FicWad

This was it. Our last bit of music. The shit, one would say. The prime time, as Jeff would call it.
Conventional Weapons.
I never realized how much I missed this music until Frank brought it up one day when we were talking while the kids played in the background. The thought had always occurred to me we still had unpublished songs, but then again, every band did. Hell, Billy A over there with his merry band of idiots didn’t even write shit under their own name. But, Frank brought it up, and immediately everything hit me, not like a tidal wave, but a stroke of genius. Why don’t we just do something with it? Give it to someone else? Leave it alone? Put it on the second generation On the Murder Scene we were doing during Danger Days? No, Frank had said. We needed to put it out there. We needed the fans to hear. I always thought that was such a weird way of putting it, ‘needed’ to let the fans hear. Frank had always been the one handling the fans, though.
We talked it over that day, and realized it was actually a good idea. We’d rerecord everything so it was studio quality and go from there. Seemed like fun. I had missed the inane amounts of coffee it took for recording. It would just be fun this time around, considering we already had everything down. We just needed the studio.
The day after was the conference call. Kinda went like this:
“Hey guys.”
“Hey there.”
Mikey kinda smiled.
“Guess what?” Frank was kinda bouncing a little. He was excited.
“What? Did you get another dog, Frank?”
A giggle. “No, no, just listen. It’ll be totally awesome and then we can all be together and—“
Mikey spoke in. “You have an idea about the stuff we just performed back during Black Parade.”
“Wait, how the hell did you know?”
I coughed.
“Gerard, you asshole. I wanted to tell him!”
A shrug from me. “Ah well.”
Ray was thinking. “So we’d record the stuff from then like Ring and stuff and just… release it?”
Frank and I nodded.
Mikey chuckled. “You’s guys need to learn we’re kinda across the country right now. I thought this was a hiatus.”
I shrugged and grinned. “I’ll just come and stay at your place, Mikes! Then, y’know, coffee.”
“Oh yeah…”
Ray spoke in again. “So to Jersey we’d go? Record there, then what? I thought we weren’t touring for a while, Gee.”
I bit my lip. I hadn’t thought the touring bit out too much. Bandit was getting into preschool soon and I wanted to be there.
“Who said we had to tour?”
Three pairs of eyes all went to Frank’s corner of the screen. “What?”
He shrugged. “Y’know, just release. Let the fans hear. If they missed it with post-BP, then ah well, sucks for them.”
Mikey was looking at the ground. “But, touring’s always been us, Frank. Pyros and lights and the make up…” A frown. “Okay, I don’t like the make up. Gerard, no make up if we do tour.”
I chuckled, shrugging. “Make up or no, I wanna be there for B and Lyn.” ‘Ah’s went out in understanding. “And, we’re kinda doing stuff, guys.”
Ray spoke up. “So we don’t tour, we just release. Just record. How should we release? If we let out a cd, then that’s code for ‘look for the dates now’. We don’t have that kind of time if we’re all doing stuff.”
“What if we didn’t let out a cd?”
“Frank, Do you not know how to be clear?”
“Wait wait wait, he might have a good point. If we release a little bit at a time, then we don’t have to worry about touring until at least a month past the first release. Then we can go on, record, release, and take a break before we get started again.”
“Hmm…” I smiled and nodded. “I like that. Of course, we have the kinks to work on, but, if we time it right…”
Frank was writing. “Ten songs, postponed at set times…” He looked up into the camera. “We could set them a month apart each and have almost a year.”
Mikey shook his head, drinking a cup of something. “Too long. I don’t wanna tour this minute but I don’t wanna get really excited and then wait nine months. What if we gave off two a month? Cuts it back to five. Time to do stuff, then touring. That should be more than enough time for anything.”
Ray nodded. “I think it’d work for me.”
Frank smiled. “I like it.”
Pairs of eyes went on me. “What? I haven’t said anything against it, have I?”
We had chatted the rest of the time about planning and all that technical shit, but you could tell we were all excited. I know I was. I fucking loved studio time. Hell, I used to sleep in there because of just doing shit…
When I talked it over with Lindsey, she thought I was crazy.
“So you’re touring again because you have unfinished business.”
“That’s the beauty of it, though. We wouldn’t tour until five months from when we released the first stuff, and I don’t know when that’ll go out!”
“Are you forgetting you have a daughter going into preschool in August? That she’s going to be on her merry way in school soon?”
I hug her here. “You shouldn’t worry. I’ll be here. I promise. I’ll take her to her first day and everything.”
She chuckled a little and shook her head. “People’ll recognize you, Gee…”
I shrugged. “I’ll loose the red. I’ve been getting complacent with it lately anyway. Then, it’ll change again. Who knows. Maybe I’ll have bright shocking blue and be called Gerard the Cockatoo.”
Lyn laughed. “You’re really excited for this. You’re even rhyming.”
“I am? Wow. Please, I promise, it’ll be so much milder than Danger Days. That was two sessions. This way I’ll be around a lot more. I promise.”
“Promise? On the tire swing?”
“On the tire swing.”
So now the guys and Lindsey were as excited for this as Frank and I were when he mentioned it. Annnnd then there was the actual moving of it all. It was a dream, packing one day and being back in Newark the next. I did have to remember to heed Frank’s warning about hand soap though. It might have happened once, but it could happen again.
A week later and we were all back in the studio just munching on Chinese food when the phone rang. Jeff.
“Hey, guys, are you forgetting something?” A chorus of ‘no’s came back. “Are you just going to waltz into the studio and start recording?”
“We’re kinda already in here, Jeffy…”
“What? sigh Guys, do you at least have some semblance of a plan?”
“Yes?”
“I’m coming down there.”
He came down, tried to grill us, but the combination of the Chinese food, beer, and fun times made him consider this. In the end we started on something that night, we started on warming up.
That was in February. It’s kinda October now and I’m really fucking excited. We ran the sound checks on the third batch of songs today, just making sure they’re good for the prerelease. Some of the fans who’ve already heard October’s release has given great reviews on the stuff, about how Boy Division reminded them of Black Parade and Tomorrow’s Money sounded just so much like Three Cheers and Danger mixed together, however that was possible. We hadn’t released the tour dates yet but already we were getting requests for dates and the fans were psyched as always. The website was changed, the hair was changed, studio mode was winding down to a close… It was a good time. I just can’t wait until we tour. I know it’s a band thing to have touring, but I personally love it so much I’d live on tour. Not all the time, but it’s a wonderful life of day-to-day sound checks, shows, and midnight cereal runs.
I guess I’ll see you guys once February comes around.
-Gerard

What did I just write oh my god. I'm so sorry. It just appeared to me. I ain't even proofing this. I just felt the need to write. Just... something. Destroya for some odd reason was the inspiration for this. I think just hearing it full blast with drums all around made me think 'I need to write something' and it came out like this and it's a one-shot I swear and wow I'm rambling but I don't know what's going on it's like I'm high but on the music or the internet or My Darkest Days maybe because I was listening to that earlier and I read a Rydon earlier and that escalated quickly in that story and what not and maybe it's that, the sleep deprivation, the music, and just me being me having written this down.
Maybe the voices'll come to me again. Maybe I'll write more.
-Rachel