Part VIII: Thinskull
Chapter Fifty-Three
M.O.E. died in 1995. Vulture, the follow up project with Robert, was stillborn. Robert and I had kept in touch over the years, even entertaining the notion of trying to get Eric back and starting the band back up. I would have loved nothing more than that, since they were the two guys I really started to mature with, and by mature, I mean musically. (You didn’t really think I’d ever actually grow up, did ya??)
But it was not meant to be. Eric was still sort of in the other band, and besides that, he had messed his arm up and couldn’t really play much at the time. On top of all that, there was nowhere to practice.
Robert and I were determined to play together again. By late 2001 we had been talking about it for a little while. We decided we’d need a new name, but couldn’t come up with one. Then one day it hit me. Robert’s AOL screen name would make a perfect band name: Thinskull. I e-mailed him and told him what I thought, and he couldn’t believe he’d been looking at it for two years without thinking of it as a band name. He thought it was a great idea. I told him that I wanted to play guitar this time instead of bass, which I had played in M.O.E. and he respected my position. He revamped his existing Thinskull website to accommodate the band Thinskull, and put an ad on there for drummer and bass player. I answered the drummer ad myself a few weeks later when I met AJ.
The three of us got together at Ruby Tuesday and talked music over lunch. AJ gave us each a copy of a tape he had made with his old band back in the 80s. Robert was pleased enough with the tape that he wanted to try AJ out.
Chapter Fifty-Four
It was around this time, late 2001 to early 2002 that Kelly and I decided to buy a house. We looked at a few with a realtor, then decided that it would cost about the same to build our own. We were told we could possibly be in it by April. It ended up being December.
In the meantime, we moved in with my grandparents in Elkton. Once we got settled in, I was able to concentrate on Thinskull. It had been three weeks since our initial meeting, and we were all itching to play again. I had given AJ a copy of the M.O.E. tape, with “To Hell Like The Rest” and “Horrorstruck” being the audition pieces, along with “Would?” by Alice in Chains and “Higher” by Creed. I jammed with AJ only once before the initial group jam, hoping to give him a head start on some of the drum techniques Eric had used in the songs. He hadn’t played in a while, it turned out. He had broken his arm the previous year, so that kept him off of his drums for awhile.
He wasn’t really ready for what came next: Robert.
Robert wasn’t very impressed during that first meeting, or the second for that matter….or the third…or the fourth. Robert’s idea was that if you have a song that’s already been written, then half of the work is done already. All you need is for each person to learn their part, then you should be able to all get together and just play it. I tended to agree. That’s the way we always did it in M.O.E. Decide what song to do next, give everyone a week to get it down, then come back and play the song, with minimal touch-up needed.
It didn’t work that way in this case. AJ seemed to always be able to come up with some excuse as to why he couldn’t play this part or that part, or why he couldn’t practice on his own. Robert became irritated rather quickly.
For one thing, their personalities clashed. Robert is a perfectionist. Not one to improvise or to write in a group setting, he feels that songs should be written individually, then learned by each member, then played. He is also a leader. AJ doesn’t like leaders. He is also a huge proponent of improvisational jamming, just to see what happens. Each one thought the other was an asshole. I was stuck in the middle because I agreed with both points of view. I can create either way. Besides, Robert and I had been best friends for nine years. But I had to work with AJ.
We had also decided to try out Brian, the tech at work, as a singer. The initial jam was equally as impressive as mine and Robert’s first jam with AJ, but he got better as he cleared out the cobwebs. To be fair, we were all in differing stages of rust infestation at that point.
We tried out a few more songs, like “Mob Rules” by Black Sabbath and “Sad But True” by Metallica, which Robert and I had played in M.O.E. I also introduced “Skinny Machine” and “Faded” at one practice, and later an older one I called “Last Man Standing (The New Eden).” It was clear that no one was really impressed with the first two, particularly Robert. They were a little more receptive to the latter. We did jam on it for a while. The song had never had drums on it before, but AJ played pretty much exactly what I had in mind. Brian started coming up with lyrics right off the bat. It had absolutely nothing to do with the title, so we changed the title to “Slow.” Of course, Robert got tired of playing it after a few run-throughs, and felt it was best that we work on it individually and come back and play it later.
Another thing I need to stress is the amount of time that lapsed between practices. With everyone’s schedules and family responsibilities, we might get together maybe three times a month. AJ and I were on the same shift, and Brian was on the opposite shift, but we all had the same days off. Realistically, we could play whenever we wanted to. Robert’s schedule, on the other hand, was what kept us from being a full unit more than every couple of weeks.
Chapter Fifty-Five
When Robert and I decided that Thinskull was going to be the name of the new band, a mechanism started working in Robert that I hadn’t been completely aware had existed. He got a registered trademark for the name. He got t-shirts made (I’m wearing one right now, in fact. It even has the little circled ‘R’ beside the logo). He began to see Thinskull as a business venture that would make beaucoup money. He embodied an intensity about this project that made me uneasy. His plans included becoming the biggest band in the land. Fuck whether people actually liked the music. He also decided that the best way to do this was to play all cover songs to build a fan base, and after we’d made our first million playing clubs, we’d start playing originals, then look out Metallica! Here comes THINSKULL!!! Okay, so that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s how I took it anyway.
Personally, I wanted this to be a fun way to blow off stress, but it just ended up adding to it. I wanted to be a fellow musician in a band with Robert, not a business associate. Besides, we were building a house and I couldn’t afford to spend anything but energy.
Chapter Fifty-Six
Well, things stayed pretty much the same for the next few months. After one particularly disastrous practice, Robert, Brian and I went to a local restaurant to discuss our future with AJ. He kept screwing up in the same places in the same songs every single time, all the while making excuses as to why. Brian and I halfheartedly agreed that we needed to get rid of him. I think the both of us were worried about how it would affect the environment at work.
AJ made it easy for us. He wrote an e-mail of resignation shortly thereafter to Robert, explaining that he felt like it wasn’t going to work because of their differing views of how the musical process should work, etc. Robert then e-mailed Brian and I both to let us know (seemingly forgetting that we worked together) and asked us how we felt with a series of questions about what we were willing to do to ‘make it’ in this business. I replied that I was not willing to give up anything I had to go ‘big time’, was not willing to spend the kind of money required to advertise or any of that. I also stated that I thought the idea of doing all covers was crap, and that with one exception (a Metallica tribute) I had never gone to see a cover band for the simple fact that I can hear all those songs on the radio.
In my reply, I also essentially dropped out of the band.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
AJ, and I jammed a couple more times after the band known as Thinskull dissolved. We worked out all of the parts for “Slow” and came up with an ending, and recorded the basic rhythm tracks on my trusty old Tascam 4-track. I went home, put down bass and lead guitar. All we needed was vocals. We got together with Brian at what turned out to be our last jam and recorded the vocals, with me doing backup singing. We had our first and last full recording.
During the recording, we decided to let “Slow” sit for a little bit and jam on something else for awhile. That something else was done completely off the cuff and was recorded just in case it was cool. I thought it was good enough to complete, so I finished writing the music on my own and also wrote lyrics. The song became “Windows To The Soul.”
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Our overall musical friendship all but dissolved in the following months. I was getting tired of AJ’s negative attitude about absolutely everything he could possibly have an opinion about, whether it was work, relationships or African-Americans. To paraphrase his words, they didn’t pay me enough to hang out with him. And, of course, without a drummer, Brian and I couldn’t do anything either.
I decided it was time to become a solo artist.
To Part IX
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