Stopped in my Tracks

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Angelcel asked about some musical experiences which maybe stopped me in my tracks and I can think of a few off the top of my head. Like the time I was doing a solo gig and found myself having an out of body experience right in the middle of a song. No word of a lie, I was somehow suddenly gazing down at myself from somewhere up by the ceiling of the bar I was gigging in! For a few seconds I was stunned to find that my body carried on with the singing and the hands moving from one chord to the next despite the fact that to all intents and purposes my consciousness was several feet above it. And then I was back in my body, finishing the song, spluttering that I was going to take a short break, and rushing to the bathroom to throw water in my face and wonder at what the hell that was all about.

I remember another less freaky time during which I felt certain that my ambitions of musical success were just around the corner. There was a political rally through my town, one of many across the country against a new tax the government were pushing through parliament. Mine was not a large town and seemed fairly apathetic politically so five or six thousand people taking to the streets was a big deal. After marching through town everyone congregated in a local park and there were a couple of speeches after which local bands were due to play. I was not there to play but one of my former bands were on the bill so I was looking forward to hearing what they were doing now. Turned out the first band were not ready and the crowd looked like dispersing. The man doing the sound engineering work knew me, called me over, thrust an acoustic guitar in my hand and said “Fill in for the band till their drummer arrives, two or three songs so we don’t lose this crowd.”

I strolled up to the microphone and said “Hello” and five or six thousand people shouted hello back and my knees went a bit shaky. But once I was into the first song I lost my nerves and got such a buzz from the crowd. The energy coming off them was electric. After three songs the drummer showed up and I was given the signal to wrap it up. Coming off stage I was met by a local radio DJ who shoved his own microphone under my nose and asked me about the rally, about the government and about the crowd I had just played for. With the band starting their set behind me and the questions coming at me, I felt like Dylan or Lennon for a few moments. And to add to my ego-boost, when my former band took to the stage later on, they played a couple of my songs and shouted out to me.

What really stopped me in my tracks, literally changed my mind about music as a career, was more complex, however. Early in 1994, while the Isis CD was still being pressed and gigs were being lined up several events happened at once that forced me to re-evaluate my career path. One of my favourite comedians died – Bill Hicks – which just made me sad. Then Kurt Cobain took his own life which took that sadness to whole new depths. Nirvana were one of the bands who’d brought life back into the whole guitar band scene, they’d reminded me of some of the passion and drive I’d had when I began, before I’d ended up with a manager and working tirelessly at songs day after day like it was really a job. To most outsiders Cobain was living the dream, that elusive rock and roll star lifestyle. Even had a rock and roll wife (less said about her the better, actually). So not everyone understood why he blew himself away that day. Part of it was a depression and physical pain he’d suffered all his life but also in the mix was the fact that ‘living the dream’ really is not what people think it is.

To a lot of people the rock life is glamorous and you become like some god who can do as he pleases. From the inside, and on a much smaller scale, I already knew that the glamour is an illusion which soon wears off for the actual musicians. And it was clear to me that the more successful Cobain became the more of a prisoner of other people’s expectations he became, the more he felt like he was selling-out his own ideals of anti-stardom.

The next meeting the band had with our management company I was still milling all of this over. Our manager was telling us how great the demo was, how it was only a matter of time before we were going to be touring America, recording our first album proper, gold discs, the lot. Hype and motivational talk, some of it, but everything he was talking about were the hallmarks of success in our industry. They were the things to aim for. Yet they were beginning to appear less appealing to me.

And then somebody I knew took his own life. He was someone I’d met here and there but we were not best buddies, yet his death was a huge shock and reverberated around the group of friends I had at the time. I also knew his parents a little and his mum phoned me to ask me if I would play something at his funeral. He had been learning guitar before he died so she asked me to play something he’d played for her. I was on the phone for a long time with her, not entirely sure what to say as she poured out her grief, listening to her cry, just letting her express such terrible, overwhelming emotions. When I put the phone down I picked up my guitar and a song just came out in a very short space of time. It was called ‘I Never Heard You Say Goodbye’ and I felt that it was more her song than mine, as it seemed to be from someone who knew Sean far better than I actually did. So I called her back and told her what had happened after I’d spoken to her. “Do you want to hear it?” I asked her. She replied that she wanted to hear it at the service as it was obviously meant to be.

I’d like to say that playing for Sean’s funeral was the oddest performance I’ve ever given but it wouldn’t be quite true as I have, sadly, played at two other people’s funerals since that day. But it was such a weird experience standing in front of so many mourners, looking at Sean’s mother and father and brother a few feet in front of me. I played and people cried some more and I shuffled off to the side of the crematorium unsure what to do with myself as it didn’t seem right to wander through such palpable grief and take my seat again.

Later, Sean’s dad said I had “made the worst day of his life slightly more bearable” and his brother said that I had somehow captured what he would have wanted to say. I felt honoured and I felt as though this was possibly the most important things I could ever do with music in my entire life – offer a tiny crumb of comfort to the family in such a dark time. It had nothing to do with ego, it had nothing to do with wanting to be famous or successful or anything. It felt more honest than anything I had ever done with a guitar in my hand before, or would ever be able to do again.

Sean’s ashes were scattered in the churchyard close to their home and a few weeks later his mum took me there to show me a plaque they’d had placed by the path. It simply stated Sean’s name, his date of birth, the day he died and underneath it said ‘We never heard you say goodbye’. I cried and I felt again that for once in my life I had done something truly meaningful with music. Gold discs? American tours? Fame? Money? They were meaningless; empty ambitions. Every changed from that day.

Some weeks later the band held a huge party to launch our CD. Many of our friends and family were invited as well as some record company people and other movers and shakers the management wanted to impress. We played well – it wasn’t actually one of my best ever performances but the others drove me along with them and all in all it was a good gig. Afterwards I went to a smaller party and found I did not want to be there, being patted on the back by people and told I was going to be a big star. I went home, remembering that plaque and feeling more empty than I had ever felt in my life. This was what I had been chasing hadn’t it? For years I’d had to face people down whenever they told me I was living in the clouds and that success was such a rare possibility. And yet here I was, on the cusp of it all, and wanting the carousel to stop and let me off. I was very confused and torn and it actually took me another six months to find the courage to admit I no longer wanted that future or this life. Eventually it mattered more that I try and find out what would actually make me happy rather than chase a dream I no longer believed in.

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Tags: Acoustic Guitar, Bill Hicks, Bob Dylan, Courtney Hole, Funeral, Gigging, Gold Disc, Isis, John Lennon, Kurt Cobain, Local Radio, Music, Nirvana, Out of Body Experience, Poll Tax Rally, Rock and Roll Suicide