In May of 1997, after a successful tryout, I joined my first ever "signed" band. The roller coaster ride up Rock Mountain had begun.  I was hired, fully outfitted to be tour ready: new cymbals, cymbal stands, drum throne, pedals and cases, and a custom drum set of my own design. Then I was fired - in less than three months. The consolation prize was keeping all my new loot.

One month later I got a call from a guitar player buddy named Dana who had hooked up with Green Apple Quick Step. They had JUST finished recording their new record when heroin took another Seattle musician's talent. Dana and GAQS were now in the market for a drummer. 

I got a list of the songs for the tryout. I had never owned either of the bands records but I LOVED the first single from their second record. Titled "Los Vargos," It received good radio play. It had fast parts and slow parts and girl vocals and guy vocals and builds and crazy guitar solos and the coolest drum beats. I told my self I didn't really care if I won the tryout; I just wanted to play that song with them. 

When I learn to play a song, I play it over and over again with headphones until there is no difference between what he recorded and what I'm playing. Precisely. It's like being an impressionist. You discover mannerisms and inflections in a guy's playing until finally you can start seeing how a guy looks at song structure. How he thinks. You've gotten into his head. 

The day of the tryout arrive. I drive to the Seattle neighborhood of Belltown and load my drums down the death trap stairwell that leads underneath Black Dog Forge to Potato Head Studio. I set up and we start at the top of the six-song list. I count us into "Los Vargos" and it feels just like I'm playing to the record. It was amazing. At least it felt that was to me.  When we finished playing, the remaining original guitar player and all around grumpy old man naysayer said more to himself than to anyone in the room, "Well, that was the best that song ever sounded."

I got the gig. Or at least they told me I did. This would be my second signed - if it happened.

The next day, the call from Dana. I got the gig. They definitely wanted me. I was leery. Having just had and lost a gig, coupled with the fact that I had heard the news only from my buddy, who was himself a new guy in the band, and not from any of the original three members. I remained mildly ecstatic (read: outward pessimism housing inward back flips and chest beating).

He called on a Friday and told me there was a video shoot coming up in a week down in Los Angeles. That they wanted me in the band but weren't sure whether to make the leap before or after the trip south. To take the old drummer, me, or none at all.  I got the call the next day at work - a Saturday. They were going to try to work things out with their old drummer. The ups. The downs. In one summer I had already lost TWO major label drumming jobs. I went home after work and practiced on my brand new custom made drum set and tried not to think too much about it. It was pretty easy. Those drums sounded gooooooood.

I left work early the next Monday. It was a stunning Seattle summer afternoon. I round the corner to my house to find Dana and GAQS singer Tyler on my front porch. Ty wasn't at the tryout. He rarely ever rehearsed with the band. And although we'd never met, he had sureness about himself and a readiness to accept anyone as a potential best friend that only comes from spending time as the focus of a large crowds' attention - coming from being knowingly adored at almost all times.  These were the days before even all the rock stars had cell phones. News didn't travel quite travel quite so quickly. But why else would they be here if it wasn't good news?

Dana gave us an introduction but before Ty could say anything, I started the game that we would go on to play anytime something insanely cool was going to happen. I asked him nonchalantly, "So, what are you doing Friday?" It took no time at all for him to catch it and make it his own. As if describing going to his mothers to clean out her garage, he answered, "We're going to get on a plane and fly down to Los Angeles to film a video for MTV in a house that Hendrix used to live in." I replied with an equally monotone, "Hmm." 

"You wanna go?" Ty asked. 

None of us were sitting together, and we were almost the last people to board my first plane trip for rock.  About 10 rows up from the back of the plane, I was putting my bag into the overhead compartment when from another seven or eight rows in front of me on the other side Tyler calls my name with an inflection conveying he had forgotten to ask me some thing. It was loud enough to give me a slight self-conscious recoil and to blush from the plane full of ears having nothing better to pay attention to.  

"Yeah?" I replied quieter than he, but still audible to all between us (at least).  To which came his query, "Did your sister get you that diarrhea medicine?"

Drummer Geoff Reading - who writes a bi-weekly online column (Fridays) for the Weekly Volcano called "Holding Down the 253" in addition to his weekly Wednesday music column - has played music in tons of Northwest bands - Green Apple Quick Step, New American Shame, Top Heavy Crush and most recently Duff McKagan's LOADED - to name but a few. He's toured the world several times over, sharing stages with the likes of Slipknot, The Cult, Buckcherry, Korn, Journey, The Sex Pistols, Nine Inch Nails and on and on. He has called Tacoma home since 2005, and lives in the North End with his wife and son.