I met Cory Hickok on the football team. He played tight end but, more important, he played guitar in his big brother’s punk band, Awkward Positions. Cory turned me on to punk. In Ohio, I knew about Devo. I had listened to the Sex Pistols, whose Never Mind the Bollocks was our generation’s Exile on Main Street. But Cory played me the Clash. He played me Sweet. He introduced me to Echo and the Bunnymen. I can’t tell you how many times we listened to Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack, a cool power-poppunk hybrid. Cory had great ears and great taste.
He was over six feet and bone thin. Cool and quiet. A true-blue dude, he was a loving guy from a Christian family. Because my folks trusted his parents, I’d tell them I was staying at Cory’s whenever I went out to party. Cory was also a good artist. I admired his drawings and how he looked at life artistically. I had other hipster friends on the football team like Rich Smith, the guy who helped me upgrade my surfing and scamming skills. Rich was the first guy I heard refer to girls as “birds” and “chicks.”
AT SCHOOL, I WAS ACTIVE IN THE CHOIR AND SPORTS—wrestling, volleyball, soccer, football. My stepdad, diligently working till all hours, never attended my football games. Meanwhile, I was attracted to a flourishing alternative-music scene. Shaped by the sounds of Social Distortion, hard-core postpunk big-beat garage bands were popping up everywhere. But I was not impressed with what I heard in the local clubs. I thought I could do better. I formed a postpunk band.
EVERY BAND HAS A STORY. The Stones stayed together. The Beatles broke up. When Jim Morrison died, the Doors were never the same. When Kurt Cobain died, Nirvana died.
I believe most bands are born at a time of youthful optimism and fresh energy. The motivation is strong and the future unlimited. Why not think big? Why not live in hope rather than fear?
I wasn’t fearful at Edison High when we began a band called Soi-Disant. The question we got over and over again was, “What the fuck does it mean?” The answer we gave was that in French it means something like “self-style” or “style of one’s own.” An artsy-fartsy French name perfectly fit our vision of an edgy postpunk band. The more obscure the name, the better. We were modeling ourselves after the first Duran Duran album and bands like Ultravox, the Cure, and U2. Combining that vibe with a dirty rocking punky backbeat, I wrote stories focusing on teen angst. None of us were exceptional, but we were okay. It was me singing, Cory on guitar, bassists Dave Stokes at one point, Scott Tubbs at another, Britt Willets on keys.
It had all started with a simple conversation between me and Cory. I’d been singing in the choir.
“You think you can sing in a rock band?” Cory asked.
“Sure,” I said.
“I don’t mean sing with your choir voice. I mean sing in a rock voice.”
“Sure,” I repeated.
I have a chameleon-like ability to sing in any style. As a singer, I’ve always had confidence. I spent lots of time listening to Bowie and John Lennon, models for using your voice like an instrument.
After a few months of playing, we cut a demo at a sixteen-track studio with a great name: Gofer Baroque. Turned out good. I saw that I could lay down distinct harmony parts and build up a layered vocal. I felt like a professional beginner.
Over the next few years, I’d slip into the Orange County alt scene, where I’d find great musical and chemical stimulation. It was a lot better than backyard beer bashes. There was a famous club called the Cuckoo’s Nest that featured bands like Social Distortion and the Bell Jar. That’s where I heard the astounding English guitarist Adam Elesh, who lived in Newport Beach. I remember getting stoned and watching Adam play along with a Pink Floyd record, re-creating David Gilmour’s solos note for note. I’d never seen anyone manipulate effect pedals so deftly.
“How’d you get so good?” I asked him.
“I learned everything I could. And then I promptly forgot everything I learned and started over.”
At a critical juncture, Adam gave us a strong taste of big-time rock-and-roll virtuosity. Soi-Disant had a regular gig in Newport Beach at Déjà Vu.
Pretentious-named rock band meets pretentious-named club.
We got two hundred dollars a night plus all the booze we could keep down. It was the summer before my junior year, a golden time, the ultra-eighties, the season of experimentation. We had progressed past practicing in my garage to rehearsing in the studio of Scott Tubbs, our bassist. Scott had been in the choir with me—actually the Madrigal Ensemble—where every Christmas we went caroling on Balboa Island with a group of “choir mice,” our term for the straitlaced singers. One December we got everyone drunk on peppermint schnapps and, as a result, were kicked out of the ensemble.
The two Scotts spelled trouble. During one rehearsal, a trio of computer nerds showed up. Looking to ingratiate themselves with cool rockers, they offered us blow. Bring it on. One of the boys railed out a fat line seven inches long. I snorted it up and never felt better. “Want another?” he asked. “Yes,” I answered. Line two sent me from Venus to Mars. The substance was flaky and just the slightest bit oily. It looked like abalone shell. Turned out the boys were dealing it and asked if we’d be interested in doing the same. My thought was, Yes, this is the way to snort for free and feel good all the time. One problem, though: I was broke. “No problem,” said the nerd. “I’ll front you.” Fine, except that I never sold an ounce. I snorted up everything in my possession except for a small amount that my stepdad would find in my room. That small amount, you will soon see, led to a major crisis.
DAD DAVE HAD HIS POSITION AT TRW. Mom was selling real estate in Orange County. I was finding my way through society at Edison High, athletics, music, and girls. One girl, with whom I was sexual, became pregnant.
“I’m going to have an abortion,” is all she said.
I didn’t argue. I believed—and still do—that a woman has jurisdiction over her own body. But I was also heartbroken. I drove her to the clinic, and then I drove her home. Neither of us said a word. It was incredibly sad. We cried silently. Our relationship was ruined. Intimacy between us was no longer possible. The fun, the playfulness, the pleasure of sex was gone. Something tragic had happened.
THE START OF MY FIRST GOLDEN LOVE AFFAIR. Heather. “Affair” is the wrong word. “Affair” sounds sleazy. Heather was heavenly. Heather was true love. Heather was my soul, my future. When we met in high school, I was convinced that we would live happily ever after. There was her physical lure: lustrous, wavy brown hair; enticing heart-shaped buttocks; beautiful, big sky-blue eyes; full breasts; warm and loving smile. Then there was her metaphysical lure: She exuded sweetness and light; her temperament was soft and mellow; her kindness gentle as a summer breeze. Together, we could talk about anything. I knew that the love we made was enduring. It was a world away from casual puppy love; it existed in a far deeper dimension than your routine high school crush. It was, in short, forever.
One summer afternoon when we were sixteen, we were making sweet love in my bedroom when, like a bat out of hell, Dad Dave barged in. Enraged, he started screaming. We scrambled for our clothes. Heather rushed out of the house. I heard my stepdad calling her parents, explaining what happened. I was incensed. Coitus interruptus is one thing. Getting ratted out by Dad is another.
A postpunk song called “Pork Chop,” sung in the mode of Echo and the Bunnymen, was playing inside my head. The chorus went, “Pork chop, pork chop, you better eat your pork chop.”
That night at dinner, my stepdad was still furious.
“Aren’t you going to eat that pork chop?” he asked.
“I already ate a pork chop,” I said. “There were two. Now there’s only one.”
“There were never two,” he insisted. “You need to eat that pork chop.”
“I’ve already eaten a pork chop.”
The music got louder: “Pork chop, pork chop, you better eat your pork chop.”
His voice got louder. “Eat it!”
My voice got louder. “No!”
“You never ate
a pork chop!”
“I did eat a pork chop!”
“Pork chop, pork chop, you better eat your pork chop.”
“You must be on coke,” he said. “You must be hallucinating.”
“If I were on coke,” I said, “I wouldn’t be hallucinating. That would be acid.”
My stepdad, six five and 240 pounds, exploded; he turned over the table and went after me with a clenched fist.
“Pork chop, pork chop, you better eat your pork chop.”
He chased me around the kitchen but couldn’t catch me. I ran up to my bedroom, locked the door, threw some clothes into a gym bag, climbed out the window, jumped onto the garage roof, jumped down onto the driveway, climbed on my bike, and took off. I went to a friend’s house, where we got high and listened to records for five straight days.
Meanwhile, back at my parents’ house, Dad Dave searched my bedroom and found weed and a little blow. Without telling me, they called the authorities. The first time I learned of their call, I was back at school. I was in music theory class. Our teacher was Mr. Otey who, at six foot four, was an imposing presence. I was also in the choir and band, but, because I wanted to learn more, I signed up for theory. The class wasn’t all that stimulating. My mood was somewhere between anxious and bored.
On this particular morning, the room was eerily quiet as two policemen and two paramedics walked in. The paramedics were carrying a gurney. I overheard them say my name. Mr. Otey called me to the front of the room. The cops looked at me and said, “You got to come with us.” My heart beat like crazy. The room got even quieter. I had no idea what the hell was happening. I couldn’t think of what to do except follow orders. I had to follow them outside. It felt like every single student in school had his or her eyes on me as the cops and paramedics escorted me to a waiting ambulance. They put me on the gurney, strapped me down, and put me in back. We drove off. The nightmare was just beginning.
Due to a mix-up, they took to the wrong mental hospital. Flat on my back, my arms and legs constrained by the straps, I heard all this confusion. I didn’t know what to think or what to feel except fear. Finally we got to the right mental hospital. We went up a service elevator. All the while I was still constrained. All the while I still hadn’t spoken.
When we got to the ward, an administrator asked me, “Did you or do you now want to hurt yourself?”
Be calm, I thought to myself. Be cool. “No,” I answered.
“Did you or do you now want to hurt anyone else?”
“No.”
I was put in a room. The nurses didn’t know why I was there. All I knew was that I was in a lock-down ward in a psych unit. Five days went by before I was even evaluated by a doctor.
I was there for three months. The setting traumatized me. Many of my wardmates were severely suicidal. The attending psychologists tried to convince me that I was an addict. On television, which we could watch for an hour in the evenings, Nancy Reagan looked into the camera and told us, “Just say no.”
Just say what they want you to say, I thought to myself, and get the hell out of here.
“I am a substance abuser,” I said.
I got out.
Later my mother said she regretted that she and Dave sent me there. I didn’t blame them. These were confusing times for everyone. The eighties were rough but fun. It’s always fun when you reach the top of the roller coaster … and then …
MY RELATIONSHIP WITH HEATHER was beautiful but tough. She broke up with me, only to make up and then break up again. This destroyed me. I was certain that our love would be forever, but forever turned out to be little more than a year our first time around—and another year our second time.
When Heather kicked me to the curb two separate times, I swore never to love again. The feeling of exposing my heart and soul—the sensation of utter vulnerability—scared me to death.
Heather’s reasons for the breakups made sense. She didn’t want to get so serious so soon. She wanted to be free to explore the world without being tied to one guy. Perhaps love wasn’t an obsession for her as it was for me. Whatever, I was crushed and vowed to cover my heart with black iron, never to be broken again.
NO MATTER WHAT CLUB WE PLAYED, Soi-Disant brought the party back to one particular frat house that was attached to the University of California at Irvine. We did so for a simple reason: One of the frat members dealt coke.
It was during this period when, at one of our gigs, a tall, skinny bass player came onstage and joined us for a rendition of “Louie Louie,” the “Star-Spangled Banner” of rock and roll.
The guy was six foot two, weighed 155 pounds, and was the best bass player I had ever heard. He looked like John Taylor from Duran Duran. His name was Robert DeLeo, and he grew up around the Jersey Shore. He slapped the bass in the mode of the great funksters like Larry Graham of Sly and the Family Stone and Louis Johnson of the Brothers Johnson. In fact, funk was Robert’s thing. He was deeply steeped in the various forms of rhythm and blues. He said one of his idols was James Jamerson, the fabulous Motown bassist and founding member of the famous Funk Brothers rhythm section. Jamerson liberated the bass from its previous role as a mere background instrument: He put it out in front, and he showed generations of musicians how the bass, as a creative force, could sculpt the shape of a song as significantly as the guitarist or even the vocalist.
Cory and I didn’t know about Jamerson. In fact, we didn’t know much about R & B. Robert blew in with the force of a hurricane and brought the wisdom of an old-school teacher. He was rooted in music that was righteous and real. Robert was a madman who could play as well as Flea, the bassist with the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Robert knew Led Zeppelin inside and out. We loved Robert. And then Robert disappeared. Nothing strange about that. Musicians jump onto the stage and jump off. Some come back, some don’t. We would have been thrilled if Robert had returned, but we weren’t about to go looking for him. We had our own thing going.
I sailed through high school with a minimum amount of work. I enjoyed history and literature and did well in college-level courses. The advisor said I would easily be admitted to a good four-year college, but I wasn’t quite ready for that. I had quit football, wrestling, and all other sports in favor of singing. Soi-Disant was my main passion. I couldn’t give it up, but I also couldn’t see myself skipping college altogether. My intellectual curiosity was keen. As a compromise, I enrolled in Orange Coast College, a community school.
I dug it. I was a liberal arts major because that let me flow in several different directions—political science, philosophy, great books. I took careful notes during lectures and got caught up in challenging books like The Closing of the American Mind. My grade average in high school was C plus; in college it became B plus. With its less restrictive atmosphere, Orange Coast was much more my style than high school. Enrolled in music theory, poetry, and art, I was committed to the liberal arts. Still am.
Ultimately, though, my commitment to music won out over college. It had to. If it didn’t, I saw that I wouldn’t be able to earn a living making music. I had to give music my all.
That’s also the reason Cory and I decided to reimagine our band. If we were going to make it, we needed to get better, which meant getting better players. We decided to move up to Hollywood. Living there, we would have contact with good musicians. Maybe we’d even run into Robert DeLeo.
I got a girlfriend, she goes to art school
I got a art school girlfriend
She left her home from sweet Alabama
Rose, Alabama, for the city, New York City
I got a girlfriend, she goes to parties
Underground parties, Andy Warhol everywhere
She wears the leather, I wear the makeup
We’ll never break up, been together for a month
WHEN I MOVED TO HOLLYWOOD in the pre-STP period of my life, I moved with my girlfriend, Mary Ann. She was an art student. But she didn’t come from Alabama. I put that in the song, which came out on STP’s Tiny Mus
ic album years later, because it made for a better story. The truth is that Mary Ann was a tough-ass chick from Orange County.
Mary Ann enrolled at Cal Arts while I found a job as a graphic/paste-up artist for the Los Angeles Daily Journal, a legal newspaper. I went through a quick training program and discovered I had the talent to put together a publication in a matter of hours. We moved into an apartment by MacArthur Park near downtown L.A. I didn’t know it at the time, but a few years later MacArthur Park would become the place where I’d get lost in the rabbit holes.
I had met Mary Ann at a club just after her boyfriend had moved to Paris. She was crushed, and I was determined to woo her. I loved her looks: strawberry blond hair, pale skin, blue eyes, full lips. She looked Irish but was mainly Lithuanian. I also loved her taste and talent for all things cultural. She was an edgy chick with a fiery personality, a ballet dancer as well as a student in an arts college in L.A. At the time, I was still living in Huntington Beach, but that didn’t stop me from burning up the freeway to spend the night with Mary Ann in her dorm room.
My wooing worked. Mary Ann and I hooked up. While I was trying to make progress in the rock-and-roll game, she was expressing her soul in paintings. Like me, she liked to drink to excess. She has since reformed, but when we lived together in L.A., daily life was wild. Mary Ann was my first type A girlfriend: the first girl to hit me, the first one to torch my car. (Actually, it was my dad’s old broken-down car that he had given me.)
After the torching, I asked her why.
“You said I was too much for you,” she answered. “You wanted to break up. You broke my heart.”
“But is that any reason to burn up a car?”
“Yes, it is,” she said. “Be glad I didn’t torch you along with the car.”
I WAS GLAD.
Glad to return to the challenges of rock and roll.
JANNINA CASTENEDA:
Not Dead & Not For Sale Page 3
