Perfectly Reckless
Chapter 13
Grammy Awards, present day - 2013.
The applause from the crowd rang in my ear, raising my heartbeats to a fast tempo. I couldn’t wait to get out there but felt scared at the same time. This stage wasn’t the same stage that I used to walk on every day, in every tour. This time my crowds were among the artists and celebrities that either on par with us or even more successful than us.
Halestorm will be performing under the Best Rock Band nomination, along with my best buds from Evanescence. We’ve been touring together many times now that I already see Amy as my own sister.
We grew over time – I still remember the harshness we went through without a bassist, that we had to ‘borrow’ bassists from another idle bands but sometimes it’s all about chemistry. Josh came to us at the right place and the right time. He withdrew from his band and came to our gig in San Francisco. From there we tried him out and we clicked, just like that. Now I can probably say that I’m proud to have Megadeth’s nephew in my band.
I can’t believe how fast RJ grew up. He grew his hair long for 3 years after his best friend died. He said he didn’t want to cut his hair in honor of The Rev. He was depressed for 2 months because we were on tour when we received the news about Jimmy’s death.
I didn’t know whether I should be sad for myself, or for RJ. I liked Jimmy, but I never really got to be close to him, because of a certain someone. I didn’t want anything to do with them, so most of the time only RJ communicated with Jimmy. I knew that ‘the certain someone’ sometimes asked about me through my brother but I already threatened to kick RJ’s ass if he ever told him anything about me at all.
I was even more mad when I found out that they didn’t use my scream at all in their self-titled album. Instead they used that bitch’s voice, who called me a freak. I felt like I’ve wasted my fucking life getting to know them.
Especially that douchebag. That asshole. Shit, I’m still angry. Calm down Lzzy!
I was putting on the last touch up of my red lipstick in front of the dressing mirror when I saw Joe’s reflection came near me with his Fender Stratocaster strapped on his shoulder and my Gibson Silverburst in his hand. He smiled down at me.
“You look beautiful.”
“Aww, thank you Joe. You’re not so bad yourself.” I capped the lipstick off and took the guitar in his hand.
“Ready?”
“Let’s rock this shit.”
~*.*~
We could just go home right now
Or maybe we could stick around
For just one more drink, oh yeah
Get another bottle out
Let’s shoot the shit
Sit back down
For just one more drink, oh yeah
Here’s to us
Here’s to love
All the times that we fucked up
Here’s to you
Fill the glass
Cause the last few days have kicked my ass
So let’s give them hell
Wish everybody well
Here’s to us, here’s to us
Stuck it out this far together
Put our dreams through the shredder
Let’s toast cause things got better
And everything could change like that
And all these years go by so fast
But nothing lasts forever
This song is like a celebratory, for what we’ve been through. Days and nights of fighting for our music to be heard, after a thousand of condemns and critics from people around us. I thanked God that we’ve arrived to this stage, purely because of rock and roll and because we are who we are. Friends and families that guided us along, supporting our way through.
At times like these, performing in front of these important people here, I can’t help but feeling that way.
Though there were some mistakes that we made along the way but I would toast to that too. Because if it wasn’t for that mistakes, I wouldn’t be here. On this very stage, performing our latest single, Here’s To Us from our latest album, The Strange Case Of.
Here’s to all that we kissed
And to all that we missed
To the biggest mistakes
That we just wouldn’t trade
To us breaking up
Without us breaking down
To whatever’s come our way
Here’s to us, Matt.
And here’s to you, Jimmy.
~*.*~
Hale Residence, Philadelphia – 2005
“Sis, a call for you.”
I looked up from my Gibson to RJ who leaned against the doorframe with a cordless phone in his hand. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Who is it?”
He sighed and rolled his own. “Not Matt.”
I put down my guitar and grabbed the phone from his hand.
“Hello?”
“Lzzy! Hey!!”
“Lizard, we fucking miss you!!”
“Johnny? Jimmy?”
“Yeah this is – move short shit! I wanna talk to her!”
“You fucking move, she wants to talk to me!”
“Why don’t you guys just put me on speaker?”
They both went silent and then answered in unison. “Good idea.”
After a muffled and a few beeping noise from their side, they finally can talk to me properly without fighting.
“S’up guys.”
“Jeez, Lzzy. It’s so hard to talk to you now. You always avoid us!”
“Sorry about that, Johnny. Not your fault actually.”
“Well, it’s not Matt’s fault either.”
“Shut up. I don’t wanna talk about him.”
“Listen here, Lizard. He didn’t mean for it to-”
“I said shut up, Jimmy! God, why are you pushing it?! If you called just to talk about him, then it’s better if you don’t call at all!”
I hung up the phone and threw it across the room. That was the last time I talked to Jimmy. And Johnny.
~*.*~
Halestorm Black and Blue Tour, 2009
Something’s wrong tonight, I can feel it in my guts. I looked around the bus – Joe was writing up some shit with Josh and RJ was in the TV room, watching over some news. We were on our way to Texas, for our ninth venue in this tour.
Our self—titled album released just two months ago and I can still remember the first time we got into this fucking bus. We were speechless and ecstatic as hell at the same damn time. Usually we traveled around mini vans and crammed cars – well, excluding Josh because he’d always traveled in a limo or a huge tour bus because of his uncle but to have a bus of our own, it’d probably be marked as the best day of my life!
I got up from the couch and went towards the TV room. I saw RJ was listening hard over the news as I sat next to him.
“Hey, lil bro. Whatcha doing?”
“Shh. I’m trying to listen!”
I frowned at him. He’d never shown this much interest in worldwide news, why now? He raised the volume a little bit higher and I arched my eyes at the TV.
“A drummer of a metal band based from Southern California, Avenged Sevenfold has been found dead in his home earlier this morning. Police have suspected that it’s a death by natural cause. The autopsy results however shows that the drummer named James Owen Sullivan or preferably known as The Rev, was overdosed by an amount of Oxycodone and a mixture of alcohol.”
We sat there in silence. None of us had the courage to look into each other’s eyes. I don’t even know what to think. Just a few days ago I avoided his call, predicting that he wanted to talk about Matt again, but RJ said he wanted to just say hi. Oh God. Jimmy..why is this happening?
I slowly turned to my brother. He was stunned, not moving a muscle. Hi eyes drooped down to the bus’ carpeted floor, his body shaking.
“RJ..”
He glanced at me with his glassy eyes blank. My heart broke seeing him like this. Jimmy was his best friend, his mentor and idol. And I was just…an angry sister.
“Oh, Jay..” I pulled him into a hug and he cried on my shoulder.
“Lzzy, he’s..Jimmy..on the news..he’s..”
“Shh..honey, there there. I know, I know.”
He wrapped his arms around me and cried harder. Joe and Josh came in later, both looked curious as they saw us embracing and RJ was crying hard. I glanced at them, my eyes flowed a river too.
“Let’s give them a call.”
~*.*~
“FOR THE BEST ROCK BAND, THE GRAMMY GOES TO…”
We held our hands tightly in a circle as we stood backstage, just after the performance. I still had my guitar on, waiting anxiously for the result.
“HALESTORM!”
“AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” We screamed at the top of our lungs, jumping in glee as we did. I quickly pulled away the guitar from my shoulder and we excitedly ran to the stage where Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington from Linkin Park were giving the award for us.
“Congrats, guys.” Mike said to us while shaking hands with the boys and gave me a peck on the cheek.
“Thanks, Mike. Chaz.” Chester did the same to us and after that they stood at the back, giving us space to say our speech.
“Oh wooww.” I spoke into the microphone after the applause had settled down. “I never thought that we could be standing here, in front of you awesome people and receiving this honor.”
“Wooh! Lzzy I love you!”
I heard a fan shouted from the top part of audience seats and I chuckled. “And I love you, random citizen!” I pointed to the direction, quoting the line from RJ’s favorite cartoon movie.
“We’d like to thank God, first and foremost. We are nothing without His guide. Our parents, our families. Wives and kids. No husband yet for me, yikes.”
The crowd laughed at my joke. I swore my adrenaline pumped like hell right now.
“To all the people that encouraged us along this path, helping us through, thank you. This is for all the Halestorm freaks! Rock that shit on!!!”
With loud background music of our song; Freak Like Me blared through the amplified speaker and the crowd applauding and yelling, we walked off to the backstage feeling high. High from the excitement, high from the surrealistic of this event. If this is just a dream, I don’t wanna wake up.
The applause from the crowd rang in my ear, raising my heartbeats to a fast tempo. I couldn’t wait to get out there but felt scared at the same time. This stage wasn’t the same stage that I used to walk on every day, in every tour. This time my crowds were among the artists and celebrities that either on par with us or even more successful than us.
Halestorm will be performing under the Best Rock Band nomination, along with my best buds from Evanescence. We’ve been touring together many times now that I already see Amy as my own sister.
We grew over time – I still remember the harshness we went through without a bassist, that we had to ‘borrow’ bassists from another idle bands but sometimes it’s all about chemistry. Josh came to us at the right place and the right time. He withdrew from his band and came to our gig in San Francisco. From there we tried him out and we clicked, just like that. Now I can probably say that I’m proud to have Megadeth’s nephew in my band.
I can’t believe how fast RJ grew up. He grew his hair long for 3 years after his best friend died. He said he didn’t want to cut his hair in honor of The Rev. He was depressed for 2 months because we were on tour when we received the news about Jimmy’s death.
I didn’t know whether I should be sad for myself, or for RJ. I liked Jimmy, but I never really got to be close to him, because of a certain someone. I didn’t want anything to do with them, so most of the time only RJ communicated with Jimmy. I knew that ‘the certain someone’ sometimes asked about me through my brother but I already threatened to kick RJ’s ass if he ever told him anything about me at all.
I was even more mad when I found out that they didn’t use my scream at all in their self-titled album. Instead they used that bitch’s voice, who called me a freak. I felt like I’ve wasted my fucking life getting to know them.
Especially that douchebag. That asshole. Shit, I’m still angry. Calm down Lzzy!
I was putting on the last touch up of my red lipstick in front of the dressing mirror when I saw Joe’s reflection came near me with his Fender Stratocaster strapped on his shoulder and my Gibson Silverburst in his hand. He smiled down at me.
“You look beautiful.”
“Aww, thank you Joe. You’re not so bad yourself.” I capped the lipstick off and took the guitar in his hand.
“Ready?”
“Let’s rock this shit.”
~*.*~
We could just go home right now
Or maybe we could stick around
For just one more drink, oh yeah
Get another bottle out
Let’s shoot the shit
Sit back down
For just one more drink, oh yeah
Here’s to us
Here’s to love
All the times that we fucked up
Here’s to you
Fill the glass
Cause the last few days have kicked my ass
So let’s give them hell
Wish everybody well
Here’s to us, here’s to us
Stuck it out this far together
Put our dreams through the shredder
Let’s toast cause things got better
And everything could change like that
And all these years go by so fast
But nothing lasts forever
This song is like a celebratory, for what we’ve been through. Days and nights of fighting for our music to be heard, after a thousand of condemns and critics from people around us. I thanked God that we’ve arrived to this stage, purely because of rock and roll and because we are who we are. Friends and families that guided us along, supporting our way through.
At times like these, performing in front of these important people here, I can’t help but feeling that way.
Though there were some mistakes that we made along the way but I would toast to that too. Because if it wasn’t for that mistakes, I wouldn’t be here. On this very stage, performing our latest single, Here’s To Us from our latest album, The Strange Case Of.
Here’s to all that we kissed
And to all that we missed
To the biggest mistakes
That we just wouldn’t trade
To us breaking up
Without us breaking down
To whatever’s come our way
Here’s to us, Matt.
And here’s to you, Jimmy.
~*.*~
Hale Residence, Philadelphia – 2005
“Sis, a call for you.”
I looked up from my Gibson to RJ who leaned against the doorframe with a cordless phone in his hand. I narrowed my eyes at him.
“Who is it?”
He sighed and rolled his own. “Not Matt.”
I put down my guitar and grabbed the phone from his hand.
“Hello?”
“Lzzy! Hey!!”
“Lizard, we fucking miss you!!”
“Johnny? Jimmy?”
“Yeah this is – move short shit! I wanna talk to her!”
“You fucking move, she wants to talk to me!”
“Why don’t you guys just put me on speaker?”
They both went silent and then answered in unison. “Good idea.”
After a muffled and a few beeping noise from their side, they finally can talk to me properly without fighting.
“S’up guys.”
“Jeez, Lzzy. It’s so hard to talk to you now. You always avoid us!”
“Sorry about that, Johnny. Not your fault actually.”
“Well, it’s not Matt’s fault either.”
“Shut up. I don’t wanna talk about him.”
“Listen here, Lizard. He didn’t mean for it to-”
“I said shut up, Jimmy! God, why are you pushing it?! If you called just to talk about him, then it’s better if you don’t call at all!”
I hung up the phone and threw it across the room. That was the last time I talked to Jimmy. And Johnny.
~*.*~
Halestorm Black and Blue Tour, 2009
Something’s wrong tonight, I can feel it in my guts. I looked around the bus – Joe was writing up some shit with Josh and RJ was in the TV room, watching over some news. We were on our way to Texas, for our ninth venue in this tour.
Our self—titled album released just two months ago and I can still remember the first time we got into this fucking bus. We were speechless and ecstatic as hell at the same damn time. Usually we traveled around mini vans and crammed cars – well, excluding Josh because he’d always traveled in a limo or a huge tour bus because of his uncle but to have a bus of our own, it’d probably be marked as the best day of my life!
I got up from the couch and went towards the TV room. I saw RJ was listening hard over the news as I sat next to him.
“Hey, lil bro. Whatcha doing?”
“Shh. I’m trying to listen!”
I frowned at him. He’d never shown this much interest in worldwide news, why now? He raised the volume a little bit higher and I arched my eyes at the TV.
“A drummer of a metal band based from Southern California, Avenged Sevenfold has been found dead in his home earlier this morning. Police have suspected that it’s a death by natural cause. The autopsy results however shows that the drummer named James Owen Sullivan or preferably known as The Rev, was overdosed by an amount of Oxycodone and a mixture of alcohol.”
We sat there in silence. None of us had the courage to look into each other’s eyes. I don’t even know what to think. Just a few days ago I avoided his call, predicting that he wanted to talk about Matt again, but RJ said he wanted to just say hi. Oh God. Jimmy..why is this happening?
I slowly turned to my brother. He was stunned, not moving a muscle. Hi eyes drooped down to the bus’ carpeted floor, his body shaking.
“RJ..”
He glanced at me with his glassy eyes blank. My heart broke seeing him like this. Jimmy was his best friend, his mentor and idol. And I was just…an angry sister.
“Oh, Jay..” I pulled him into a hug and he cried on my shoulder.
“Lzzy, he’s..Jimmy..on the news..he’s..”
“Shh..honey, there there. I know, I know.”
He wrapped his arms around me and cried harder. Joe and Josh came in later, both looked curious as they saw us embracing and RJ was crying hard. I glanced at them, my eyes flowed a river too.
“Let’s give them a call.”
~*.*~
“FOR THE BEST ROCK BAND, THE GRAMMY GOES TO…”
We held our hands tightly in a circle as we stood backstage, just after the performance. I still had my guitar on, waiting anxiously for the result.
“HALESTORM!”
“AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” We screamed at the top of our lungs, jumping in glee as we did. I quickly pulled away the guitar from my shoulder and we excitedly ran to the stage where Mike Shinoda and Chester Bennington from Linkin Park were giving the award for us.
“Congrats, guys.” Mike said to us while shaking hands with the boys and gave me a peck on the cheek.
“Thanks, Mike. Chaz.” Chester did the same to us and after that they stood at the back, giving us space to say our speech.
“Oh wooww.” I spoke into the microphone after the applause had settled down. “I never thought that we could be standing here, in front of you awesome people and receiving this honor.”
“Wooh! Lzzy I love you!”
I heard a fan shouted from the top part of audience seats and I chuckled. “And I love you, random citizen!” I pointed to the direction, quoting the line from RJ’s favorite cartoon movie.
“We’d like to thank God, first and foremost. We are nothing without His guide. Our parents, our families. Wives and kids. No husband yet for me, yikes.”
The crowd laughed at my joke. I swore my adrenaline pumped like hell right now.
“To all the people that encouraged us along this path, helping us through, thank you. This is for all the Halestorm freaks! Rock that shit on!!!”
With loud background music of our song; Freak Like Me blared through the amplified speaker and the crowd applauding and yelling, we walked off to the backstage feeling high. High from the excitement, high from the surrealistic of this event. If this is just a dream, I don’t wanna wake up.
Notes
A/N: back to Lzzy's POV...might do a Matt's POV again..i dunno...haha comments guys!! <3
@RyeBellamy
You're very welcome
7/29/18