The Band Before the Band

In my sophomore year of high school, my second year as a student of the New Jersey public school system, I was at best what you might call a "loser." I had started to grow my hair long and wore an AC/DC shirt to school at least twice a week. Girls didn't even look at me, and I hung out with other "losers." They were the nerds. They were the geeks. They were the outcasts, and I gladly called all of them friends.

At the same time though, I was a member of the most popular band in school. Kids were writing our name on the bathroom walls, chanting our name during lunch and gym class, and demanding that we release merchandise like t-shirts and stickers. It was crazy, but the most absurd thing is that we were barely a band. None of us had been playing our instrument for more than a few months, we rarely practiced, and we only had two songs (both originals) that we could play all the way through.

It all happened very quickly. We went from being a bunch of guys making noise to the most popular band in school. And even though I lived it, I'm still not sure how it all happened.

When I moved to Jersey, one of the first friends I made was a kid named Frank. We were both into heavy metal and had aspirations of playing guitar; we didn't really need any more of a reason to be friends. He got a guitar for his birthday later that year, and I instantly started hanging out at his house after school every day. His cheap guitar had a built-in speaker that was augmented with a little Gorilla practice amp, and a BOSS distortion pedal rounded things out. We took turns making noise on the thing, and I'd go home at night sure that my life wouldn't be complete until I had a guitar of my own.

Several months later, I had a guitar to call my own, a Gorilla practice amp, and a BOSS distortion pedal. We began "jamming" and soon two more of our friends had started to play instruments as well. My buddy Paul took up the drums, and his friend Jeff picked up the bass. With all of the necessary pieces to form a band in place, we threw our "proverbial" hat into the ring.

The Stones had nothing to worry about; we were horrible. I couldn't keep my guitar in tune, and Frank never seemed happy with the volume of his. Paul couldn't keep time, and Jeff had no idea how to play bass. We had a name though, and that was all that mattered. It was a crude, perverted name that it isn't fit for print in a family blog like "Always the Last in Line."

Frank and Jeff wrote a song, and miraculously we were all able to play it. I even provided a solo that consisted mostly of going up and down the pentatonic scale at the fifth fret. We practiced every weekend if possible, and for the most part didn't get a shred better, but somehow word was spreading at school about us. We had a gimmicky name that made high school kids laugh and a song that beat up a friend who was easy to make fun of.

We never played in front of an audience, never recorded a worth while demo, yet it amazes and confuses me that we still achieved such a level of popularity. And even though nobody knew who I was, it was fun to be part of something that for no apparent reason became more popular than any of my band mates or I could have imagined.