Chapter 23
TWENTY-THREE
Eric
? It's A Long Way to the Top (If You Wanna Rock 'N' Roll) - AC/DC ?
“Hold the fucking phone,” Josh said, jaw dropped as we crowded around his phone. “Waves Apart wants to take us on the road? Are you serious?”
“Ryan and Chris were in town and caught your show the other night and called us this morning,” our manager, Shane, confirmed. “You guys ready for your first major U.S. tour?”
We all looked at each other, afraid to move—afraid to breathe. Afraid that if we so much as blinked, we’d wake up and this would all be a dream.
Waves Apart? Holy. Shit. This would be a huge opportunity for us. Very likely the opportunity. Those guys were one of the hottest rock bands out there right now, selling out venues and topping the charts with four of their last five singles.
“So,” Shane said, his voice cutting through the anxious silence in the room. “Am I right in assuming your stunned silence translates to yes?”
“Hell yes,” I said, the other guys following up with their own versions of consent.
“Alright,” he said. “I’ll get back to them with your answer and I’ll be in touch with a schedule once I have it. Congratulations, boys. You made it.”
When the call ended, we looked at each other in silence for a beat before leaping to our feet and shouting at the top of our lungs.
“Is this real life?” Kevin asked, laughing nervously. “That phone conversation actually happened, right?”
“I…I think so,” I said, heart hammering against my ribs.
A tour. A fucking tour.
I’d only been part of this for six months, so I can’t even imagine what the other guys were feeling in that moment.
It took them years of grinding to make it to this point.
To finally have the opportunity to stand in front of thousands of people every night and play their music.
Our music. The idea of being part of a major tour was as exhilarating as it was terrifying.
This would be an opportunity to prove ourselves to an audience that might not have heard of us before. We were going to have to bring our A-game every night to stand out. The pressure was heavy, but there was also an excitement stirring beneath it.
I knew that this could be a major turning point for our career, but it was also a big step into the unknown.
The crowds were going to be massive, and I couldn’t help but wonder—will they like us?
Will I be able to handle the intensity of the road, night after night?
The constant travel, the number of shows, the long drives, the exhaustion.
I took a second to remind myself that it was all part of what we were working toward, and as daunting as it seemed, there was no way I was going to let the fear take over.
I was also still trying to wrap my head around the idea of being so close to Waves Apart.
Getting to share a stage with them. Getting to learn from them.
It felt surreal. I was going to see firsthand how they moved, how they performed, how they connected with their audience.
There was going to be so much to learn, and I couldn’t believe who we would be learning it all from.
“They say ‘never meet your heroes,’ so what was it like on the road with a band like Waves Apart?” Ty asks as she sits back into the booth, pulling her legs up against her chest and wrapping her arms around her shins.
She settles into herself, resting her chin on one of her knees, seemingly content to listen to me blather on.
“They were incredible. It’s still one of my favorite tours we’ve ever done.
We all vibed really well, and Ryan and Chris took a ton of time out of their schedules to hang with us.
You could tell they were invested in us.
They wanted us to succeed, and they gave us some really meaningful advice, answered any questions we threw at them, introduced us to a ton of industry people we otherwise may not have had the opportunity to meet, and just… really supported the hell out of us.
“They taught us a lot during that tour but what I still carry with me to this day is how to pace myself on the road. It was easy to get carried away in the beginning—the endless partying, the drinking, the women throwing themselves at you, the appeal of experimenting with this drug or that drug and trying to find the right mix. Something that’ll allow you to forget about the stress and exhaustion, but not get you so fucked up that you can’t perform.
The hard part was learning your limits and sticking to your gut when someone just wouldn’t take no for an answer. ”
“And how did that go for you? Were you able to set boundaries early on or was the pressure to live up to that ‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll’ persona too appealing?” she asks.
“I was able to set boundaries, and again, I feel like I owe a lot of that to them. They were all very chill—a shot or two before the show, and maybe one or two after—but they didn’t party hard, and they never did drugs.
They provided a very safe environment for us, and I’m still thankful for that, because I was able to control it on the road.
The only times I was ever around any sort of drug use was if someone brought people backstage or to party and they had stuff on them.
” He pauses and takes a sip of his coffee before continuing.
“Drugs always scared the shit out of me, so it was very easy to stay away from that.”
“Okay,” she says, smiling. “Tell me everything.”
****
I’d always heard people talk about the “calm before the storm,” but what I was feeling? It was nothing like calm. The air backstage was thick with tension, and my mind was running in circles, and my palms were slick with sweat.
The greenroom was a warzone of half-open gear cases, tangled wires, and empty cans of Red Bull.
Kevin was pacing back and forth near the door like a lion in a cage.
His hair was unkempt, sticking out at all the wrong angles, which had become his “look.” Max was sitting cross-legged on the floor, tweaking the strings on his guitar—again.
He’d been doing that for the past thirty minutes, even though he swore every time that they were perfect.
Josh was the only one who seemed to be holding it together.
I glanced over at him, sitting on the couch, arms crossed and eyes closed.
He was humming something under his breath, and his face was set in that expression he gets when he’s really focused.
I don’t think I’d ever seen him as nervous as the rest of us.
I couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Eric, you good?” Max asked. I looked up to find him looking at me, a half-smile pulling at the corner of his lips.
“Yeah,” I said. I wished I could tell him that my hands were shaking and that there was this tight knot in my stomach that I couldn’t seem to get rid of. That my mind kept looping through the same few thoughts: What if we mess up? What if the crowd doesn’t like us?
But all I did was give a half-hearted smile and nod, because I didn’t want to seem weak. Not in front of any of them. They’d been at this a lot longer than I had, and I didn’t want them thinking they made a mistake by asking me to be part of it.
My fingers twitched against the drumsticks, and I closed my eyes, willing myself to breathe.
The door opened and Chris, the drummer from Waves Apart, poked his head in.
“Yo, you guys ready?” he asked, a giant grin on his face, like he was the happiest guy in the world. His long, dark hair fell over his eyes in a way that screamed “rockstar.”
I forced myself to smile back. “Ready as we’ll ever be.”
He laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle. “Don’t worry, guys. You’ll be fine.” He slapped me on the back a little too hard, making me wince. “The energy from crowd feels good already. They’ll get you so amped you won’t even realize how many people are actually out there.”
Another sudden knock at the door had my heart skipping. The tour manager, a guy named Tim, stepped in, his expression stern. “Five minutes,” he said, checking his watch. He gave us all a quick look, then exited without waiting for any response.
The room went still.
“Break a leg guys,” Chris said. “We’ll see you after.”
We all looked at each other and something unspoken passed between us. There was no turning back. The crowd out there was waiting, and we were the ones who were supposed to get them fired up.
“Alright,” Josh said, clearing his throat. “Let’s do this. No backing down.”
“And no stage diving before we even start, alright?” Max added.
I couldn’t help but laugh. The tension in the room broke a little, but not enough to fully erase the nerves gnawing at the edges of my thoughts.
The adrenaline was there and starting to build.
My stomach churned, but it was now more from excitement than fear.
The thought of playing in front of thousands of strangers made my heart race, but it also sent a thrill through me.
It was what I’d always wanted, what we’d been dreaming of for months, what we’d been working for.
We’d earned this moment.
“Let’s fucking do this!” Josh shouted before pushing the door open.
We filed out into the hallway, heading toward the side stage entrance where the energy of the crowd finally hit us—a mix of anticipation, chatter, and the low hum of the venue’s speakers. The lights were dim, and I could feel the reality of the moment settling over me like a weighted blanket.
The roadie who’d been following us gave a thumbs-up as he led us to the side of the stage where Waves Apart were waiting for us.
We huddled up and Ryan led us in a pre-show peptalk. A part of me wishes I could remember what the hell he said to us that night, but the nerves had a complete hold on me in that moment, and everything sounded like we were underwater.
We broke apart and lined up behind the curtain, waiting for our cue.
Max adjusted his guitar one last time, and Josh cracked his knuckles, his eyes already blazing with that energy he always gets before he takes the stage. I looked down at my sticks, focusing on the familiar weight in my shaking hands.
When Tim started the ten second countdown, I closed my eyes and centered my breathing.
You can do this. I told myself. You were born to do this. Show them why you’re the best.
As soon as we ran onto that stage, the nerves disappeared.
I sat down at my kit and lost myself in the music, feeding off the energy the crowd was giving us. I had expected a few people to be familiar with us but was surprised when almost everyone was on their feet for our entire set, singing and screaming and bringing the energy from start to finish.
Josh was a goddamn master at working a crowd and had them in a chokehold from the first note. I lost track of how many women flashed him that night, looking around to the other guys and laughing every time.
When he tore his shirt off and a literal fist fight broke out between two women when he tossed it into the crowd, I knew my life was never going to be the same.