The Band

It was summer, and the sun was beating down on the drive outside Khristian's parents garage. All that could be heard was the incessant banging and clashing of drums and cymbals. For months and months, it was an incoherent mess of noise, but recently, it began to take on actual rhythm, although it still sounded terrible. Khristian cared not for education, as far as he could see, he didn't need an education to hit some drums. He was lucky really, his parents garage was situated away from the house, so he could drum all he liked, whenever he liked. Admittedly though, he had taken a long time to even make it sound coherent. He has been drumming for a year, but thanks to his short attention span, any attempt to try to learn well known songs has resulted in abject failure, until very recently. He had begun to listen to bands like Dream Theater, and had begun to understand that there was more to drumming than just hitting them.

A few weeks followed, and he'd begun to learn one or two simple songs, and so decided to call up some of his friends.

(Guys, sorry this is so short, my brain's frazzled... but at least it's started eh?)

Ciggy had just woken up to look at the time, his clock seemed to blare '2 PM'... He simply decided that it was actually time to get up out of bed and check all of the text messages he had recieved from the night before. None whatsoever, perfect. Ciggy wandered around the warzone that is his room and managed to navigate his way to the computer desk, checking up on all of his missed emails, and seeing who was online, when it happenned, the call that would be changing his life. He simply lit a cigarette and smiled. "Hey dude, what's going on?"

(Very short intro post... Sorry.)

The time was ticking away for Rose as she sat in her old, damaged mustang. Her eyes stared at the building the band was having practice in. It was a friend's house. She shook her head impatiently, thinking about all those big time bands, that made it big. She dreamed that they would one day become big like them. She pulled up her long black sleeved shirt, decorated with many skulls. Her eyes blinked as if blinded by something.

"Alright, I am here!" She announced as she got out of her car. She pulled her bass case as well, which had all kinds of different kind of band stickers on it.

"Well I am here guys," she smiled, walking into the garage. "Hows things around these parts?" She set down her bass case and smirked.

Ciggy pulled up to the driveway of Khristens house and unstrapped his guitar and amp from the roof of the car, banging on the roof and saying a thanks to his dad for dropping him off. Ciggy grinned, moving over to everyone else and grinning from ear to ear. "Nice turn out buddy..." Ciggy chuckled as he placed an unlit cigarette in his mouth and lit it with his engraved Zippo lighter. He looked over to Alec, then to Khristen, then to Rose, then slowly towards Alec again, before turning back to Rose, almost choking on some cigarette smoke. "WHOA! Wait a second! What is she doing here!" Ciggy glared at Rose, somehow mistaking her for someone else from his childhood.

"Well guys and gals, glad y'all could make it! See the thing is, I had an idea while I was drumming, and I know you guys are all pretty good at instruments and stuff, so I was thinking-"

Khristian was interrupted by the sound of a car screeching off in the distance. His attention span needed a little work. The car sped down the street and was soon out of earshot.

"So anyway, i was thinking. Why don't we form a band? I mean, I'm a kick ass drummer, so we got that down for a start! I think we could give it a go, if we put our minds to it!

Who's in?"

For a moment she thought this was some sort of joke. Rose leaned back, pressing her back against the wall and blinked at Ciggy, giving him a hard look. "Gotta a problem with me being here? Hmmm?" She asked. She just shook her head and turned Khristian and smiled.

"Well sounds tempting...I am so in," she replied, glaring at Ciggy again. "Anyone have a problem with that?"

Rose would not take crap from guys because she had older brothers. It was hard enough to deal with them. The last thing she needed was to deal with immature boys here. With a small sigh she relaxed her arms.

"So what is the plan?"

Ciggy grinned, the ash draping off his cigarette before slowly falling off ans falling apart upon contact with the ground. "A band? A band! You got it all wrong mate... We aren't just a band... We are the band! The band to end all other bands... Except for Metallica... They are gods compared to us..." Ciggy kept rambling on for about five minutes about how marvelously stupendous Metallica was compared to them. "...Not to mention all the great songs they play! Anyway... If we are starting a band, I'm totally calling lead singer, and maybe some rhythm guitar!" Ciggy grinned, dragging his own amp and guitar into the small, cramped garage and ran his pick down the strings, doing the worst thing any guitarist can do... Break every single string. Ciggy stared at his mangled guitar and frowned a little, before lighting up another cigarette. "....Maybe I'll just sing."

Shrugging, Khristian shook himself out of the coma of boredom he found himself in when Ciggy was talking. He didn't have the greatest attention span, so there wasn't much hope of him catching much of the Metallica monologue Ciggy had spouted for the last five minutes.
"So, who wants a beer?" He motioned towards the mini-fridge to the side of his drumkit.
Suddenly, the distinctive twang of breaking guitar strings, and smiled to himself. He thought: This is gonna go well... All the best bands have disasters... this is just the beginning!
"Dude, I think you're right... you should stick to singing.."

Khristian walked over to the mini-fridge, grabbing a handful of beers.
"So who wants?"

A look crossed Rose's face as she watched the boys. With a shake of her head, she collapsed upon a chair, reclining in it keeping her eyes on the beer that was being offered to them all. Shaking her head, she pulled her bass case closer to her seat. This was going to be a blast. A band! With them? She looked at the guys. Rose laughed realizing she was the only female here.

"So I will claim the bass, since I have my pretty with me anyways," she said, looking at Khristian. "I would love to see how this goes. What are the potential names Khristian?"

"And no thanks to the beer. I do not drink much."

Rose set the case gently down and straightened up her posture.

Samuel looked at his destroyed guitar, then back at Khristian, then towards the few beers in Khristian was holding within his hands. "Sure dude, you can count me in... Lemme just tell my friend where I am..." Samuel walked out of the garage as he dialed his neighbourhood friend, Skylar. "Come on... Pick up already! If I had to wake up earlier than usual, so do you!" Ciggy chuckled, listening feintly to the dial tone, then looking back towards Khristian. "Chuck us one of those beers buddy, then I'll warm up my vocals." Samuel laughed, before reaching into his jeans to retrieve his lighter and his packet of cigarettes. He quickly took one out and placed it to his lips as Skylar's voice mail came on.

"Ahh fuck! Skylar, come by Khristian's a little later... I need a ride home after some band practice... I'll see ya later hun." Samuel hung up and walked over to the others, snatching up one of the beers and looking around for the microphone. "Ahh screw it, Khristian, could you give me a kickass drum beat? Something simple like..... Almost Easy by Avenged Sevenfold? Rose, reckon you could give me the bass line from it?" Samuel grinned, his cigarette hanging from his mouth as he began to light it.

Skylar walked into her room with a towel in one hand drying her damp hair and turned on the radio. Her phone buzzed twice on her bed telling her she had a voicemail and she walked over to it. Picking it up she tossed her towel over the radio to quiet it and listened to her voicemail.

"Band practice?" She questioned aloud. "Since when was he in a band?" Skylar shook her head and shoved her phone in her back pocket before grabbing her keys off of her desk and heading out the door to run some errands.

~

When Skylar pulled up in her slightly abused, black, '99 Olds. Alero, with a hard rock band blairing through her speakers, she saw Samuel belting out notes and lyrics that she could easily assume weren't sounding all too lovely and stayed put for a few minutes before turning off her car and getting out. Hooking her keys to her beltloop, Skylar walked up to the garage and nodded to Samuel. This was a rather interesting site, she had to admit. They also sounded terrible.

Khristian nodded, and threw some beers around, then walked over to his drumset. Grabbing some sticks, he begun to hit a few skins, in a fairly average order. He looked up and saw one or two of the others tuning their instuments, and then to Alec, who was in his own guitar trance. All of a sudden, Khristian went crazy. He started a crazy combination of drums and cymbals in a completely random yet offbeat style. It sounded nothing short of awful, but he thought he sounded awesome.

Ten minutes later, he stopped, completely out of breath, the others looking on dumfounded. He downed an entire beer, and went to start again, when he noticed something shiny in the distance.

"Hey! What's that over there!"