Status: Finished, check out the sequel
How Many Times Can You Race Around the Tree Before You Catch Me?
Grounded
He only groaned and took the bucket to puke in.
I stood and saw Bryce grabbing a towel from Niki.
"And you know better than to sleep through me waking you up. You're not the one that rewired the amps last night and did the Walmart run."
"Al-alright she-be-east." He stuttered.
"Change and go help pukey over there get ready. Mikey, I'll make it your call on the acoustic set. Everyone else, show at 1:30, what time should you be there?" A quiet, but collective "1 sharp" made me smile.
"Ah yes, being overlord sounds great."
A proud smile made its way onto my face as I watched the guys unload the trailer. Jake continued to puke until they were done. He stripped right there and left his clothes after Niki threw him a towel. He went inside. The guys took it upon themselves to empty the trailer. I sat down to finish my donut on the wheel well of the trailer close to MIW's side.
"Can you do that?" Ryan asked Josh.
"Can I do that?" Josh asked. I laughed loudly.
"You can try, but these guys won't fire me for assaulting them. I've been doing this for ten years with them, and that was before they were a band even. Now I'm just here to act as their mothers."
"Would you guys fire me if I did that?" Josh asked the others.
"Yes" Came from them all.
I chuckled and moved to see them all better.
"I'm Jax for those of you that I didn't meet earlier. I'm the TM for Have Fun Trying To Get This On The Flyer." I waved.
"That's a bit of a mouthful...."Balz said.
"I know, I came up with it."
"YOU BROUGHT THE DIRT BIKE!?!"I groaned.
"I have to take care of this." I put my water down on the wheel well and walked around to see Christian standing at the back of the trailer with all our "fun stuff" as he calls it. It's the dirt bike, dirt board, and a few other extreme sports toys.
"I had to, we sold the trailer remember?" I stood at the end of the dropped door.
"Can we?"
"You don't know how to ride the dirt bike Christian." I heard chuckle over by the MIW trailer.
"This is a great time to learn! Look at all this open area." I took a deep breathe and rolled my eyes.
"There's also people, gear, buses and other expensive things. No. If I find you on that thing you'll be stuck on trailer packing duty...."
Christian groaned before joining the others to do their morning workout.
"Hey James, can you go make sure Jake is ok? He probably doesn't want to see me right now..." James nodded and went inside allowing me to grab my coffee and go back to the MIW guys.
"Your hands are full." I laughed at Josh's statement.
"Yeah I mean, they're a handful but I love 'em and they're my big idiots." I smiled.
"How did you end up working for them? You also mentioned coming up with the name...?" He asked. His guys had started their morning routine to get ready for the day and he was on his computer probably working on something financial.
"Well I met them about ten years ago, We were all in school at the time and I was the youngin' of the group. They all had started a band and needed a drummer," I paused to drink a sip of my coffee as I watched the guys do their morning workouts," I just so happened to be a drummer and was 'good' at naming the band. That went on for two years. We made a name for ourselves and worked hard. My Senior year in high school we were offered a contract with Tooth and Nail. I asked them to turn it down, partially because I was trying to finish school and partially because I knew we couldn't take the first thing-"
I paused when I heard a crash. I held up a finger to tell him gimme a sec and went to investigate. Jake had fallen out of the bus and knocked James over as he carried the new cymbals down.
"Is everyone ok?" James gave me a thumbs up and Jake groaned.
"Suck it up princess!" James chuckled and helped Jake up.
I stopped to check on each guy before going back to Josh. Mikey, Niki, and Christian asked me to check on their bandhappy lessons.
"Sorry 'bout that." I sat down and noticed that Chris, Ricky, Balz, and one of their techs had joined us.
"Back to the story. I convinced the guys not to take it. We had plans to tour that summer and decided that if it wasn't successful that we wouldn't continue with the band seeing as how I had school starting and the guys were looking for higher employment. Jake had even started medical school, and Niki and Mikey were going to school for some crazy science stuff. I even ended up starting school for Physics and Forensics. I actually ended up being asked to go on Warped that year with a band that was working with catering and sold in the lines. The guys understood that I didn't know if I could continue to play with them since my heart has always been with tech. Christian had always been a friend and ended up replacing me. I went on tour and they went on tour. They came back and I ended up with another job offer. I didn't see them for a little over a year because of how much I toured and their sporadic touring schedule never matched me being home when I was, which was only a total of 10 days. I ended up seeing Jake for about a week because he was home for his Mom's wedding while the other were off recording. Jake told me they finally had been offered more contracts with several labels and were actually trying to decide between Sumerian and Fearless. We worked out a deal then and there and they actually are technically signed to both under different partisanships. They probably make more money than most bands could dream of in this genre." I took another drink of my coffee, everyone in the circle seemed to be pretty enthralled with my story.
"I left for tour again, I was with ADTR working under their TM and helping with tech, merch, and lights. I did that for a few years and then the whole hopeless records thing went down and they stopped touring for a bit. I ended up going back out with Asking Alexandria doing the same thing. Asking treated me great and thats where my tolerance for royal fuckery came from." Everyone laughed.
"This whole time I had contact with the guys. Not a lot, but enough to stay familiar. Jake was the first to call me when they needed a TM. I actually said no at first, but then they all kept calling me. I decided I had to at this point." I smiled remembering the midnight calls and every other thing under the stars they could think of.
"I went out with them on some of their first big tours. Mayhem, Warped, Uproar, their first headliner, The tour with Black Veil Brides, all the milestones." I chuckled.
"Jake had me take over financials, making me their Manager for quite some time. I ended up being their booking manager after the fucking idiot before tried to put them up as support on a Blood on The Dance Floor tour." They all laughed.
"Now I'm kinda just their everything. They call me that sometimes." I chuckled.
"So you do all of this because they ask you to?" Ricky motioned to the bus and more specifically the now drying water spot in the gravel behind our trailer.
"Here's the thing about being a female TM. They will not tell me no." I smirked.
"And to be quite honest, TM's are just glorified heads of house right?" I asked Josh.
"Pretty much." I shifted in my seat to get a peek at the guys and make sure they were ok.
"In the end, I'm the only one that will have their best interests at heart. I know how they want everything, right down to the fact that Christian has this weird OCD thing about his second snare where theres one scratched screw that has to face towards him but to the right about four inches. I don't know why, but he does. Niki and Mikey use two completely different set ups and to this day Bryce and I are the only two that know exactly how to do it and Bryce can't always fix things when they break them because they are so fucking picky. Jake has his mike weighted because he has a nerve problem in his hand and if it's too light it doesn't stay in his hand. Good old Andrew is plain vanilla though and sometimes I wonder how he ended up in our little group of shit heads." Everyone chuckled again.
"Look at that Josh, someone finally might beat you out for TM of the year." I chuckled.
"I dunno, I think I'd win still." I looked him down.
"Probably," I took another drink of coffee," I'm not grounded enough to look professional. I still can't believe I made it as far as I did before circling back to these shit heads." I stood and stretched with my now empty coffee cup.
"What do you mean?" Chris asked politely.
"If you come out after the show tonight you'll see." I smirked before going back to my guys.
I stood and saw Bryce grabbing a towel from Niki.
"And you know better than to sleep through me waking you up. You're not the one that rewired the amps last night and did the Walmart run."
"Al-alright she-be-east." He stuttered.
"Change and go help pukey over there get ready. Mikey, I'll make it your call on the acoustic set. Everyone else, show at 1:30, what time should you be there?" A quiet, but collective "1 sharp" made me smile.
"Ah yes, being overlord sounds great."
A proud smile made its way onto my face as I watched the guys unload the trailer. Jake continued to puke until they were done. He stripped right there and left his clothes after Niki threw him a towel. He went inside. The guys took it upon themselves to empty the trailer. I sat down to finish my donut on the wheel well of the trailer close to MIW's side.
"Can you do that?" Ryan asked Josh.
"Can I do that?" Josh asked. I laughed loudly.
"You can try, but these guys won't fire me for assaulting them. I've been doing this for ten years with them, and that was before they were a band even. Now I'm just here to act as their mothers."
"Would you guys fire me if I did that?" Josh asked the others.
"Yes" Came from them all.
I chuckled and moved to see them all better.
"I'm Jax for those of you that I didn't meet earlier. I'm the TM for Have Fun Trying To Get This On The Flyer." I waved.
"That's a bit of a mouthful...."Balz said.
"I know, I came up with it."
"YOU BROUGHT THE DIRT BIKE!?!"I groaned.
"I have to take care of this." I put my water down on the wheel well and walked around to see Christian standing at the back of the trailer with all our "fun stuff" as he calls it. It's the dirt bike, dirt board, and a few other extreme sports toys.
"I had to, we sold the trailer remember?" I stood at the end of the dropped door.
"Can we?"
"You don't know how to ride the dirt bike Christian." I heard chuckle over by the MIW trailer.
"This is a great time to learn! Look at all this open area." I took a deep breathe and rolled my eyes.
"There's also people, gear, buses and other expensive things. No. If I find you on that thing you'll be stuck on trailer packing duty...."
Christian groaned before joining the others to do their morning workout.
"Hey James, can you go make sure Jake is ok? He probably doesn't want to see me right now..." James nodded and went inside allowing me to grab my coffee and go back to the MIW guys.
"Your hands are full." I laughed at Josh's statement.
"Yeah I mean, they're a handful but I love 'em and they're my big idiots." I smiled.
"How did you end up working for them? You also mentioned coming up with the name...?" He asked. His guys had started their morning routine to get ready for the day and he was on his computer probably working on something financial.
"Well I met them about ten years ago, We were all in school at the time and I was the youngin' of the group. They all had started a band and needed a drummer," I paused to drink a sip of my coffee as I watched the guys do their morning workouts," I just so happened to be a drummer and was 'good' at naming the band. That went on for two years. We made a name for ourselves and worked hard. My Senior year in high school we were offered a contract with Tooth and Nail. I asked them to turn it down, partially because I was trying to finish school and partially because I knew we couldn't take the first thing-"
I paused when I heard a crash. I held up a finger to tell him gimme a sec and went to investigate. Jake had fallen out of the bus and knocked James over as he carried the new cymbals down.
"Is everyone ok?" James gave me a thumbs up and Jake groaned.
"Suck it up princess!" James chuckled and helped Jake up.
I stopped to check on each guy before going back to Josh. Mikey, Niki, and Christian asked me to check on their bandhappy lessons.
"Sorry 'bout that." I sat down and noticed that Chris, Ricky, Balz, and one of their techs had joined us.
"Back to the story. I convinced the guys not to take it. We had plans to tour that summer and decided that if it wasn't successful that we wouldn't continue with the band seeing as how I had school starting and the guys were looking for higher employment. Jake had even started medical school, and Niki and Mikey were going to school for some crazy science stuff. I even ended up starting school for Physics and Forensics. I actually ended up being asked to go on Warped that year with a band that was working with catering and sold in the lines. The guys understood that I didn't know if I could continue to play with them since my heart has always been with tech. Christian had always been a friend and ended up replacing me. I went on tour and they went on tour. They came back and I ended up with another job offer. I didn't see them for a little over a year because of how much I toured and their sporadic touring schedule never matched me being home when I was, which was only a total of 10 days. I ended up seeing Jake for about a week because he was home for his Mom's wedding while the other were off recording. Jake told me they finally had been offered more contracts with several labels and were actually trying to decide between Sumerian and Fearless. We worked out a deal then and there and they actually are technically signed to both under different partisanships. They probably make more money than most bands could dream of in this genre." I took another drink of my coffee, everyone in the circle seemed to be pretty enthralled with my story.
"I left for tour again, I was with ADTR working under their TM and helping with tech, merch, and lights. I did that for a few years and then the whole hopeless records thing went down and they stopped touring for a bit. I ended up going back out with Asking Alexandria doing the same thing. Asking treated me great and thats where my tolerance for royal fuckery came from." Everyone laughed.
"This whole time I had contact with the guys. Not a lot, but enough to stay familiar. Jake was the first to call me when they needed a TM. I actually said no at first, but then they all kept calling me. I decided I had to at this point." I smiled remembering the midnight calls and every other thing under the stars they could think of.
"I went out with them on some of their first big tours. Mayhem, Warped, Uproar, their first headliner, The tour with Black Veil Brides, all the milestones." I chuckled.
"Jake had me take over financials, making me their Manager for quite some time. I ended up being their booking manager after the fucking idiot before tried to put them up as support on a Blood on The Dance Floor tour." They all laughed.
"Now I'm kinda just their everything. They call me that sometimes." I chuckled.
"So you do all of this because they ask you to?" Ricky motioned to the bus and more specifically the now drying water spot in the gravel behind our trailer.
"Here's the thing about being a female TM. They will not tell me no." I smirked.
"And to be quite honest, TM's are just glorified heads of house right?" I asked Josh.
"Pretty much." I shifted in my seat to get a peek at the guys and make sure they were ok.
"In the end, I'm the only one that will have their best interests at heart. I know how they want everything, right down to the fact that Christian has this weird OCD thing about his second snare where theres one scratched screw that has to face towards him but to the right about four inches. I don't know why, but he does. Niki and Mikey use two completely different set ups and to this day Bryce and I are the only two that know exactly how to do it and Bryce can't always fix things when they break them because they are so fucking picky. Jake has his mike weighted because he has a nerve problem in his hand and if it's too light it doesn't stay in his hand. Good old Andrew is plain vanilla though and sometimes I wonder how he ended up in our little group of shit heads." Everyone chuckled again.
"Look at that Josh, someone finally might beat you out for TM of the year." I chuckled.
"I dunno, I think I'd win still." I looked him down.
"Probably," I took another drink of coffee," I'm not grounded enough to look professional. I still can't believe I made it as far as I did before circling back to these shit heads." I stood and stretched with my now empty coffee cup.
"What do you mean?" Chris asked politely.
"If you come out after the show tonight you'll see." I smirked before going back to my guys.