And my dad loved me.
It was fucked up, but it was family.
What Preach had was just fucked up.
So, I got what he was saying.
I felt what he was saying.
Dad was gone and that sucked.
But I’d had a dad like him.
So, I was lucky.
We went back to the band and it felt like I was seven hundred years older.
And that much wiser too.
That was when I noticed it.
We were all ambitious.
We all wanted to play stadiums.
But none of us were as ambitious as Tommy.
And Preacher.
I didn’t think much on it, but after the funeral I did. I figured it out, because we had no money to make posters. We had no money to put ads in the papers of places where we’d play.
I don’t know if he had some payout from the marines or if he’d been socking money away before he saw us play or what. I never asked.
Tommy told you what Tommy thought you should know. We all learned that early, learned not to question it, learned to trust it.
Trust him.
But Tom Mancosa didn’t just manage the band.
He invested in it.
Me and one of the guys would be head to foot in the bed above the cab, sleepin’ off a gig, and the booze, weed and pussy after, and the other in the cab or off in some chick’s bed.
And Preacher and Tommy would be at the table in that camper, heads bent over it, Tom going over his strategy, Preacher okaying it.
Tom Mancosa faced making us the biggest rock band in history like he’d face going to war, ready and equipped to fight battle after battle until you won the whole fuckin’ thing.
You know he’s almost as famous as we are.
So, just sayin’.
He was a great fuckin’ general.
[Off tape]
Isn’t this around the time the band took on Josh Hardy?
Yup.
And the famous Larry Bird speech?
[Laughs for a long time]
Yup.
Josh was keys.
He came to us.
We did a tryout.
He was good.
Really good.
Tommy hated him on sight and Preacher stared at him like he was a bug he was about to crush, so I don’t know why both of them voted him in, but they did.
Looking back, I think it was because Preach’s music was transcending, you know? This is why we’d later take on DuShawn and his horn and piano and talent. Preacher needed more for us to play in a way it was worthy of the songs he was writing.
We were never a four-man band when it came to Preacher’s music.
Not really.
We needed keys, piano, horns, backup singers.
I honestly don’t think they thought Josh would last very long, but he was what we could get at the time and they wanted the band to be more. They wanted more for the music. They wanted more for the audience.
And when the time came, they’d lose him and get someone who worked.
But Josh worked, at the time.
Dave had crazy-ass, curly hair and ended up tearing off his tee when he was playing ’cause he was sweating so bad. Short. Burly. Hairy.
Preacher had that long, layered look and a beard. John Bonham, Bob Seger, you know, staying true to the seventies because they were cool, and he hated the eighties shit that was happening, because it was not cool.
When we played, he wore a button-down with the sleeves rolled up over his elbows.
Or a short-sleeved Henley with the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders.
Or tight tees that made his chest look like a wall.
Timmy looked like a clean-cut surfer. A month rolled ’round, Tim didn’t miss hitting a barber no matter where we were so he could get a cleanup. Always wore concert tees for other people’s bands. Kiss. Van Halen. Drove Tom insane that Timmy was advertising other bands while playing in ours.
[Laughs]
Preacher was my spirit animal.
[Laughs again]
So, I had the thick, seventies mustache and long hair and scoured vintage shops for cool T-shirts like he sometimes wore, but I switched ’em up, wearing a vest over them and lots of necklaces.
[Laughs again]
Also started doing his Rocky workouts, pushups, pull ups, sit ups with something heavy on my chest.
Smoke a cigarette and then go on a five-mile run.
[More laughter]
Play bass in a rock band, get chicks.
Play bass in a rock band and have a good body.
Get more chicks.
What can I say?
I was nineteen, man.
[More laughter]
Josh rounded shit up, feathered hair on top, long on the bottom, not a mullet, but cut the sides, and there you have it. Wore a rolled bandana around his forehead even when he wasn’t playing, which was douchy, even then. Always in a shirt with the sleeves cut off and unbuttoned down the front to wherever.
At first, I thought it was just that we’d gone through a lot together, on the road, and before, with Nicky and Ricky and Penny and my dad dying.
I thought this was why Josh didn’t fit in.
In the end, it came clear Josh didn’t fit in because he was an asshole.
Josh came on board, we’d hit a town, and Tom would find us rehearsal space.
It might have no heat, but it’d have electricity.
And he was a drill sergeant about that shit, sister.
Even Preacher would bitch about it.
We were getting more gigs, thanks to Tom, for sure. Always Friday and Saturday nights. Bars’d get bands in for live music nights to pull people in during the week, we got a lot of those too.
If you don’t do it, you think it’s easy, standing up there, three, four hours a night, playing sets.
But it’s work. It’s physical.
After getting loose and laid after a gig, we didn’t want to eat breakfast and haul our asses to a warehouse or someone’s basement or whatever and practice for four, five hours.
[Off tape]
This is the Larry Bird speech.
Yeah.
’Cause we were about to hit Indy for some gigs and I hadn’t been back since my dad died and I was tweaking. Preach had his eye on me, and straight up, we’d been at it, no breaks, except for a funeral, for over a year.
Lotsa road. Setting up. Tearing down. Booze. Women. Drugs. Brawls.
So, I guess Tommy had enough of us moaning, and he says, “You know, Larry Bird went out and shot hoops for hours every night as a kid.”
We all knew who Larry Bird was, but we had no idea why Tommy was talking about him.
“Every fuckin’ night, he’s out there for hours, throwing a ball at a basket,” he says. “Night after night. Now, the guy is tall. The guy’s got talent. He could get on a high school team and be a star just bein’ nearly seven foot. He could get on a college team mostly for the same reason. But this tall, white guy isn’t gonna be shit beyond that, unless he practices.”
We got in then.
[Chuckles]
“Man’s poor as dirt,” Tommy tells us. “He doesn’t wanna be poor and live in a tiny town in southern Indiana the rest of his life. Doesn’t want his momma poor for the rest of hers. What’s he gonna do about that?” Tommy asks. “He’s got two things. The guy is nearly seven feet tall and he can handle a ball. That’s what he’s gonna do about it.”
[Smiles]
Then he says, “You can have talent. And honest as fuck, you don’t need it. Half the people who are rich and famous are famous ’cause they’re pretty. Probably dumb as rocks, half of ’em. Most of ’em would work at McDonald’s if they didn’t have a killer smile. That sucks, but it’s the way of the world.”