Ryan shyly backed away from his new admirer.
I nodded my head. “You guys are really, really good. I’m very pleasantly surprised.”
Actually, I was more than pleasantly surprised, but I didn’t want to feed his ego too much. And Shanna was being a good cautionary example of how not to act as she rubbed up against Ryan like a dog in heat.
Derek grinned. “When I first told you I was in a band, you probably thought we sucked ass.”
“…noooo…” I said, not at all convincingly.
Derek laughed right along with me.
“You’re just so enamored with yourself, I figured you were probably exaggerating about your music, too,” I said.
He stared me in the eyes. “Well, the other parts of me I’m so ‘enamored’ of… was I exaggerating about them?”
I pressed my lips together and blushed a little as I stared into his eyes.
I absolutely refused to look at his arms… or his chest… or his lips… or his ass (not that I could see it right now… but my God, his ass…).
He evidently took my silence for disapproval – maybe because it veered too close to flirtation or sex – and he hurriedly said, “Never mind, I retract the question. Would you like to hear some original stuff we recorded?”
Anything to cut the sexual tension.
“Um, yeah.”
“Hey, Ryan, let ‘em listen to some of the stuff we’ve recorded,” Derek called over his shoulder.
Ryan fired up the computer, opened a computer program, and played a couple of songs. They were good – not great, but good, like a lot of stuff you hear on college radio. The tunes were actually pretty catchy. Derek’s singing was strong and occasionally sexy. The lyrics weren’t bad, though they kind of tended towards the melodramatic and self-important.
But the drum stuff was meh. It sounded like it was all done on a drum machine, and by somebody who wasn’t very creative. And the guitar parts, while competent, sounded average.
But holy shit, the bass was crazy.
I never even notice the bass guitar in most songs. It’s usually there in the background, a complement to the drums, just underpinning the beat. But in these songs, the bass was front and center.
I looked at Ryan after one little bass solo. “Is that you?”
“Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly.
“That’s awesome,” I said.
He rubbed his close-cropped hair with an aw shucks grin and blushed.
“What about me?” Derek asked, almost on the verge of petulance.
“The singing’s really good, too,” I reassured him.
He still looked grumpy. “It’s not great?”
“Well… it’s just… it’s not as cool as when you were singing the songs ten minutes ago.”
“Give me a break – those are some of the greatest songs ever written,” he said. “I mean, our stuff – it’s pretty good for a band starting out, but we’re not fuckin’ Led Zeppelin or the Beatles.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, afraid I had offended him.
“The drum stuff sucks,” Ryan said glumly. “And I’m okay at guitar, but we really need a great guitarist, somebody who can make it sing.”
“I think you guys are awesome,” Shanna cooed, and grinded against Ryan’s leg a little more.
“We’re going to get there,” Derek said fiercely – to Ryan, to me, and almost to the whole world in general. It was like hearing a general yelling at his troops. “We’re going to get a badass drummer, and Killian Lee already said he’d be in the band.”
Ryan snorted and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, right.”
“Who?” I asked.
Derek clicked the spacebar on his computer and stopped the playback.
“Okay, check this out,” he said.
27
“So this past winter, this English band came through Athens – Gobsmacked. It’s some weird British slang or something. Nobody had ever heard of them, but they played at the Georgia Theater on a Tuesday when it was dead. They were pretty good, but the guitarist was incredible. I mean, fucking astounding. He was this little guy with long, black hair, kind of puffy and messed up, and he just let it hang loose down his back. He was older than the rest of the band, probably about 30, and he wore black from head to foot – black shirt, black pants, black trench coat down to his ankles. He was just… it was incredible. He’d launch off on these long solos that were just inspired. The band would kind of stand around while he did it – you could tell the lead singer was pissed, because everybody loved the guitarist and not him – and then they’d come back and finish the rest of the song. But the guy was amazing. I asked around afterward and found out his name was Killian Lee.
“They were playing the next night at the 40 Watt, so I told Ryan we HAD to go see him. Ryan was all freaked out – ”
“I was not,” Ryan protested.
“ – cause it was a school night – ”
“Shut up,” Ryan said, and gave me a nervous glance for some reason.
“But I told him if he didn’t go, he would regret it for the rest of his life. Didn’t I?”
“…yes.”
“And was I right?”
“Yeah, yeah, you were right,” Ryan muttered. “Just finish the story.”
“So anyway, Ryan snuck out and we went to the show – and the guitarist was even better the second night. I mean, he blew Ryan away. It was awesome.”
Ryan nodded enthusiastically.
“So after the show, I’m all like, ‘We’ve gotta go meet this guy.’ And Ryan’s like, ‘NUNH-UNH.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I’M going to go meet him,’ so Ryan finally gave in and we go backstage while all the roadies are loading up the equipment and the rest of the band are getting smashed. Killian’s back there sitting on a folding chair, just doodling on his electric guitar, smoking a joint, just kind of off in his own little hippy-dippy world. And I go up to him and stick my hand out and say, ‘I’m Derek Kane.’
“He smiles real peaceful-like, totally laid back, and sticks out his hand. ‘Nice to meetcha, mate.’”
I cannot stress how adorable Derek’s bad English accent was.
“So Ryan gushes all over him – ”
“I was not gushing,” Ryan said crossly.
“ – and Killian just smiles like he’s stoned, but the whole time he’s playing his guitar – just little whispers of his fingers over the strings. It’s not plugged in, so you can barely hear him, but he’s just playing non-stop, even while he’s talking to us, like his brain and his hands are disconnected.
“So I say, ‘We’re in a band. And one day we’re going to get you
to be our guitarist.’”
I frowned in disbelief. That was a pretty ballsy thing to say.
“Ryan looks at me like I’m crazy, but Killian just laughed, took a hit on his joint, and nodded his head. ‘Well… let me hear you first,’ he says.
“Ryan doesn’t have an instrument, obviously, so Killian tells one of the roadies to bring the bass guitar stuff over. The bassist is pissed, but Killian tells him to fuck off, he’s going to quit Gobsmacked and join our band if he doesn’t let Ryan borrow the bass. So the bassist threatens to cut Ryan’s balls off if he fucks up his bass, and then he goes off to get drunk. Ryan’s freaking out at this point, but I couldn’t be happier.
“Killian asks what we want to play, and I say, ‘Whole Lotta Love,’ which is a Zeppelin tune. Killian nods like he’s happy to hear it. Ryan’s killer at this – we’ve practiced it, like, fifty times here in the basement – so we launch into it, and it’s awesome. I’m pretty good, Ryan’s losing his nervousness, and Killian just owns the song. It was like we’re playing with fuckin’ Jimmy Page. We actually start attracting a little crowd.
“Then Killian is like, ‘What’s next?’ and I say ‘Higher Ground,’ and he says, ‘Stevie or Peppers?’ because the Chili Peppers covered the original Stevie Wonder song, and I say, ‘Chili Peppers.’ Killian tells some guy to go get the drummer from Gobsmacked, and he comes back and he’s pissed, but Killian tells him ‘Get on the drums, mate, we’re doin’ the Chili Peppers’ ‘Higher Ground.’ So the guy does, and it ROCKS. We’re getting a bigger crowd. We play a couple more songs, and people are totally into it, but the lead singer comes back in and he is PISSED that he’s not the center of attention, and he and the bassist basically get the roadies to load all the equipment up and tell us to fuck off.
“Killian flips them off and looks back at us and says, ‘You guys are good. Really good. You – ’ and he points to Ryan – ‘are technically excellent. You just need to get more of a feel for it. You need to get spiritual with it. Let the music own you. And you – ’ and he points to me – ‘you’ve got that ‘something’ you need to be a great lead singer. You just need to stop mimicking those other people. Stop imitating them. Find your own voice. It’ll take awhile, but if you do it, you’ll be unstoppable.’”
Rock Me Hard (The Rock Star's Seduction) Page 8