Tonight We Drink To Youth

Hostel: a supervised lodging for usually young travelers. Guests can charter either a bed or a bunk bed in a dormitory with a shared lounge, kitchen, and bathroom for a usually cheaper price for both the guests and hostel owners.

Sounds pretty great right? Staying somewhere for a cheap rate with your best friends to keep you company while you see the world. Truth is, it’s not.

I could have seen the world in other ways. In fact I did see the world with my band, until everybody turned against us. We were pretty big all over the world back in our late teens. Our first 2 cd’s took off for some reason and landed us in Japan, America, and Australia because they wanted us. We weren’t one of those bands begging to go on some huge tour only to be an opening act. One day we were in the garage and the next we were selling out shows thousands of miles away from where we started. Our dreams unfolded in front of our eyes easily for 3 years until everything went to shit.

Not that I was only in the band for the money but once it ran out I realized how fucked I really was. From having a steady income since the age of 20 to having nothing when you’re nearing 24 is a pretty major slap in the face. Most of us couldn’t afford our apartments or our cars because music was all we knew, “normal” jobs were out of the question. We realized that our girlfriends were mostly only in it for the identity that we brought them, once the money left they soon followed.

Sitting in a rundown old hostel watching my best friends and former band mates try to see who can piss each other off more is something I thought would never happen. At least I thought if I had to see Oli try to fart on Curtis’ face while he was sleeping again it would be on an expensive tour bus filled with free beer.

Here there was no beer. Uncomfortable beds to sleep in and stale coffee in the morning is the only luxury we had in this place. Running out of money left it as the only option though; returning to our parents houses would steal our pride from us. Home was illegal as far as we were concerned.

“Oli, will you just leave him alone?”

I was clearly annoyed with our current situation. We were in the middle of Hungary with barely any money left. Oli was too macho to call his brother and ask for some money to ensure that we don’t starve to death or something crazy like that. The kid owed us anyway and was willing to help us out in any way possible. His exact words were ”If you ever need anything then just call. You owe me more than I can give, I’m sure I can swing something to help”.

That seemed like a pretty plausible bet, to borrow money from Tom Sykes. It would at least get us out of this country and out of debt; he would get paid back eventually.

“What crawled up your ass Nicholls?” Oli shot back. He still wasn’t backing down from his feud with Curtis as he positioned himself over the sleeping guitarist on the floor. “Now don’t distract me, it’s a technique.”