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(***Before reading this article go to the following link and please turn on the song "Wait For Me" and listen to it low while reading. It's written this way on purpose: http://www.wearecablecar.com/#!sounds/c14o2***)
Jesus.
What time is it?
It's four in the afternoon on a Monday and the television is still running. The days are starting to run together, but that's what happens when you get laid off from a corporate movie job and still can't find work. I stand up from the couch and can still picture her laying there. Her brown hair she won't dye blonde swirled around my face and pillow, the curves of smoke mimicking her terrain. She's away filming, but somehow finds a way to get me to the shower so I don't miss the band I have to go see. The water spikes off the ground, cold then hot. She stands on the other side of the glass watching me, drawing scenes of graphic nudity with the steam and laughing with me. I wonder if she can still see me where she is? I get dressed, hop in the car and head to a dive bar in Hollywood.
The band I'm seeing is Cable Car. I roll the windows down and open the sunroof and light up half a deck. I tag in the iPod.
I turn on the first Cable Car song and suddenly I'm in my own movie:
The lights of Santa Monica drive over my eyes and into the smoke getting shot fast around the dark sky. Not even the consistent reds I hit in Beverly Hills can slow-mowsh the image of her shades pinning back the smile on her face or the conversation of future dreams that bring it. "Will you wait for me?" comes out of the speakers at the moment she would have kissed me. The song brings her to life and so I am alive now too. I reach the venue.
The line is huge, but I got song juice in me and I give out a loud "Heya" to the crowd before Big Rich lets me in with a bro-hug. I running-back my way through the packed trendy and self-proclaimed underground. I love the way insider music fans, that up-coming bands are forced to play for, sit on their horses with a high high booster seat. I match their judging eyes with waves of bad kid smirks. They'll eventually stamp Cable Car's ticket to the Bowl when they hear the legitimacy; they'll never stamp mine haha.
I knock on the band's door and the boys let me in.
Nate throws me a pat. Nate sings for Cable Car; he shares my same New England upbringing and haircut along with Ryan, spinning his sticks at the table between laughs. Jack has his guitar leaning against his chair, "Ey, brotha," he says in a deep English accent.
"You boys ready for the questions?" I laugh at them.
"Fire them off," chuckles Jack.
"Why would three people move over three thousand miles from home to pursue a career most will fail at?" I asked realizing that someone could ask me the same question about my career choices.
Jack answers, "Well Ryan and Nate came out from Rhode Island and I met up with them here in L.A. from London because I am acting as well. We were all doing a bunch of different kinds of projects in all different fields and began playing music together. We had this natural sync with each other and the music that came out was so different and interesting, we couldn't look away so to speak. So we just kept playing. I think we all came out here to fulfill this need to create stuff, in whatever medium, on the greatest most challenging stage we knew.
I feel the same way and I begin to wonder if that unrelenting need to create is the very same reason I write in the style I had cultivated thus far. So I ask, "Why do you think you play the kind of music you play?"
Ryan looks at Jack and Nate and smiles, "Once we realized that our sound was unique, our writing became very intentional. We aren't just musicians; for lack of a better term I guess you would say we are Artists. We wanted our music to reflect this hybrid idea. It's not just enough to be ONE thing anymore. You have to push yourself. We wanted the music to be classic album music, mainstream radio music, movie music, and just all around good songs."
Interacting with them reminds me of home, the messing around, the explosive laugh made of equal parts "Fuck You" and "Brother's Forever." This environment forces my mind to think. I can feel it. I ask about the song. I have to ask about the song, "Why did you write the song 'Wait For Me'?"
Nate looks right at me, "An Image. I started with an image in my head, and then wrote lyrics for that image. I brought it to the boys and we kicked it around like we always do, trying new ideas together, new kinds of rhythms, beats, riffs. Jack added this haunting sound. We are always trying to develop and intertwine our ideas. The song then transforms itself after all this shuffling and we kind of sit back and say how did we come up with this? We have a couple of things we like to remember when we go in like always trying to keep our ego's out of the music, the sum of our parts is always greater, you know pretty standard stuff to keep us moving forward. I think what we try to do is get ourselves out of the way, so the best possible music can be created. As long as we keep that number one, we won't starve," as he breaks in laughter.
I can't tell you what it is when motivation or inspiration hit the body. A scientist would probably tell you that the moment the thoughts hit the brain a release of Serotonin is what makes you happy, but why the synapses fire the way they do, good luck. I just know what it feels like and I feel it.
"I gotta go," I say in a hurry.
"You're not going to stay for the set?" laughs Nate.
I turn around, "I don't need to."
I hustle back into the hornets nest wearing Heath's grin, pushing the masses like Hunter S. with screaming wicks calling my excitement to the possibilities of interwoven Cannon finales. My car "Minds the Gaps", catching floating green flies like Diesel came back for. I can hear the friends I miss dearly from the streets of Darien, CT yelling, "Hey, Paul Walker, Click it or Tick it." But the road doesn't care about friends or girls, the music does that. I get home and in the darkness the keyboard preys on my self-worth. I sit down and write a full story until the light comes back.
I'm becoming real again.
The band is real. The music is real.
-Johnny Guns
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