Count Me In

“Zack!” All four of us cried as his mother’s car pulled up outside of Jack’s house. Zack’s mum gave us all with a friendly wave as he picked up his bass. He didn’t even know why he was there yet.
“Why were you all so desperate to see me?” He asked as he threw the instrument’s bag over his rippling muscles. It wasn’t until he saw Rian that his expression of pleasure turned into confusion, “Aaaaand who’s this?”
“I’m Rian,” He began, “And I’m apparently your new drummer.” Opposite to what Rian’s sentence had set out to do, an even deeper crease of confusion swept across Zack’s brow.
“We’re in a band? Theres not even any singer…” Zack laughed as he asked this question, not even realising that we were being completely serious. No one had told him yet about the power of Alex’s voice.
“That is where you are wrong my dear friend. My boyfriend Gaskarth has been keeping his voice a secret from us, until yesterday that is.” Jack explained with a smirk across his face. It didn’t hurt me that he said boyfriend, just surprised me. Public expressions of love weren’t really Jack’s thing.
“Thanks Alexander…” He rolled his eyes and followed us into the house, not looking Alex in the eye.
When I said that Zack spoke to Alex, it wasn’t really in the friendliest way imaginable. He still hadn’t warmed up to the fact that Jack had accepted him into the group so quickly, simply because he was wearing a NFG tee shirt.
“Welcome to our new rehearsal area!” Jack ripped open the basement door as he introduced us to it. I must say it was bigger than I expected.
Without a single word, all four boys progressed to setting up their instruments while I took my position on the top step to listen. That’s all I wanted to do - listen to what I had helped create.
When they had all gotten into position, they had a sudden realisation.
They had no idea what to play.
“Well, this is awkward…” Alex spoke into the microphone, attempting to break the silence that had anomalously filled the dark basement. “Name a random song Lisa!” He pointed directly at me as if we were at a concent. At that moment I knew that he was a natural.
“Umm… How about Head on Collision? You all like New Found Glory so go for that.” To occupy my suggestion I shoved my thumbs up at the group of sweaty boys, just to prove to them that I believed in them. Someone had to.
“Sounds like a good song, we all know it right?” Alex turned to ask the rest of the group. As soon as they’d all nodded, Jack began to play the opening chords of the song.
“And it feels like I'm at an all-time low… slightly bruised and broken”
Alex sang every line almost note perfect, but this one line highlighted the true potential of his voice. It felt like those lyrics were coming directly from his heart as he pelted them out of his chest for the first time. Alongside this seriousness was also a smile, which covered the sadness in his eyes with a blanket of positivity. In that moment I learnt why he was there.
He wasn’t doing this for himself.
He was doing this for Daniel.
As the song reached it’s closing notes, I was already reviewing what I had just heard. Admittedly there weren’t the most fantastic band out there, but there was a certain spark that surrounded them as they played together. It seemed that everything thing they did during their performance fitted into a perfect jigsaw.
“Well, that wasn’t as bad as expected,” Zack said as he popped the top off his water bottle. His frantic bass playing had left him in a hot sweat, showing how much effort he’d put in. Seeing how much effort someone that didn’t even want this to happen had put in gave me positive thoughts about the future. Imagine what the more enthusiastic members were thinking.
“That. Was. Frickin’. Awesome!” Jack shouted into Alex’s microphone, who was still full of adrenaline from the performance himself. Besides the fact that Jack’s eager cry had almost deafened me, I was content.
“I must admit, it was pretty fun.” Rian added, being his normal down to earth self. Even today, I’m still amazed at how he’s put up with the other immature band members for so long. When he failed at doing a clever drumstick trick the entire basement echoed with laughter.
“It felt different singing with a band. A good different,” was all Alex said. He was obviously speechless from happiness.
After so long searching for a purpose in life, he had finally found it. His life was created to express music. This was all he’d ever wanted to do since he was young; it wasn’t until this moment that he finally had the guts to accept that.
Unexpectedly we heard the basement door fling open, making all 10 of our eyes look directly on the figure that had opened it. On the receiving end of our glares was Jack’s mother, with a mixture of shock and joy in her emotion.
“Was that just you or were you played a pre-recorded CD?” Jack’s mum questioned us. In his rehearsed flirty manner, Alex leant against the microphone letting his cockiness take over.
“Yes it was us ma’am,” He replied in his husky English accent. Any other mother would have slapped the child in the face then asked them to leave, but not Jack’s mum. From the moment those two met there was a spark.
No not a “Stacey’s Mum” spark, but one enough that made her able to cope with his hustler attitude.
“Well... I liked it, keep rehearsing.” Was her response to Alex’s cheeky chat up line. Noticing that she had already disrupted the mood enough, she shut the door.
We had fan number one in the bag.