Well, we had the start of something good. We could all tell that, and frankly we loved that idea. The thought that this combination of people could possibly become a worth while rock band was amazing and we all were ready to start. Unfortunatly there was one problem with that. School.
School really put a wrench in our gears. I was in advanced courses, which in this case translates to tons and tons of homework. On top of that Zach and I were in (and are currently in) the schools marching band. That alone was a huge chunk of our time, add to that the need to keep grades up, and we found ourselves in a situation that made practice dang near impossible. Thankfully, two of us being band kids, we had access to the band room. We had the same lunch every other day, and the band room had amps, and a kit.
After a couple practices in there we started really sounding, and kinda acting like a band. But, we didn't get to do it often, and before too long the grades issue came up, and being highschoolers parents still had a huge amount of control on us. In simpler terms, members got grounded. Once that happened we kinda ground to a stop.
Well, second semester came, and the band was all ungrounded, and everyone was in the mood for some rock, so we started practicing again. About half way through that semester a fellow bando, Jordan Will, came up to me with an idea. She had been playing the guitar for a while, and had a particular love for the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by the grunge rock band Nirvanna, for our school's talent show.
Initially it was slightly difficult to get the band together on the idea of playing it, but once we got into it, we went at it. While we only practiced together twice, and one time in the hall before the audition, we felt fairly confident that we could do well.
We got in the band room, I sat down behind the kit, and Jordan kicked in with the guitar solo intro. She was playing lead, with Brad playing rythem behind, solely because she had the solo down after having practiced the song boat loads, and Brad had been brought in on the idea a little later than he probably should have been. After her solo I came in with the hard drum intro, and the StuCo judges kinda opened up their eyes in surprise, almost as if they didn't realize we'd be so loud lol. After the quick intro Zach and Brad came in and just filled up our sound, taking it from real odd and loud, to full and punchy.
Things went great until after the solo. We were supposed to drop back into the verse, or the soft part of the song, but my hearing had kinda been blown by the cymbals, and to me it sounded like the rest of the band had stopped. Not wanting to look like a fool, I stopped. That left everyone else hanging, so they had to stop as well. The only other thing that made this difficult is that Alex didn't have a microphone, so he had to sit there trying to sing so the judges could hear him, over us lol.
All in all, it was a great experience for us as a young band, it gave us an experience of playing in front of a crowd, a small one, but a crowd none the less.This crowd was the drama club. In order to be able to audition we had to use the band room. In order for the drama club to audition, they too had to use the band room. So they took a five minute water break while we played, giving them a much needed break from their director, and a small free concert.
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