Music is everywhere. You just have to know how to weed out the noise.
A kick to my shin brings me out of my daydream, and I see the boys are ready. They roll their eyes at my wandering attention and lift their bows in preparation. A nervous shiver runs through me, and I take a breath that fills my lungs and leaves no room for anything but anticipation.
I make the count in my head.
One, two, three, four.
I pull my bow. And then there is nothing else in the world.
The opening to our new album, our four-string arrangement of “It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World,” has fast become one of my all-time favorite pieces. All four of us playing that sound blast in the very beginning, and then cascading down in a dizzying rollercoaster of notes.
Then we break apart. Jez and Seb’s cellos pound out the strong pulsing beat as Marius’s viola weaves in and out between us, and my violin belts out James Brown’s melody.
We have no vocals, no sung lyrics; the meaning has to come through the soul in our fingers, our instruments, the pauses in our notes, the fluttering highs and pounding lows. I close my eyes and let my fingers do their thing. They know what they’re doing, just get out of our way, I sometimes hear them tell me.
The burn on the tips of my fingers thrills me as we come to the chorus.
Marius throws me a quick look out of the side of his eyes, and I know what he wants. I nod and I see him take a breath as his bow dances over the strings, taking over the melody and I drop back, strumming an arpeggio, bum bum bum bum, the soft driving beat to match the quickening pace of all of our pulses as we race to our finish.
James Brown’s face flashes in my head, the image of him making love to the microphone in his iconic way, looking down at us approvingly, as we make his song our own.
We mirror the beginning, notes cascading over and over each other in a gushing waterfall of sound, and then with our bows pulled in unison, one brilliant note. And then silence.
I freeze, the quiet after the cacophony of music is just as important as the sound.
“Fuck,” I can’t help exhaling, as I drop my instrument. “That was good.”
“Yeah, it’s cool when we all finish at the same time,” Marius quips and we all laugh, the seriousness of the performance broken. And it is serious. For all our banter and joking around, music is our life, and the reason we’re still together after all these years is because we all take it very seriously.
“Good changeover there, boys.” Seb gives me a wink as he throws a bottle of water to me. “Maybe try taking it up a fifth sometime? Just for fun?”
“Fun? You’re not supposed to be having fun!” Dennis’s deep voice booms over to us and we turn toward the rehearsal room door.
“Yethhh mathhhhterrrrr…” Jez drops to the ground at Dennis’s feet in a grovel as our manager enters the room, a stack of papers in his arms.
“Get up, turd for brains!” Dennis swats at his cellist with the papers as Jez reaches out and grabs for his ankles. “Anyway, I guess it sounded decent from all the way down the hall. Keep it up; you’ve got a long tour ahead of you. The longest you’ve done yet.”
His threat makes us turn to each other and grin. It’s all we’ve ever wanted to do-live on the road with nothing but us, our instruments… and a bunch of adoring screaming women. Now we even get to do it in style.
“So. Good news or bad news first?”
“Good news! And then stop!” Marius suggests.
“Fine. Good news is…” Dennis starts, trying to get through his news before the inevitable happens.
“You’re getting a hair transplant!” Jez interrupts.
Too late.
“Your new mail-order bride from Sweden is coming!” I can’t help but add my guess.
“And she’s bringing her twin sister for Marius!” Sebastian adds to the mayhem.
An empty water bottle sails through the air and lands on the side of Seb’s face. “Shut up, wank-breath! I can get my own Swedish mail-order bride.”
“Are you done?” our unusually patient manager asks calmly.
“Depends, did any of us guess right, or should we just keep going?” I ask him.
“I’m glad to see you’re in such a good mood, Brad. Because you’re especially going to love my news.”
“Oooh, it’s a Swedish mail-order bride for Brad?” Our viola player pokes his tongue out at me, unable to resist taking another dig.
“No.” He pauses. And there’s something in the look of his eyes that makes me feel a little uneasy. “It’s his friend, Emily.”
And all I can see is white.
What?
“What?” My mouth slowly catches up with my brain.
“She’s coming with us. On tour. For six weeks. For an editorial write-up on you guys. She’ll have full access to you. All of you. You’re welcome.”
With that, he gets up and practically runs out of the room, the door slamming behind him.
“What. The. Fuck?” Jez articulates what’s written all over my face. “If that’s the good news… what the hell was the bad?”
***
“Dennis! Wait up! Jeez you run fast for an old man!” I yell, stopping only to grab my splitting side.
He stops but doesn’t turn around, waiting for me to catch up to him.
“What the hell? Emily is coming on tour with us? You know that can’t happen!”
“I don’t know anything of the sort.”
“You saw what happened at the press conference. She’ll eviscerate us.” Not to mention the evisceration that happened after the press conference.
“I saw her stir up interest in you guys if that’s what you mean. Do you want me to remind you how much coverage we’ve gotten over this?” He stares me down, and I can’t help feeling like a diva throwing a tantrum. The truth is, he knows, he knows why. He knows why this is bad for me. Me. But as always, the band comes first. We’ve always wanted him to be that way, begged him in fact. We had one another to worry about each other. His job was the band.
But the news is shocking on two fronts.