Chapter Five: Making Amends



We told him to stop the car and let us out, but he refused, telling us that it was time that this get sorted out. We tried to jump out but he locked the doors and windows. When we finally came to a halt we were sitting in front of my old house. It looked the exact same way that it had nearly ten years before. A light shimmered from the old living room window. I wasn’t a boy anymore, I was going twenty seven years old and knew that this was going to happen sooner or later but this is not how or when I expected it to happen.

My mother answered the door. She looked at Joey and me and she started to cry. I don’t think I have ever realized how much she really did care for me. We walked in and found my father sitting on the couch watching the T.V. and he looked angry at first, but then he too showed that he had been upset about the way things turned out. We hugged and told them our story of what had happened while Robert stood in the corner and George stayed in the car. They shook their heads and occasionally told us how they felt sorry for us and then dad did something I never expected.

He walked to my old room and when he returned he was carrying a very large box, and when he opened it my mouth dropped open. Inside sat copies off all our albums and about ten rolled up posters and some other merchandise. I asked, “Why do you have this?” and he told me an interesting story of how he had a change of heart after I left and that he saw the light and that he had been wrong about some of the music and that my lyrics that contained illusions to God had showed him that it’s not all Satan’s music.

I told them that I never was trying to upset them and that I was only listening to the music that I felt had meaning and feelings in it. They said they understood and it was a very emotional night after that. We all tried to make up for what we had done in the past when we felt we had done nothing, and in fact we had done everything…I still wish I could go back and change it earlier than I did, and again I thank Robert for taking me there. I probably never would have gone if it wasn’t for him.

When we left a week later, I felt like I had come full circle in my life. But then I realized that I was still broke and had no house to live in. But damn it all if Robert didn’t come in and give me and Joey both three hundred thousand dollars! I bought a small house, and so did Joey and we began rebuilding our lives from the ground up again. We slowly began to regroup the band into what we once were as friends and we made amends with each other and vowed to never let our own foolishness be more important than the band again.

I didn’t know how I wanted to go about continuing with the music, weather I wanted to just tour a while or if I wanted to begin working on a new album and writing again. The guys said that we needed to converse with the label before we did anything and so we did. On the first day of January, 2000 I went to the execs and asked them about what they thought we should do.

They told us that they were done with us, that they were sick of waiting on us and that after eleven years; they didn’t want us anymore. They told us that if we wanted to continue our careers than we needed to do it elsewhere. It was a huge argument from there that involves some broken chairs and a messy office when we were done. We walked out onto the parking lot with the feeling of rejection and a bitter taste in our mouth. After all the struggle and pain, there was only more to be had but I knew that we could get through it because this was the smallest obstacle we’d had since we started. I took humor in it really, though Joey and George didn’t, Robert tended to agree with me…but that’s just how he is. That’s how he looks at life.

We put in offers for a label to produce a new album and nobody wanted to risk us anymore. This resulted in deciding that we were going to write, record, and produce the entire album ourselves and then sell it to them all ready paid for. Use them as a distributor. We decided that we would start writing and hope for the best. The first song completed was called “Evil” that had a deep and underlying tone that told of how the evil in our life can dwell in us until we decide to throw it out and do the right thing. This helped us decide that the album would be a three part album with three separate ideas.

The first was to be called “The Battle of Good and Evil” and we wanted it to be a truly epic album with a feeling of self power, and to convey a message of responsibility to do what’s right. We had only five songs completed when we god a call from a man named Cody Goggin who told me that he owned a small record label and that he would like to sign us on. I told him that we were kind of looking for a larger label that wasn’t so grounded and underfinanced but he promised that he would give us any money we needed and do whatever we wanted when it came to the music. After a discussion with the guys, we signed onto V-Records.

It was slow goings even after that but we did what we could and wrote some good songs. The studio Cody put us in was fairly decent, but it was not on the same level as the studio for “Bridge.” We went in with a feeling of hope and inspiration. We laid down some good tracks the first week and by time the second was here, we were really rolling. Songs like “Good” and “So Far Way” really brought out the cheerfulness though and showed that we still had it in us to make “happy” music and were not all about depressing and sappy stuff. We did have quite a bit of that on “B.o.G.a.E.” though. Songs like “Love and War” and “The Bullets” were truly depressing and showed a new side of us that we didn’t really let out very often. We showed our political opinions and how we felt about war. It was a different kind of record and that was really all there was to it.

We showed Cody the finished product which had ten songs as most of our records have, and he was ecstatic. He said that it was one of the best records that we had ever done and he had ever heard for that matter. He may have just been being nice, but it worked because we got a boost in energy and mood levels and we went crazy. We had a decent party and then went back to work to finish plans on a world tour. We set up dates from LA to China and it was going to be huge! Nothing yet has surpassed the feeling I had when we made our return and not much ever will.

The tour started the day before the album was released and we prepared the stage in great anticipation when a little kid came up to me and yelled, “Look daddy, its J.J. from The Rockers!” and I had a fluttery feeling travel through me. After ten years, a child no more than seven knew who I was and who the band was! I went out on stage feeling at the top of the world because of that one child. The seats were packed! They’re were over ten thousand people in the one small little venue and they were all cheering and singing along as I pointed the microphone towards them. They sang more than I did that night, the sound of it just sounded so good though, that I couldn’t help myself. It was magic all over again.

The album was released to some decent reviews, some calling it great, others calling it average. It sold okay and we were proud of how it did in general. We had hoped for a more powerful return, sure, but we accepted that it might take a little longer and little more work. We went with it gracefully and continued our tour. The gigs were well attended and we did all right money wise. Really, we had made it to that point where we were doing “average” but we also got stuck in that rut. We continued to play small gigs that were half attended for a half a year, and then decided that we should take a break and begin work on the second part of the album.

I was informed with some bad news the day after we made our decision though. My father had died of a heart attack in the night…I was crushed. I felt cheated, I had just fixed it all, and now it was gone again. It was bad for a while, I wrote a lot of sad songs again and there really wasn’t much happiness going around at the time. Joey took it differently, he took it with grieving but he decided that the best thing to do was to move one and to continue with the album. He wrote five songs that month and they were all cheerful…my four were all sad, and Roberts was just a casual rocker.










Chapter Six:
Journey to the Top



The second part was to be called “Journey into Darkness” and had some deep songs; mine were about loss, regret, inner pain, and that sort of thing. I didn’t feel good, I felt sick really…dead. So many ups and downs had taken a toll on me, and I was not doing too well staying away from the drugs. I would take the average sleeping pill and another to wake me up, the usual for any star, and it had its impact on me and the way I looked at life.

I didn’t give up hope though, after all, for the first time we were in pretty high demand and were being asked to play instead of us asking to be allowed to play, which is always nice… Anyway, things picked up and we decided to begin the process of elimination and work it down to the normal ten songs. Admittedly, my songs were slammed by the other guys, but I fought with them and we worked it out to where they agreed with the idea that the albums name fit well with the dark tone of my songs.

We went into the studio and did what we always did; we made some heavy rock n roll songs, with the classic rock sound and came out with a good product. But it was also a heavily repetitive product. It was the same sound that we had been doing for eleven years before that. We didn’t realize it but when it was released to the public they let us know! Reviews spat how the repeated chords and mediocre lyrics seemed more like remixes than new songs. It hurt a bit, but I was finally beginning to learn to faze them out and do what I felt that I had to do.

The album sold nine hundred thousand copies overall and while that’s not a whole lot; it was good and made our money back. We wanted to begin writing the third part of our good and evil album but the label decided that we should wait a bit, and to tour instead. So, he set up a large tour for us to go around America and perform in places that we had never been before, and I love seeing places that I haven’t seen before. It’s like a whole new world that I never knew existed even if it was only a couple hundred miles away.

The tour sold out at every venue and playing packed gigs is the one thing that will make an artist happier than anything else can. It’s like a natural high that doesn’t go away for the entire night. It puts you in a mental state that makes you feel as if nothing could go wrong. I loved it, still do. We did this for six months and then Cody decided that it was time for us to begin writing, and we let loose. Happy and excited we began writing and it turned out to be great.

I wrote a song called “The Power to Overcome” which was again going back to my addiction, and how it affected me, but how I was able to come out of it a better person that I was before, and the song was liked by the guys, for a sad lyrical song, it had an upbeat musical side to it, and it meshed together nicely. It became the title track of the album too.

Robert wrote extensively on this album, he really put his all into it for the first time since he started writing. He wrote seven songs, and they all made it onto the album! They were truly powerful rock songs; they were hard, and heavy, yet soft and sweet. It was amazing to hear him play them on his guitar and sing them; it was like listening to an angel sing, which is saying something because Robbie can’t sing.

Joey was weird that year of writing, he was never around and we could never figure out why he seemed so disoriented when he would stumble around the house chanting about stuff that didn’t make sense. We thought about checking into it, but we were so busy writing that, it didn’t faze us. In fact, we kind of learned to ignore him and just keep scribbling down song ideas.

We tried to keep the overall happy feeling in our new songs, and tried to all but completely forget how unhappy things were, and thinking back, actually weren’t. We had so much going for us at the time and we moped around just because our album war met poorly, and that Joey had lost his mind…sorry but I still laugh at that to this day. If only we knew what was going on, we could have stopped a large stopper in our career, but I will get to that later.

Our time in the studio took longer, again because of the complications with Joey. He was never around and when he was, he was just totally spacing out and had no clue what was going on. This is when I decided that I had to look into it and find out what the hell he was doing. Joey as my older brother has been a huge help, and a huge burden all at the same time, he has been there in my darkest times, and yet never ceases to have his moments when my dark times, are caused by his. After nearly a month of spying on him, I found that he had got back into heavy drinking and was getting drunk all the time. He was so hammered that he would just stumble around his hotel room and crash it, and then later paying the manager in secret so that we wouldn’t know.
I confronted him about it and was met with the usual plea of, “I’m going to stop now!” but I knew better, and I didn’t press it though, because I didn’t want to ruin the happy mood we were all in.







Chapter Seven:
Overcoming the Demons



The third part of the album was released to some decent reviews, they said that that the album was closer to the old sound, but different enough to make it new and we were happy with that. It wasn’t the world praise that we had been hoping for, for ten years. We took it with stride, as we always do and hoped that we could top it in the future.

Joey had all but disappeared of the face of the planet. He was nowhere to be found for two weeks. I looked in all the bars and beer stores in the town, and could not find him at all. No matter how bad Joey ever had gotten, he had never done this. I was worried and had no idea what to do. I told the guys that we needed a break and they agreed. I spent the break looking for Joey though.

I went three days before I just sat on my couch and looked at the ceiling, and I thought to myself, “Is he dead?” He could have been, after all he was stumbling around so much; who knows where he could have wondered off too? He could be lying in the woods somewhere! It was like a living Hell all over again. I began to feel like I knew he was dead, it just pulsed through me, he was dead. There was no alternative to it. I began to get chills and feel sick when there was nothing wrong with me.

I was watching the news one night when I saw it flash on the bottom that a car had crashed and thrown a man over a hundred feet and he was currently unconscious. I thought nothing of it until they mentioned that the man had a high blood/alcohol level, which is sad to have to think about like that. I called the local police and asked about is and they said that it did look like Joey, but the scars were too severe to be sure. I will be the first to admit that I cried harder than any person has ever cried before me that day.

When I got to the emergency room, they wouldn’t let me in, so I called Robbie and George. They came as soon as they were free and we sat in the waiting room for at least four hours before they said he was stable. They also announced that he was in a coma. That struck me hard but Robbie made sure to comfort me and remind me “at least he’s alive!” which was true, he could have easily died.

He looked like he had been run over by a lawn mower! His face was shredded and virtually unrecognizable. He had blood all over his gown and he lay there as still as a statue. I will never forget his cold raspy breathing, it alone sounded like death itself. I asked the doctor what he thought about it, and he told me that he would live, but it was impossible to tell how long the coma would last. I slumped into a chair and closed my eyes, and saw Joey, at least seventy years old; still lying there unconscious. That scared me and I had to leave the hospital.

I didn’t know where I was going but I was going, and going fast. I drove all the way to the next state before I stopped and when I did, I just walked into the tallest building I could find and got in the elevator. I rode to the top and stepped out. You may have guessed what I had planned, and your right. I walked to the window and stepped out onto the balcony listening to people scream and holler as I stepped onto the ledge.

I looked down and saw the road beneath me, people walking down the sidewalk, unaware, happy, and totally care free. I on the other hand felt like my mind was going to explode from exhaustion and tears flowed as I kneeled down and thought about my whole life. I saw all of us when we first met, just hanging out in Joey’s apartment, I saw my father smiling at me when I came home, and I saw my face, from when I was a teenager to the age I was then; thirty four. I cried harder as I saw my face dissolve into dust, I saw some really terrifying things that I don’t think I should mention to you, you don’t deserve that pain.

Finally I stood up and got back down and walked across the hall while people asked me stupid questions about what I was doing. I ran down the stairs as I felt that I needed to keep moving in order to keep my mind off the subject. I ran faster than I have ever ran, I passed my car and just kept running. I ran and ran, not even thinking, and to be honest; it’s all a blur that I don’t really remember, but I know they found me two days later lying asleep nearly thirty miles from the hospital where Joey was at.

Robert was the one who went after me. He sat me down in his chair and told me that he had heard on the news about my little fiasco. “No reason to do something so stupid!” he told me and then he sat down too. “Johnny, I have been your friend for a long time, and you mine. I love you like a brother, but I can’t handle this anymore. I have been trying to help you, and did whatever I could… but George and I are leaving.” I asked him what he meant, “The band…we’re leaving the band. We’re going to start our own thing…I’m sorry.” He got up and they left. It was just me and Joey sitting there now.

I had lost the one rock that I had ever had. The only thing I was sure of was gone and it was entirely my fault. I knew that if there was anything I could do it was to write. I wrote in that room about how I felt about all of my friends. I wrote how I felt about my life and how things had turned out, and I wrote about the way I thought we could have come out better. I heard about George and Robert’s new band, The Shadows the next day on the news and how they had teamed up with that bastard Andy Keys who got me hooked on drugs. I thought of how Robert could do such a thing to me, and why he would want too. But then I remembered the shit I put him through. All of the money he gave me, the drugs I was on, and how they made me act towards him and it hit me. I fell off of my pedestal like a thousand pound boulder.

I was like a turtle in my shell, crying about how I had ruined all that was good in my life and telling everyone away from me. I suddenly realized what I had done, and just how bad I had truly screwed up. I knew it was bad, but this opened it up like the flood gates of the biggest river in the world. I felt horrible. That is how you can sum that time period up; horrible.

I wrote thirteen songs that month and threw them all into a trunk. I was still very down, but things were about to get better, even if only a little better. On his birthday, I brought Joey some balloons and presents, I then sat in the chair just like I had for months. “Balloons?” I heard a raspy voice say this as if he was disgusted. “I turn thirty seven years old and you bring me balloons?” I stood up shaking so hard I almost fell over. “Joey?” I asked with a trembling voice. He sat up a little and smiled, his teeth stained red. “Hey John…where am I?” We spent the evening talking about what had occurred while he was out.

When it was all over he laughed a little and said, “Oh well.” This really made me angry. I went off on him, telling him how I was going to kick his ass if he didn’t get some sort of help and that I wanted him off the booze now! He began to cry a little and I stopped, I was doing it again. “Joey, I just want to make sure you’re around for a while…right now…you’re all I got.” I said it as calmly as I could and sat down in the small chair once more. He frowned but it was an understanding frown, and after two days of not speaking at all he told me that he was going to go to a rehab center and try to stop the drinking. I thanked him and we hugged, I felt like all was right and that we could go back to being us as soon as Joey was home. But then I remembered that Robbie and George had left…Again, I realized that there were still hills to climb.

I called them up and asked if they wanted to say goodbye to Joey when he left and they agreed to come. We all shook his hand and watched his plane take off. As they were getting in their car I grabbed Roberts shoulder and pulled him aside to talk. I asked him if he wanted to return, and begged him to give me one more chance at doing him right. He shook his head, and told me that he and George were doing well with Andy who he said had gone the straight and narrow as well. I asked him if there was any chance that he would forgive me…and Robert touched my shoulder in his weird angelic way and told me that he already had, before I even called him.

I began writing again and this time I wrote songs that were different, and in no way our normal style of music. They had a punk influence and an acid rock feel and punch. I didn’t know where I was going or how things would end up with no guitarist or drummer…but I knew that I had to keep going and that this wasn’t the end. I felt it deep in my soul as if God spoke to me man to man, telling me that there was more for me to do, new music to be made, more lives to touch. That same feeling still comes to me sometimes, but not as strongly…but I still feel that there is more to do, and that’s where my new life began, where the new story began and how I came to find myself and who I should be.


Chapter Eight:
Lost in an Acid Rain



So now it was just me in the band. I decided that I would hold auditions for drummer and guitarist but wait for Joey to get home before going any further than that. I put up posters, announced it online and all kinds of stuff to advertise it. I hadn’t expected so many people to show up though! I remember pulling up and there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of people standing in line! I asked some people who worked for me to go and check to see who could play well and who couldn’t, and then I would audition the good ones the next day.

They sent it one person for guitarist and two for the drumming position. I was stunned but asked the three to show me what they had. The guitarists name was Randy Wilde, a real rocker. He had the long hair and crazy eyes and all that stuff that makes a guitarist. But when he played is when my mouth dropped! He had that “rock skipping across a clear lake” sound that I loved so much about Robert’s playing. I talked with him and got his personality traits to make sure that he would fit in and he was perfect. Very grounded and level headed, and he knew what I wanted to do with our music which was great.

The two drummers were a bit different, one was great and had the rocker look, and the other was perfect but kind of boring. I talked with both of them, and the boring one; Gary Roberts, was the one who I knew was the perfect fit. He had the same theory of music that I had, and he was actually pretty funny, even if he doesn’t show it much. I signed up Randy and Gary right away and gave them the swearing in and the lecture on how I wanted things to be done.

They nodded in agreement and we decided that maybe we shouldn’t wait for Joey, the songs were dying to be recorded and w
waiting six months for Joey was just too long. I figured that I knew enough about bass guitar to wing it and that it would turn out fine. When I picked the guitar up, it was a completely different story. I couldn’t even get one note out that sounded like I wanted it too. Randy was very honest and brave when he told me that, “Dude…you suck.” Ha ha, that’s something that I love about Randy, he is honest, even if it’s brutally honest.

So we figured that we would hire a temporary bass guitarist for the time being. We put out a news bulletin or whatever saying we needed a temp bass player, and the first person to sign up was Liam O’Mally of a band called The Lost which has since broken up. We asked him a few questions and I listened to some of his work, and I thought he was perfect for what we were planning on doing for this album. He had that punk/acid sound and that grungy feeling so naturally; we accepted him.

We showed him the stuff and he seemed to like it and so we decided to jump right into the studio and get to work. I was a bit nervous to see how the new guys would work together, but I felt strangely confident that this would work out. We did well in the studio and we really had some great equipment this time around and I felt great, better than I ever had, like a new man. I also found a new rock in God, I got my thoughts and beliefs in order again, and I figured out what was really going on in my life. I started going to church every week and I read the Bible cover to cover over the four weeks that we were in the studio.

Liam turned out to be one of the best aspects on the album, being a more grunge rock artist he was able to help us out in getting our sound right for the punk/acid feel we wanted on this. I wrote a song called “Acid Rain” and it was the basis of the entire album, the lyrics spoke of a world of pain and suffering and the sky falling to Earth, but I did it in a humorous way and kept the music flowing at a quick pace to keep it light hearted unlike the past couple albums which focused on the inner pain that I was having with my life and what not. The song had the usual hard riffs that are associated with punk rock and the drums were deep and bassey but we decided to keep the solos sounding like the classic Rockers sound. Randy did an absolutely awesome job at replacing Robert, he had the sound, the feel, and he knew how to improvise a solo that would challenge the greatest of all time.

Gary also fit into the sound nicely; he knew just how to beat the drums until they were dead and still make it sound good, which is rare these days. To be honest, the main thing I was concerned about was that Gary and Randy were a lot younger than me and Joey. We were in our late thirties and they were in their late twenties which is a big difference when it comes to music, but they liked the old stuff, they wanted the classic sound and they weren’t arrogant or cocky which is what I was most afraid of. They were nice and easy going and it all clicked.

We came out of the studio with what we felt was a great album, with a new sound mixed with punk and classic rock that really kicked ass. I told Liam thanks a million and he went on his way. I took the masters to the label and they had their doubts. The felt that the new sound might hurt our image and that our fans wouldn’t want to hear us play something different than what they were used to hearing us play. I talked with Cody about how important this was to me and how I felt about things and I promised that I would pay every dollar back if it didn’t make any money. He laughed and said that there wouldn’t be any need for that and started up the presses.

The album was released to reviews that called it one of the most original albums in many years, but they also said that they couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. They said it was a weird mix of sounds that sometimes blends together and at other times just sounds like it was mixed by a deaf dog. This was expected though, and didn’t really faze me too badly, and I just decided that we should do our first tour together. Joey was due out in two months so we decided to go ahead and do the booking for the tour, and get our entire list of dates ready.

We waited in anticipation for three hours waiting for Joey’s plane to arrive. When I saw him, I broke down and ran towards him like little kid on a playground. I hugged him and looked at his face, it was clean shaven and his hair was clean, and cut short! It was like a totally different person, for a minute I thought maybe I had just hugged a stranger, but then he smiled and I knew it was him, he was the only person with that ugly of teeth! I’m joking, his face lit up like I remembered it did for a while when he was clean. It was the utmost happiness.

I told him about the album with The Lost and then I introduced him to Gary and Randy, they got along well and we talked all night about his time in rehab. He seemed happy and he was eager to hear of our lives for the past couple months. Finally George and Randy left at around midnight and it was just me and Joey. I asked him the biggest question that had haunted me since he left. “Did it work? Are you clean?” and he smiled a little. “John…I was stupid you know that? I made a mistake and I see that now but yes…I am clean.” I felt good about it and knew he was telling the truth, but I still felt weary of how long he would stay clean. I watched him walk away to his bedroom and then slumped back into my sofa. I went to sleep and hoped he was telling me the truth. The next day, I got some pretty big news too about Liam O’Mally.

Chapter Thirteen:
The Future Ahead



Well, that brings us to the current time. I am sitting right here in my chair, still staring out my window at the lake and the woods. As I have been writing this I have been seriously re-evaluating my life, and my opinions on things. I find myself in a very strange time in my life, where I am finally coming to terms with people, and events that I have encountered in my life.

Overall though, I must admit that I have been very blessed in my life. God has put his hand on me, as no matter how many times I screwed up…he was there for me. He gave me my second chance at life, and my third. I am with a wonderful woman, who I love very much, and she loves me back. We are set to get married in January of next year. I feel that my life in all of its aspects has come full circle and I am where I always wanted to be, but was too blind to see.

It’s a weird thing when you look at all the people you know, and you can’t help but wonder how much you really know them. I found out long ago, that people aren’t how they present themselves to be. Many people have hurt me, and done me wrong but I have been the better person and forgave them. Not because I wanted to be the better person, but because I found that it was easier to forgive and be friends.

Robert and George are doing extremely well with their new band, The Shadows. In fact, they too just released a new album that was received really well. I do miss the days when we played together, but in their absence I found new friends in Randy and Gary. These four, along with Joey, have been my closest friends, and they have helped me through some very hard times. Without them I would have never been who I have become, and I wouldn’t have made it through what I did, and I hope to repay them some day.

I have so many people to thank, as I sit here and think about it. So many people have stuck by my side or just helped me in little ways which had profound effects. While I forget some of the names and faces, I want all of you to know, that I owe you, and am forever grateful.

My life has been a roller coaster. No doubt about that. But I still hold true to my one belief about music. I will continue to do this, as it’s what I love, and I wouldn’t want to do anything else. I made music to have some sort of effect on other people but, in more ways than one, it has had its effect on me instead. The only reason I continued was because I felt that there was music to be made, and that I wanted people to hear.

I still have music that I want people to hear, and I feel that I still have it in me to produce that music to a high quality and to deliver it to our fans. I hope that I can entertain them until my body refuse to wake up. I will go until I die. Thanks to all the fans who stuck by us through thick and thin. Without you, we wouldn’t be doing this anymore. You have given us unconditional support and I owe you so much. Thank you.

Keep on Rocking,
Johnny Johnson



OOC: This is the first part of the story. I will be writing the next part in the upcoming future. The second part will be my last act in RP so I hope you will take the time to read through it all. I know its long, but it's the best I could do.

I posted the first 5 chapters before and everyone gave me good notes, I've continued it here.

Edited by user 29 September 2011 11:46:53(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Careful, you'll feed my ego.

Nah, thanks man. Mind, there are like 7 chapters that were not there last time I posted this so...lol

Yea, but if it does that, it has nothing to do with my ego. What that goes towards, is The Rockstar Games ego.

This place has been a lot of fun, and it allowed me to make some odd friends and connect with a character I created. It started a lot of my writing, so I figure I owed it this RP, weather its good or not is up to the rest of you.

:) (hows that for modest?)

Exactly.

OOC : Great writer as always. I'll be keeping track. (: Shame to see you leave RP though - you never think you'll miss "We are The Rockers and we are COOL!" until it's gone.

ooc:Good,good stuff. I enjoyed every word

Chapter Two: Change Among Solid Foundations

I was at a very happy point in my life, so the songs that I was writing were to be quite different from just about everything that came before them. We had been forcing our steps forward through the mud for so long that the type of music we were playing was reflecting that deeply. Some of the biggest complaints we got were over the fact that every album we put out was a solidly depressing work of art. So, coming off of Break Free and the IMA’s, we didn’t even need to focus on writing happy songs. They just came out that way by themselves. Our first songwriting meeting proved this.

Gary sat down on my long bronze couch I had in the basement studio at the time, and within five minutes he had come up with a riff that I loved. He played it over and over again, adding a bit more as he went and before I even knew what was happening the entire band was playing this powerful song together. We flipped the switch and recorded it so that we could remember it later, but the truth was that the improvisation and live atmosphere fit the song so well that the first recording was saved for the album. Joey was still concerned about me as he always was. He kept telling me that we could wait another day before meeting again but I would scoff and order the guys over to my place.
I guess it must seem odd that I have mentioned Stephanie so little thus far, but the truth is that she was really out of my life at the time. I’ll spend a chapter on this whole subject later, but for now suffice it to say that I was devoted to my music and only the music. She was too.

Back to the album; my home studio is actually just my entire basement converted to a studio that fits every need I could have. I have machines down there that I do not currently use in my recording, and some that I never have used. When things became outdated, I tossed them in the back corner. This way, if anything would be needed in the future I wouldn’t have to worry about it because I would have it. It’s a bit of a hoarder mentality, but it’s worked for me for the most part.

Over the coming weeks we would meet every weekend and again on Wednesdays to mess around together and write. Really though, I did most of my writing alone through the days when the guys were busy. Joey would be there a lot to help give me an idea what my acoustic idea would sound like with the full band, but that’s how every song on the coming album was developed really, just me and my guitar. I don’t want to sound like I’m saying I’m the reason those songs exist and that the band had nothing to do with it though, don’t misunderstand me. Without the guys’ input, they would just be empty shells of the songs they became later. Not to mention the fact that those songs were born because of the life situation I was in at the time, which was due in large part to the band and Stephanie, even if she wasn’t there the whole time.

So amid all of this happiness I was experiencing you would think I would have wanted it to go on forever right? Wrong. I began to understand something while writing those songs on my acoustic guitar. I began to understand that there is a part of my vision that wasn’t being realized in The Rockers anymore. I spent a lot of time listening to all of the old albums and tapes that were never released. The unreleased stuff always pulled me in more than the actual albums themselves. Often I would find a song that I had written and felt a strong connection too, but the guys had been disconnected from it and therefore, it was left off of the album when it came editing time. While listening to those tapes I found a lot of songs that after living all these years after writing them, I bonded even stronger with the words than I had before. I knew right away that I wanted to re-record them for some sort of release. I also knew that whatever kind of release it would become, it probably wasn’t going to involve The Rockers.

Edited by user 30 September 2011 10:45:07(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Chapter Four: A Nightmare Deserved, A Pain that Isn't

Stephanie arrived home from her promotional stuff and I told her that I had followed through with my plan. She was genuinely happy for me and we spent the entire day just sitting together and talking. We touched on a lot of subjects, including our upcoming wedding. It had honestly slipped from my mind for a while because of all the huge events going on around me but I was glad to hear that Stephanie had nearly everything planned out already. We had agreed long ago that she would handle everything and that I would stay out of it as much as possible. I wanted her to be able to live the dream she had been imagining since she was a child and I didn’t want to stand in her way. I asked her what she thought we would be like once we were married and she replied in the only way Stephanie Fierce could.

“We’ll be just like we always are. We’re too fucking great to change.” I smiled and we kissed. At the time I thought she was right and always would be. I didn’t see the future ahead. I didn’t know that at that very moment, my daughter Helle was already developing within Stephanie. I didn’t know that within just a year my relationship with her would be falling apart…I didn’t see a lot of things I should have. Our love was always based on the fact that we were a home for each other, a sort of base of operations where we could retreat from the world and be quiet for a while. But like it does for everyone, the world was slowly creeping in around us. We asked it too; hell I think we might have sent it an invitation to the wedding. We got what we deserved maybe.

The media has always speculated that our marriage would never last. They said we were too big of personalities to work together for very long. But it was our goal to outlast those claims. Maybe that was just a part of our egos too; maybe we only wanted to prove that we were more than your average celebrities. That too fell apart in the end. I’ve spent my life on drugs, alcohol, and self pity just like any other rock star. And, my marriage died. After Helle was born, I should have taken a break not only from The Rockers, but from the industry like Stephanie did. But I figured that as long as I was based at home, I was doing it right. But you can be in a place with people and not really be there. I learned that the hard way very early in life, but in my middle years I seemed to have forgotten it again. I’m sorry for what I did to Stephanie, leaving Helle to be raised by her alone.

Most of all, I feel sorry for Helle, because I was no father to her. I wanted to be there every minute of her life when I heard Stephanie was pregnant, but when it came time for me to strip music from my schedule and insert Helle into it...I failed that class horribly. I’ve apologized to her since then and she has forgiven me, she says so anyway. I can see the difference though. When my son Baron was came along, I knew what I had to do. I had fucked things up so badly with Helle that I knew I had to be there for him. So now, all of these years later, I see the difference in the way they look at me. The pains behind Helle’s eyes speak to me. The pain in her eyes haunt me every minute that I’m awake and every night when I dream. Her pain is my nightmare, and I deserve it. She doesn’t.

I will talk more about Stephanie and my relationship with her later, hopefully in chronological order. But, I wanted to spend this chapter to her and Helle so that I could get my nightmare out of me early. Thinking about it is hard. I can only imagine what it does to them.

Now back to The Rockers last stand…

Edited by user 23 December 2011 20:57:22(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Chapter Five: The Right Call

Within a few weeks we had written twelve songs out of the thirty we wanted. We took ten of those that we thought fit together best and began officially recording for what would be the first of our trilogy of farewell albums. We still had not announced it to the world what was happening and there was a debate on weather we should wait until the album was set to release or if we should start bringing it up now. I pushed for getting it out now. I figured that the fans deserved to know that the band was coming to an end, even if there was a chance it would be temporary. I didn't want to just say, "Hey, bands done" when the album came out because that would draw some questions on weather there was some fallout between the guys. I wanted everyone to know that we were going out on mutual terms. Eventually, everyone else decided that I was right. So, I went out to do an interview.

Backstage was oddly calm. I expected to be a bit off considering the huge announcement I was going to drop on the world. But I guess I just figured the world wouldn't care as much as I might have feared. I went out, explained the situation, and then walked off. Any and all shock or backlash, I never saw. I heard about some of it, old friends in the business asking questions, fans sending thank you letters, and other stuff like that. But, overall I was just focused on recording now. It was my drive and I wanted no part in much else. But when Stephanie called me into the bathroom one morning before I headed downstairs, my mind was yanked away from music. If only for a while.

"I have some news for you John." she said.

Puzzled I asked, "What's going on?"

"You've made more than music these last few months..." She glanced down at her waist and back into my eyes. I instantly embraced her and started crying.

"We have to do this right...I've got so much I have to do and prepare for...do you know what this means?" I asked.

"What?"

"It means I'm going to have a kid...and this time I can be a father to him." I had not talked much with Stephanie about my son Brandon. I had him when I was eight-teen and he was already twenty-one years old. I had not talked to him or his mother in nearly sixteen years. Come to think of it, I didn't even mention him in my last book. Some things just slip when you're minds on yourself.

"You'll be a great father John, I know it." She smiled and we kissed. Needless to say, I didn't actually accomplish anything in the studio that day. My mind was on my son-to-be. Of course, it would be my lovely daughter-to-be that would come first. At the time I just had the image of making up for what I had done to Brandon in my head.

The next day we told all of the guys, and to my relief they were all very happy for me. Joey remarked that I had picked a good time to call the band off. Now he said, I would have time for wife and family. I thanked them all and we went downstairs. I wrote a song that night with the guys. It came to be known as "The Right Call". I put every bit of my happiness in that song, and Helle, when you read this I want you to know that "The Right Call" is about you. I know I've wronged you but please listen to that song...thats how I feel about you and despite what happened later, know that I had the best intentions for us at heart.

I guess I'm actually writing this book for my kids. Baron and Helle. Mainly Helle though. She's been a bit distant, especially recently and I want to try and explain myself to them. I'm not very good at talking in person, always been more of a listener but, this is the most you'll ever get out me. I'm a coward that way, too scared to look anyone in the eye. I'm sorry to anyone I've hurt because of it.

So the album was recorded and we were in the mixing process about a month after Stephanie told me she was pregnant. I was walking down a street that was pretty much deserted and I happened to glance down a dark alley in time to see three punk kids beating up a rather old homeless person. I yelled down the alley way and grabbed a piece of wood that was in a garbage can and walked down to meet them. Luckily they all ran, otherwise I would have got my ass handed to me. But the real jolt to my heart came when I looked down at the bloodied man at my feet. It was Jack Jameson, former country music star, and my future friend and mentor.