Probably
the biggest bummer that happened to me while we were all playing together
happened during one of our later shows at the Velour. We were scheduled to play
as the headliner, and we had it planned to be one of our biggest. We wanted to
also record the whole concert so we could enjoy it, share it, and maybe use it
to promote us. The night came, the opening acts played, we did a sound check.
We went back to regroup and pray as was our routine and came out to roaring
cheers. It was all set up perfectly. But it didn’t go perfectly. As I started
to sing, I could tell that something was off just by the strange looks some
people were giving us and me. Turns out, I couldn’t hear myself in the monitor
in front of me, really at all. We tried to tell the sound guy, but he was gone
from the booth for a good portion of the show, and honestly kind of blew us
off. So we just kept playing and everyone seemed to be having a great time.
People came up and congratulated us afterwards and said they had a blast. We
didn’t think anything else of it.
We got
the copy of our video of the performance a day or so later and Matt was the
first to watch it. I remember him saying something like “We can’t use it. Any of
it”, and I remember thinking “What do you mean?? Why?? It should be really
good!” But he was right. I sat down with him and watched it. Between me not
being able to hear myself, the crowd, the cheering, and the music, I was off
pitch. Like, the entire. concert. I remember it hitting me in the stomach and
feeling just awful. What was supposed to be an amazingly bright bombshell
turned out to be a dud floating in the water.
It
sucked. I felt bad because I knew something was wrong at the time but didn’t do
everything I could to fix it. Felt frustrated with the sound tech who blew us
off. And I felt sorrowful that I’d let the band down. They all played great,
but I just sounded straight terrible. It felt like a big waste of a show and I
wished someone would have said something. But they didn’t. And that’s okay. I
knew then and now that we have to live with our mistakes, no matter how
disappointing they can be. There were factors that were out of my control, but
that’s another life lesson; the fact that other people’s choices affect you and
there’s not much of anything that you can do about it but keep on keeping on.
Keep being you and make the best of it. I didn’t let it get me down too much.
We kept practicing, kept playing, kept on kept…ing on, haha.
This
experience actually led to something great. Though we’d had a good deal of
success, admittedly I had struggled to really find my voice and let it all out.
Admittedly at times I had struggled with singing like I wanted to, and I
couldn’t figure out what to do about it. Singing classically came really
naturally for me, but I did struggle at times to sing in this kind of avenue.
As you all know by now, I do enjoy The Killers, and we would play their songs
during practice sometimes. The bandmates had heard me try to sing like Brandon
Flowers many times before, and one day they all kind of had an intervention of
sorts, haha. I particularly remember Matt and Jeremy telling me how when I
tried to emulate Brandon Flowers, I had a great sound and tone that I didn’t
have even when we played our own songs. They wanted me to do that and have that
same sound and tone for our own songs. At first I blew it off saying that I
didn’t want to copy someone else’s style. I felt embarrassed that I sounded
like Brandon Flowers, and not because I didn’t like the guy or the way he sang.
I was really worried about what other people outside the band would think
and/or say. But my friends insisted.
We played
a song of ours with me singing “like Brandon Flowers”, and the difference was
immediate and definite. The tone and the musicality of myself and the song as a
whole, took on new life. They all looked at me and said “that’s how you’ve got
to do it”. So I did. Now, I am not saying that I alone changed our music for
the better. Everyone was doing extraordinarily well musically at this point.
But it did bring something to the table that we didn’t have before. We recorded
our entire second EP with me singing like that. Between my new voice and
everyone’s refined playing styles, this EP was a night and day difference to
our previously recorded EP. Our fans loved it and really thought that we had
brought it to another level. It was awesome, and we were very proud of the
results.
With our
new EP in hand, and a solid sound to sell, we decided to shoot for the moon and
try for the big time. Matt had a friend who had great connections in the music
business that wanted to do a favor for him and see if he could help promote us.
While we waited on that, Matt also somehow got in touch with The Killers band
manager at that time. Matt sent him our songs and asked if he might be willing
to take a listen. And he totally did! Their manager had really good things to
say about our music, but unfortunately he had so much on his own plate at the
time with The Killers, Imagine Dragons, and other groups that he couldn’t help
us. We also found out that Matt’s friend’s connections had all fallen through.
So, yeah, that was a disappointment. But we were grateful for what we had.
Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be.
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