History Of Normality

“I believe that he was dead before the procedure was started…” Dr Richards lied. The last thing he needed right now was another damned lawsuit. The amount he’d had in the past made him ask himself how he still had a job, especially as a surgeon.

“He was definitely alive before he went in there, how could you let something like this happen? You’re a veteran surgeon!” A woman yelled and cried.

“Um yes. Yes I believe I am. Thank you for the compliment. Next in line please” Dr Richards ended the conversation and shoved the woman aside. He wore a white doctor’s coat that had blood marks all over it, that looked fairly recent. He was average in height and weight and had short, light brown hair. He wore glasses that made him look more smart then stupid.

“Hello Mister… Dr Richards… My name is Peterdea and I’m interested in starting up a band and you’re the first on my list of non musicians.” A tall man wearing all black clothes and black sunglasses said confidently. He was very tall, he had long brown hair with small parts dyed blonde and blue. He had a small, messy goatee as well as a small mustache growing.

“Okay Mister Peterdea, I will join on one condition.” Dr Richards replied.

“Which would be?” Peterdea asked removing his sunglasses from his face.

“I want you to say that I successfully fixed your heat, I believe my reputation is a little fucked.”

“That’s all I have to do? Consider it done.”

Peterdea was incredibly happy that Dr Richards had signed the contract so easily. Almost as if he was in some sort of trouble. But Peterdea wasn’t one to care, he just moved on to his next potential band mate. His name was Stephen Terrel.

Dr Richards accompanied Peterdea to Stephen’s house to try and make it look much more professional.

“So let me get this straight…” Stephen looked Peterdea in the eye. “You want me to join a band. In the process I have to give up my high paying job that is known as Unemployment?”

“Yes that would be the idea…” Peterdea replied. He look at Stephen Terrel and noticed his long blue hair came down to his shoulders. He was only a bit shorter then Peterdea. He spoke with a slight English accent which was and still is arguably fake. His attire was a T-shirt that said “Give me one good reason to give a flying kcuf”.

“Alright, listen here, you have one minute to give me one good reason to give a flying cuff…” He said seriously.

“Just like the shirt hey? Anyway, there’s lot’s of money involved, you get to travel and there’s free food involved.”

“Let me think about it…” Stephen paused for a moment. “I’ll join on one condition.”

“What would that be?” Dr Richards asked, finally saying something.

“The free food must include free McDonald’s cheeseburgers.”

“Deal.” Peterdea quickly agreed.

Soon after, Stephen has joined Peterdea and Dr Richards on the way to their final stop. The man who would finish the band. His name was Durling.

“G’day mate. Ya’z here fa shaza?” Durling asked the three guys.

“No, we’re here to see you Mr Durling.” Peterdea replied.

“Call me Durls. Come in boys. Sit in there, footys on toy voy, if yaz want some voy boy I’ll grab yaz a can.”

“Uhh no thanks.” Peterdea spoke for everyone.

An hour or so later Durling had signed the contract. He was promised a life supply of free VB and chances to meet the Australian Cricket Team and possibly even meet ACDC.

That’s where I come in. The band spent hours coming up with a name. They came to the conclusion that State of Normality was the way to go. They played a song called Magic Glasses in a competition and it was the most unique thing I had ever heard. So I decided to offer them two things. A second guitarist named Bairdy who would surely buy the band all kinds of instruments with his wealth and fortune, and a 2 year contract to my world famous record company, known as “Pickle Fuzz Records”. They responded very positively to Bairdy’s charisma and skill. He worked well with Stephen.

They decided that Stephen would play guitar since he came up with the guitar for Magic Glasses and he got on with Bairdy well enough to ensure work would get done.

Peterdea was given the job of vocals and keyboards where necessary, Dr Richards was on drums and Durling played Bass.

I remember them asking me for time to record and write, Stephen came up and he says to me, “Mr. Jackson, you’re promoting us too quickly, we need time to write before you tell the world how great we are!”

I pretty much said “Call me Pickle, Mr. Jackson is lame. And there’s no harm in promoting you early, it will give you a kick off time. But how’s this, I’ll give you the next two months to write and record an EP, then we promote like hell!”

So that was the end of the recruiting stage, we had a full band of ready non musicians, with a bit of Bairdy thrown on top, about to take the world head on with music. The music they produced would decide the fate of not only the band, but due to the amount of money I had already put into these guys, my balls were on the table to, as bad as that sounds, the mob are really strict with their repayments. But now for more on the band!

I guess the recording didn’t start off very well. We were recording our first song. It was called Amy Armadillo which was written by me and edited a bit by Pickle. Firstly, there was Stephen, who didn’t seem to be taking the stress too well. He couldn’t keep in tune, played the wrong chords and was basically a huge mess. In the first few days there were several occasions where Pickle had to take him outside and tell him to compose himself.

Then there was Durling, who couldn’t keep his mind on the job. Every time we’d be getting ready to start recording, he’d start playing some other completely unrelated song on the bass. Then, every time we told him to play what we were playing and focus, he’d say “Oi, chill Bill! I’m just practisin’!” then he’d reach down to grab his can of VB and have another mouthful. Then he’d say “What the hell are we waitin’ for? The quicker we start playin’ the quicker I meet the Aussie cricket team and Acka Dacka!”

Dr. Richards was probably a bit too timid for the drums. Pickle was constantly telling him to drum harder, and hen at the start of the next recording, the doctor would hit the drums nice and loud, then drift off as the song went on.

Bairdy wasn’t so bad. He was definitely the most pro out of all of us, but he wasn’t offering any of his experienced advice to the rest of the band, and we really needed it. He just sort of kept to himself and didn’t say much. I guess it was because he was the odd one out, the last recruit, and he didn’t really have the confidence to come out of his shell yet.

I’ll admit that I was making a few mistakes too, but Pickle was helping me to reach the vocal goals that were required. I guess it’s only natural for the band not to be great for their first recording, but there was really no way to describe us other than complete and utter shit. Well, I suppose there are other ways to describe us. A car crash. Hunk of crap. Destined for failure.

That’s what I thought at the time, anyway. But Pickle was really helping us. He had the good idea of banning Durling from drinking beer during recording, since he had ended up pissed by the end of each recording day, forcing us to finish early. One day it got really bad, when he stood up in the middle of a good recording and started playing a solo, which was probably the worst piece of so-called “music” I have ever heard. Stephen, fed up with Durling’s crap, grabbed a drum stick out of Dr. Richard’s hand and cracked Durling over the back with it. Durling howled, turned around and swung his arm at Stephen. He misjudged on his follow-through and fell forward to the ground. Then he muttered something that sounded like “Fuckin’ prick” and started snoring.

On the fifth day of recording, the first song still wasn’t done.

“Okay, guys, we’ve just got to focus,” Pickle told us. “We’re nearly there. We’ve nearly got it.”

And things just seemed to gel together. Bairdy and Stephen were great on guitar, Bairdy nailed his solo. Dr. Richards banged the shit out of the drums and it sounded perfect for the hard-rock sound of the song. Durling was pretty good on bass, although in the song you couldn’t really hear it over the guitars. And I’m pretty sure I got the vocals down pretty good. By the end of the next 4 minutes, the mood of the band had lifted a huge amount. It felt like we had overcome our first hurdle, and we were ready to take on the next one.