CHAPTER 14
DECADE OF BROKEN DREAMS
1994–2004
I packed up everything and moved to Tinseltown, dragging my few possessions into Mick’s studio apartment. Though small, compared to the closet I’d been sleeping in, it seemed really roomy. He said he didn’t expect me to pay half the rent, since I’d have to sleep on the floor in the living room. And by living room, I mean the only room. There wasn’t a bedroom; his bed was behind a curtain.
In spite of this new exciting start, I was lonely and sad. My insecurity was brutal, and not being able to drink or do anything made it really hard. Still, I was determined to stay sober.
We started jamming at a rented rehearsal space in North Hollywood. Mick invited a different bass player to come down and jam with us. We began hashing through Mick’s ideas, tracking a couple of things on his twelve-track recorder. We’d stay at the studio until three or four in the morning, then come home and listen back to what we’d recorded. He was brutally honest with me, and I was learning a lot from him. However, when he first suggested I “lose the second kick drum and start practicing with a click track,” I was a little miffed. Still, I knew he was right. I could shred, but my sense of groove and being tight in the pocket was sorely lacking. I bought one of his old drum machines and practiced with it every day. It took a while, but I learned to play with a click track, something that would serve me well in the future.
I needed a job. As luck would have it, I got one right around the corner from our apartment at Guitar Center in Hollywood. Working there sucked balls! I was assigned to the drum department, where these broke-ass fuckhead kids would come in and bang relentlessly for hours on drums and cymbals. I was forced to listen to this hideous horseshit forty hours a week. I had to answer phones with kids hammering drums so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I’d grab the sticks and say, “Dude, you have to stop. If you’re not gonna buy it, you don’t get to practice on it!”
I endured it for six or seven weeks . . . that was all I could stomach. About the time I quit, my LTD decided to get lung cancer. It was coughing, sputtering, and wheezing—showing all the signs of the inevitable death rattle. I sold it to a guy who worked at a body shop for three hundred bucks and was happy to get it, though being carless in LA is akin to being boatless in an attempt to flee Cuba. No car, no job, and what little money I had was all but gone.
Dad was helping me with rent, and that’s when Mick decided to start charging me half. Those tight quarters were apparently starting to wear on him. The reality was Mick was broke and had only infrequent work. He needed me to help him out. He’d gone from a million-selling rock band to no band and no income, a definite comedown from being a rock star. I realized it must have been really hard to have to rejoin the real world. (Having experienced this frenetic, nomadic life, with moments of sheer exhilaration—playing in front of huge crowds—I can’t imagine wanting to go back to normal day-job bullshit.)
Trying to assemble a functioning band had also reached a dead end: the bass player was a flake, and the singer, who used to be in a band called the D’Molls, was not only a “born-again” Mormon but was also unavailable most of the time. As for me, I was broke and terrified of Hollyweird.
It was the culmination of everything that caused me to contemplate smoking pot again. I’d told Mick about my problem with drugs in the past. When I mentioned I was thinking about wanting to use again, he suggested I “just take a few hits and don’t go sucking on cars.” That seemed to make some kind of sense, but I was scared to start—remembering how quickly things went from pot to full-blown addiction.
Later that morning, I picked up the bong and held it to my lips. Grabbing a lighter, I lit it and held the flame to the end of the bong, just short of actually lighting it. I wavered for a moment—fear overwhelming my desire to numb out. A deep well of sadness engulfed me, and I sat there weeping like a frightened child. I needed help. I needed to find an A.A. meeting . . . fast. It so happened that there was one in a church by our apartment on Fountain Avenue.
I didn’t care if it was N.A. or A.A. or A.A.R.P., I just needed to get the fuck in the room with other addicts and talk. Among the street people seeking free coffee and donuts, I discovered a few celebrities I can’t name due to the group’s requirement of anonymity (even though, from my experience, that word is used pretty loosely). In New York, nearly every waiter and bartender is an out-of-work actor. In LA, nearly everyone is in “the biz,” be it film or music. This particular meeting seemed to be about out-of-work actors or would-be screenwriters trying to “gherm” (take advantage of) some producer, director, or celebrity in attendance.
Over the next few days I went to more meetings, but nothing would relieve my depression. Being sober, feeling my feelings, not medicating them, and having no place I could call my own was too much for me to handle. Plus it didn’t matter that if I met a chick, I had no place to bring her . . . and nothing to offer. The whole experience had turned me into a virtual recluse. That’s when I decided to head back to Tennessee. While I was packing, Mick came home. I could tell from his expression he was taken aback. But after his initial overreaction, he realized how badly I needed to leave and was cool about it.
I carried my one small box of belongings to a UPS store and mailed it to the Volunteer State. Then I purchased a cheap plane ticket from the classified ads. The next morning I was on my way back to Nash Vegas . . . once again.
When I ascended the airport loading ramp, I could barely hide my joy in seeing my parents waving at me. Just being back with people who loved me, who made me feel safe again, helped me realize how beaten up I’d felt in Hollywood. However, somewhere on the drive to Franklin, it hit me: I was back in conservative Tennessee. After Hollyweird, Nashville seemed even more like the home of the Waltons, Minnie Pearl, and Gomer Pyle. Every would-be country star who came to town looked like a Garth Brooks wannabe. The rednecks who used to threaten me because I had long hair now had even longer hair or those god-awful Billy Ray Cyrus mullets. Country music was starting to sound like bad ’70s rock. Things were seriously skewed.
Not long after I arrived, I got a job at Camelot Music. I’d missed being around music and selling it. Though I met some cool people, I still had no desire to hang out socially. I missed my friends from Indiana, people I felt comfortable around. I was going through an incredibly lonely period, and I was actually scared in the presence of anyone I didn’t know. My daily routine consisted of going to work, coming home, hanging out with Dad, and watching TV.
I practiced drums every day in the spare bedroom. Practicing to a click track was markedly improving my drumming. I did have a double pedal, and in spite of Mick’s advice, I was still playing double bass; I couldn’t give it up. That was me, that was what I did. However, his suggestion helped focus me in a whole new area and, as a result, I improved even more.
I hadn’t been gone a month when I discovered Mick had replaced me with another drummer. I now felt stranded in Tennessee with no hope. I began to wonder if my dream of playing music professionally was just that: a dream, with no reality attached. Then, a little opportunity presented itself.
Dad was working with a new country artist, James T. Horn. Together they’d written an album full of songs. With Garth Brooks’s original manager, he had a deal on Curb. As a favor to his old manager, Garth had promised to let this new guy open five shows, which would have launched his career big-time.
James T. was getting ready to showcase for a large group of concert buyers and promoters and needed a drummer. Dad pulled a favor and got me the chance to do the showcase. I was by far the youngest guy in the band. Everyone else was a seasoned studio musician, A-team players. Most had toured with the biggest country acts and were now stalwarts in the studio. One of the guitarists, C. Michael Spriggs, was a longtime friend of my dad’s. They’d written a recent hit song, “The Car,” which would go on to have a million-plus radio airplays. “Spriggers,” as my dad called
him, made me feel welcomed.
Though I was intimidated, I did everything I could to rise to the occasion. Although I’d learned all the songs, when they started changing shit on the spot, my inexperience showed. It quickly became apparent I wasn’t familiar with some of the drumming styles they required. Everyone looked like, Man, I don’t know if this kid can pull it off.
I could tell James T. was nervous, too. This was his big chance to land tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of bookings before he even had his first record out, and he couldn’t afford to have anything go wrong. However, Dad assured him I could handle it, so even though he had his doubts, he went along.
To make a long story longer, I kicked ass the next day at the showcase. James T. was so impressed he asked me to join his touring band. It would have been good, steady work, two or three times what I could make working retail, a chance to play in some huge venues—opening for Garth Brooks, the biggest name in country music . . . hell, in music, period. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this wasn’t what I wanted to do, wasn’t what I was meant to do. That little voice inside said, “Suck it up. Go back to Hollywood!”
I called Mick. When he told me the new drummer wasn’t working out, that was all I needed to hear. I hung up the phone and told my folks I had to give it another try. They agreed. Dad gave me his old ’91 Chevy S-10 pickup. I loaded it up and got the fuck out of Tennessee—for good this time.
The trip back to California was like a journey into my fears, an exploration of self-doubt. The last time, I’d been scared because of the unknown; it suddenly occurred to me that even though I’d survived it once, I had no way of knowing if I could endure more of the same. After a fourteen-hour marathon drive, wired on NoDoz, I stopped somewhere between Tucumcari and Albuquerque, New Mexico, and called home.
Mom answered. Though I didn’t come right out and admit it, she could tell I was having a full-blown anxiety attack. I expressed my doubts about my decision to return to Hollywood, saying the more I thought about it, maybe I should just turn around and come back to Tennessee. Though she empathized, she said to stop second-guessing myself.
“You have to go, Jeremy. You can do this. But you’ve got to believe you can.”
She knew if I didn’t go now, I’d never be able to live with myself later. So I hung up the phone and manned up. After showering in a shitty truck stop near Albuquerque, I popped a few more NoDoz and continued west on I-40, which followed the famous Route 66 “mother road.” In Arizona, I came within miles of the famous meteor crater where Starman Jeff Bridges gets rescued by his fellow aliens. I tried not to dwell on it, but I knew I was about to be an “alien” once again, virtually friendless and alone.
The last fifty miles, I fought to stay awake. I was nodding off when I suddenly hit the traffic pouring into LA: the stop-start red-taillight monster that stretched for miles. I rolled down my window and stuck my head out, hoping the brisk, smog-filled air would wake me up. The last thirty minutes was a struggle with my eyes closing, head dipping forward, and the jolt of waking just before avoiding crashing into the car inching along in front of me.
I arrived totally enervated and exhausted. Mick had moved to a bigger apartment with his new girlfriend. Too tired to even talk, I crashed. When I woke up several hours later, he informed me we were going to meet the rest of the band. Starving, I stopped and got a couple of bean burritos (my cheap-ass go-to meal for years) on the way. They didn’t do a lot to settle my stomach, which was already wrecked from the nonstop, thirty-seven-hour marathon drive.
We ended up at a dingy club/bar in the crappiest part of Hollywood. It reeked of stale cigarette smoke, body odor, and urine. The management had assembled a lineup of some of the worst bands in existence. To top it off, the soundman at this bleak hellhole was our band’s guitarist, whom we discovered asleep at the console. Somehow he’d managed to crash out in spite of the overamplified blare of the suck-ass band that was playing. I thought it was hilarious that we had to wake him. He stood up, stretched, looked at me, and smiled.
“Hey, man . . . how ya doin’? I’m Jason.” That handshake was my introduction to Jason Hook and the beginning of a friendship that would one day reunite us, after a long and circuitous road, in Death Punch.
The bass player showed up a while later. He was a really big dude: super tall, and, did I mention . . . big! I had no idea about his musical abilities, but he was unquestionably creative, because he’d randomly shaved certain parts of his hair—including so much of his hairline that it now receded to the middle of his oversize cranium.
So . . . this was the band: a former rock star hoping for a second act (Mick), a Canadian illegal-alien guitarist (Jason), Basszilla with a zombie ’do (Jon), and me, as nervous and insecure as ever. As a bonding experience, the plan was to go to a strip club once Jason finished his shift. That seemed like too big a challenge to my sobriety and my stomach, which was churning from the combination of bean burritos and nervous-energy juice. Plus I was still fried from the drive. I begged off and went back to Mick’s to chill.
I awoke the next morning, amped to rehearse with the band. We drove down to an industrial part of LA called Vernon, where they’d rented a cheap rehearsal place in a run-down building. The way a magnet attracts metal filings, this shithole had attracted fifty god-awful bands, all renting rooms and blaring insipid, overwrought music. Although it was a cockroach-infested dump, I didn’t care if we rehearsed in a slaughterhouse. I was just happy to be back on track, trying to achieve my childhood dream.
Mick informed me that nothing was set in stone, that this was merely an audition. To get the gig, I had to meet the approval of the other guys in the band. I felt prepared and confident because I’d learned all the tunes from the tape he’d sent. The minute we started jamming, I got into it like I was playing the Great Western Forum. I’d always heard coaches say you only play a sport as good as you practice. That’s how I approached practicing, and it paid off . . . I nailed everything. The guys agreed: I was in!
The next thing on my agenda was to find a job, hopefully one I could tolerate. Guitar Center had taken part of my fucking soul. Besides, I preferred selling music. So I applied at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard. The interviewer seemed impressed with my previous record store experience and hired me. It wasn’t long before I’d saved enough money to get my own place.
Before you imagine a lovely little studio apartment, let me explain that on an hourly-wage salary, I was lucky to afford the toilet of an apartment I found on Cherokee and Yucca. (Try Google Maps and be ready to pity me.) You’ll discover it’s right off Hollywood Boulevard—at the corner of Crack and Murder.
My apartment looked like something out of Seven, where Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman discover a five-hundred-pound gluttonous mound of flesh lying in his own excrement. If serial killers needed a place to vegetate, this apartment building was perfect. The tenants were hopped up on smack. You had to watch your step, literally, because the stairwells were filled with dirty needles, crackheads, and tweakers. For the unenlightened, the old saw goes like this: the difference between a crackhead and a tweaker is simple: the crackhead will steal your shit and bounce; the tweaker will steal your shit and then help you look for it.
Yes, indeed, I’d found home sweet hell—in more ways than one. To survive the stifling heat and hopefully to catch some z’s, street-side windows had to remain open. To add to the freakish ambience, helicopters patrolled overhead all night, every night. Someone was always running from the cops and being arrested right under my window or in the hallway outside. The street noise and the creeps in the next room kept me awake; the only way I could fall asleep was with earplugs, though knowing I couldn’t hear a homicidal maniac sneaking into my room was more than a little unsettling.
The manager of this horror show was an older woman named Shirley, who talked to me anytime she saw me coming or going. Under normal circumstances, I would have made an effort to avoid her, but I was so lonely and desperate for human
contact that I actually looked forward to our confabs. When Shirley learned what I did, she promised that once the band got going, she and her “boyfriend” would come to see us perform.
The band rehearsed long hours, getting tighter as a unit with each passing day. Finally, we had the opportunity to play some live shows. Mick’s old BulletBoys bass player asked us to open for his new band, Ham Sandwich. I couldn’t imagine a worse name until it was decided that our band would be called Brain Stem Babies, a name truly destined for greatness. (Sarcasm acknowledged.)
On the night of BSB’s first show, I was as nervous as the proverbial long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, but I managed to get through it. It was just the first of many gigs in derelict-looking clubs up and down the strip. One of our mainstays became the Coconut Teazer.
It was during one such performance at the Teazer that Shirley and her weirdo scumbag boyfriend showed up. This dude was strung out, and I couldn’t understand what she saw in him. After the gig, I went to their table and thanked her for coming. She introduced me to Silas, who made me so uncomfortable, I quickly excused myself.
The next day, I was awakened by the sound of someone crying. I stuck my head out into the hall, and a woman spotted me before I could duck back inside. “Did you hear about Shirley and her boyfriend?”
I shook my head no.
“Someone found their bodies in her apartment this morning. He killed her, then himself. Thought maybe you heard the shots.”
“No,” I said, totally shocked and creeped out. I’d gotten so used to shutting out the sounds of Hollywood Boulevard, a gunshot had become commonplace. Though I didn’t know Shirley that well, the incident really disturbed me. I couldn’t stop seeing them sitting at the table in the Coconut Teazer just twelve hours earlier. When I looked out of the window, medics were wheeling their sheet-covered bodies out to an awaiting ambulance. That would be an image seared into my brain for months.
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