Sound of Music

When I came to the states I didn’t expect to be part of the latest metal craze sweeping the nation. I originally hailed from southern Ireland and came over to live with my cousin and play with his melo-death band fallen royal family. We started small with only 4 of us, my cousin on lead vocals, his friend mark on drums, his girlfriend as the guitarist, and me on bass.

After several gigs of dive bars and local venues in upstate NY, we finally landed a deal with a record label and we drove to the city to get started. My cousin’s name was Ryan Gatsby and was known to be The Great Gatsby by our fans because of his wondrous talent of vocals and screaming in-between songs. The label loved him and I personally think it was the only reason we got the deal in the first place.

When we got there, a whole board of directors were focus grouping how our band will play out. Mark was a little nervous given he didn’t want our music to be sullied and have to change his way of playing just for hits. The board compromised and chose to ass more members to the band. They gave us a professional drummer who toured with a lot of other high rising bands and thought having him would give us an edge. It wasn’t a big change but mark didn’t like it.

His mentality grew to jealousy as when we finished a venue people asked for everyone’s autograph but his. Ryan became more infatuated with the high rising sales of our records and cds that he started ignoring Marks requests to talk to the Higher-ups about the new drummer and felt he was being replaced. Not soon after Ryan basically told him to suck it up and that sacrifices had to be made to be famous. I personally didn’t like that wording

“your just being a little bitch, we got a great deal and were touring with great bands like Killswitch Engage and playing mayhem this year, suck it up and get on the fucking ball.” Were his exact words.

“oh yeah and am I the only one who actually wants to discuss this, we started out small and worked our way here, I know there’s sacrifices but I feel like I am being set aside like a used rag, I thought we were friends, you looked out for me and we did everything together, come up with name, wrote lyrics, and even worked our asses off for gigs.” Marks reply was.

Ryan shrugged it off as if it were nothing and looked away working on a new song, without any of us giving approval of I might add. When we rehearsed, mark began playing off key and wasn’t keeping up with Ryan’s pace, their harmony was broken, like their friendship.

The following year we rocked mayhem and it was an amazing time. We toured, won awards, and even began going out country. But the more we went along with the labels requests of changing wardrobe, our music pace, and even lyrics, mark was losing his edge on the drums. At one point Ryan got eerily pissed and said something that I never thought he ever say.

“that was the worst fucking drumming I’ve heard from you yet, it’s getting worse and it’s not going to get better, I have seen better pace from someone going through a seizure, either shape up or get the fuck out, I won’t be dragged down because you can’t handle a damn beat.

Mark just looked down and rushed out taking his sticks with him, I wanted to console him but I didn’t want to get a talking too from Ryan, I already was having a distant relationship before cause he wanted a faster bass player, whatever that means.

The next night at a club in NY, was something I would never forget.

Mark and Ryan fought all morning and in the afternoon weren’t even talking, merely Ryan was organizing everything while the new drummer was throwing a new beat. Ryan got mark and merely said one thing to him.

“See that, that’s how you play, with the best there is and not with some low grade piece of shit.”

Mark looked devastated and was breaking his sticks over the side of the bus when I looked out. My cousin was out of line and now I think mark may have gone over the edge. I tried telling Ryan but he pushed me aside saying that he needed to wash before the gig. Mark followed in suit after and when I got to him he told me to go on stage and relax, he told me he didn’t want me getting involved and I was the only person who seemed to show concern if not confronted him about it.

I heard a scream from the bathroom and saw a sight I only seen in a horror film or gore music video. Ryan had his throat impaled with a broken drum stick and was lying on the floor. I couldn’t find mark at all and went to the bus, I found him with his wrists slit down the middle dead.

I called an ambulance but they couldn’t help Ryan. He no longer had a singing voice and overdosed in the club the following month.

I went back a few years later with a new band and heard about several murders that occurred, people were found with their throats ripped open. I didn’t believe it and thought people were just cracking jokes about Ryan’s incident.

I talked to the manager asking about the rumors, and it was true of what people said, he said that the murderer was never caught and the incidents happened only a couple times a year and was selling the place. I had plenty of money so I offered a price and had the place spruced up and not having the bathroom open in case another incident occurs.

The week before the reopening, I was working in the club room making sure the sound was good to go and was walking past the bathroom hearing a horrid scratching noise of someone screaming, all I could think was that it was someone trying to sing, even though it was only me and a few workers in the building at the time. I had a hard time making out the speech but recognized that it was lyrics of Ryan’s songs. I backed out of the hall and outside quickly thinking of what the fuck was going on and realized that with his throat stabbed, Ryan’s voice was scraggly and messed up. He OD’d in the bathroom so I guess he’s stuck there.

The opening went on and someone ended up dead the same way as the others, I just let it happen and hear the singing every night when I work late. Let Ryan do as he wishes, in his right he deserves it, it’s not right what he did to mark and mark shouldn’t of done what he did. In the mean time I need to enjoy the sound of music