Beyond, the band. - 1977

Just for the record, Robbie won the talent show. By that time, I introduced him to Joey, and we may have even jammed a couple of times before that. Robbie performed last and blew everyone off the stage. He totally brought the house down! Nobody played guitar like that back then around here, especially in junior high. Joey and I were in the crowd raising hell and giving each other high fives. It ruled! There was some prima donna girl who thought she had it in the bag with her karaoke song...she was crying and all butthurt...it was so awesome.

Before we ever played any music together, Robbie, Joey, and I got really high on some of Robbie's killer weed. He always had the killer. Robbie worked part-time at KFC, and he also dabbled in dealing pot. Joey and I were both fourteen, and Robbie was sixteen or seventeen; we were not sure why we were in the same grade, and we didn’t give a fuck. But he was older, so he definitely had more street smarts than we did, and a lot of common sense, too, which was in short supply around my house. He had a black belt in karate, and his reputation for kicking ass was well known around Donelson, Tennessee, where he lived with his mom and dad, sister, and little brother. His dad was a sweet blue-collar guy, and he loved his boy, supported him in pursuing music. He was happy for Robbie to have friends over to jam. We were made to feel right at home right off the bat. His mom made us sandwiches and iced tea every time we came over. They were the sweetest people ever.

I will never forget the first time we jammed together; It fucking rocked from the get-go! The killer weed surely had something to do with it, but we had a blast. Joey was a kick-ass drummer, and Robbie just wailed on lead guitar while I laid down the fat-ass rhythm guitar. I think everything we played was in the key of A or E. We would jam for ten or fifteen minutes at a time and then end on a massive power chord like Skynyrd did at the end of Free Bird live. It felt so damn good. We didn’t have any bass or vocals, and we didn’t care!

We were a band, by God.

It wasn’t long after the first or second practice that we came up with our name: Beyond. 

This was the first of many names for bands that I would come up with.

(Other names I came up with over the years after were: Ezekiel Steel, Natas Dog, Aura, and Assault. Natas Dog and Assault were killer metal names. Mom had a hard time with Natas Dog...She asked just what in the hell were we up to..."Michael, do I need to be concerned?")

We loved it, and Joey and I would sit and draw logos in class and talk about the band and how much ass we were going to kick. Joey and I were tight, and living closer together, we were able to hang out more. By that time, we were riding motorcycles, and whenever we weren’t jamming, we would be out dirt riding in the trails by The Place.

We jammed quite a bit that spring, riding the bus home with Robbie, getting high, and then going into his room and throwing down. Robbie’s dad would often drive the ten or twelve miles to Edge-O-Lake to take us home afterward. Either Joey’s mom or dad, or mine, would drive us over and pick us up from time to time, but I think it was Robbie’s dad that did most of the carting. We kept hearing a rumor that Rob was going to get his license soon and would be able to drive. Fuck yeah.

It felt good being in a band. After a couple of years of teenage awkwardness and feeling like I didn’t fit in anywhere, now I was where I belonged, with my band. We were all letting our hair grow out long and wearing our bell bottoms and boots. We would walk the halls together after class, and everybody would move out of our way and whisper when we would walk by. It was like being in a gang, and Robbie was our leader because he was older, and he was a badass on the guitar. He wasn’t a dick though, he wasn’t mean, he was humble, but everybody knew you didn’t fuck with him or us. In reality, Robbie was one of the sweetest guys I ever knew growing up, he was a good friend, and he stood up for me more than once. I made fun of this big dude on the softball field one day at PE because he swung like a girl. Well, he didn't punch like a girl in the locker room afterward! After he hit me, Robbie grabbed him and slammed him up against a locker...dude didn't punch Robbie. Most of all, he always encouraged me on guitar, especially when I would get frustrated or bummed out about my playing. He taught me so much not only about playing but also about attitude, loyalty, and friendship.

I had another friend from the neighborhood named Jeff. He was a wild ass, and we became good friends because we dated these two sisters. We would get drunk and high, ride motorcycles together, get in trouble, and generally have a fucking blast...most of the time...until I almost killed him in a motorcycle wreck, but I'm getting ahead of myself. The more I talked about the band, the more Jeff wanted to be in it. The only problem was, he couldn’t play an instrument. We were hanging out one day at The Place, and I said, “Jeff if you could talk your mom into buying you a PA and a microphone, you could be the singer in Beyond. I know Joey and Robbie would be cool with it, man.” It never occurred to me to ask, or even wonder, if he could sing. It obviously did not occur to him either. He just wanted to be in the damn band, and singing had to be easier than learning how to play bass. I figured he would be pretty good because he could talk shit like nobody I had ever heard.

I brought Jeff over to one of our practices, and of course, he was blown away by Robbie. He hit it off with everybody after we smoked a couple of joints and drank a few Miller ponies. The next time Jeff came over, we were unloading a brand new Peavey PA system with a four-channel head, two columns, and an awesome lead singer mic and stand. 

The first time we jammed with Jeff was fucking hilarious! We plugged everything up and started playing with no agenda or plan whatsoever. We didn’t talk about lyrics or where he should sing in the songs or anything. He jumped right in and “sang” some stuff for a couple of verses, then Robbie would wail, and Jeff would sing a little more until we did one of our huge endings. We played so fucking loud that you couldn’t really hear anything he was saying or if he was singing in key, but we were happy to be more like a real band, so we didn’t give a shit... not one.

We thought we were fucking badass, and that was all that mattered.

We worked on perfecting the Beyond “sound” the whole summer between ninth and tenth grade. We had the time of our lives. Robbie did get his license, and his dad started letting him drive. He would come and get us in the beat-up Ford Falcon, we would load up on beer, Robbie could totally pass off as eighteen, the legal age at the time, then we would go to the lake and get drunk, or we would ride around and smoke weed, yell at girls, and be a band. We would always end up over in Robbie’s room, jamming our hearts out and then having sleepovers afterward where we would sneak out into the night doing what teenagers do. We all had girlfriends off and on. If they had weed, we let them come to rehearsal sometimes. I was all about the band and jamming; Jeff was more about the party. He and Robbie were starting to have that in common, but not enough for it to be a problem yet. (Just for the record, I had nothing against the party, but Jeff would get super fucked up and step all over my cables and shit, then sit on my amp and fuck up the controls, pissing me off.)

Our first ever real gig was in Lewisburg, Tennessee, at the National Guard Armory. Somehow we had hooked up with this bass player, "John something" from Lewisburg. His dad brought him to a few practices all the way from Lewisburg to Nashville. I think he responded to a flyer we put up in Donelson Music store, one of those little flyers with the tear-off phone numbers. John was very straight-laced and proper, a really good boy. His devoted father would drive him one hundred miles so he could jam with us while he waited in the car or whatever he did while we rocked. When John first came in, he introduced himself all proper and shook our hands. That was fishy right off the bat. He really didn't listen when I tried to show him the songs, he just played whatever, but he did have a nice bass and amp, which counted for something. He also didn't cuss or drink, so we made fun of him big time after he left. Robbie wasn't sure about him, and we all knew it too, especially when he said: "Man, I ain't sure about this John dude, boys."

"Yeah, he's kind of a pussy, but his bass is cool," I said as I exhaled a long cloud of pot smoke. "Let's see if he can learn the songs, and maybe we can loosen him up a little in the meantime."

Everybody said okay, so we had us a bass player.

John was very excited about being in a band, and he was ready to play a show! He was so ready to play a show, he went ahead and booked us into the National Guard Armory in Lewisburg. It didn't really matter that he didn't know the songs; I think he just wanted to make sure he got to play his bass solo in front of his hometown crowd. 

I don't think John Something had ever been laid before.

He came to one more practice before the show and gave us the lowdown on the gig. It would be on a Saturday night, and there would be another band playing after us. I really don't think we even practiced. We sat around and talked about everything we would need to do to get all of our shit up to Lewisburg. After Robbie talked to his Dad, that problem was solved. He would rent a U Haul trailer and take us all up there, hang with us for the day, and bring us back after. (See? I told you his dad was the shit! Who does that?)

I wish I could tell you I remember everything about my first ever road trip with a band, but I don't.

I remember being there and us going out riding around listening to Ted Nugent's newly released Cat Scratch Fever 8 track with some local dude in his muscle car. We got really high on weed and almost died going 100 miles per hour on this curve out in the boonies. I remember sound check and how all the people standing around shit their pants when Robbie started practicing his solo. I think we had a crowd that night because word got out about Robbie after that soundcheck. You gotta love small towns, man.

The other band was a bunch of older guys that played covers, they were really bad, even by our standards, and they were all blown away by Robbie and Joey. Look, here's the deal: Robbie was a fucking boy wonder awesome fucking rock-n-roll guitar player, and Joey was a well-trained kick-ass drummer. On the other hand, I'd been playing a few months and could play some barre chords with a Wah Wah. I pretty much sucked, as did Jeff, and none of us knew what the fuck was going on with John; we had seen him maybe twice in our lives. We had Robbie and Joey, though, and they were badass, so we didn't give a fuck.

We teamed up with the other band and put all of our gear on the floor together, so we looked more awesome. Then we took these cafeteria-style tables and stacked them three high on their sides behind us, about five across, so we had this huge wall behind us. One of the other band members was all stoned and said: "Mahhyun, it would be bayyyuud if it wuz awl silver mahyunnn!" So we went down to the local Bi-Rite and bought all of their aluminum foil. By showtime, we had this huge silver wall behind us! With some creative positioning of the few shitty lights we had, suddenly we had this eerie-looking alien stage set. You should have seen the looks as the local rock fans started to stream in. There were a lot of them too.

We were the first band, and by the time we were set to go on, there must have been 200 people in there. We were all nervous and excited. None of us really thought about the fact that John didn't really know the songs, and in retrospect, it didn't matter. When Joey counted off, and I hit that first note of Beyond, the first riff I ever wrote, we were fucking on fire! I'm sure it sounded like a train wreck because Joey, Robbie, and I were pretty much together on what we were playing, but Jeff was just screaming random shit. John was off on his own orbit playing some jazzy hippty hoppity lick; that was the only thing he knew how to play. The whole thing is like a dark, noisy, scream dream in my memory. I remember a bunch of people's blank stares in the shadows as I played my heart out. Lights shining in my eyes as I struggled to find my wah pedal on the floor, cheers for Joey and Robbie when they did their killer solos, more blank stares as John did his weird shitty bass solo, and then...

It was over.

Sweat streamed down my face, and through stinging eyes, I saw that the drummer from the other band had Joey on his shoulders, doing a rebel yell, and is carrying him around like the winner of some Texas Chainsaw Massacre themed sporting event. Robbie is surrounded by a bunch of people trying to get his autograph, and I am getting bombarded with pats on the back and: "Yawl was killer mahhyun!" and "Baaaod ayuss maon!"

I guess they didn't get many rock shows in Lewisburg back then.

The ride home was triumphant. Robbie's dad took us to Sizzler at a stop on the way, and we all fell asleep crammed together in the back of the station wagon for the rest of the drive to Nashville.

We never heard from John again.

I'm pretty sure his dad figured out we were not the fine upstanding men John told him we were.

We didn't care. We sounded better without the bass.

******

Beyond carried on a while longer into the fall of 10th grade at McGavock High School, still thinking we were awesome, oblivious to the fact that we had no clue. There were also the beginning signs of big artistic differences. We finally realized Jeff couldn't sing, so then he wanted to play guitar...great. Jeff couldn’t play guitar, so I showed him a variation of the barre chord that was just two notes that you could do with one finger, but he rarely played it in the right position, oh, and he couldn’t tune a guitar, either. There were also petty jealousies over girls and weed bags that were supposed to be used to sell joints that were coming up short.

Somehow we landed a gig opening for a band at the McGavock High Auditorium on a Thursday night. We went in with high anticipation; this was the prestige stage of our youth! 

I'm sorry to inform you that we totally desecrated the stage that night. Jeff was a train wreck on guitar; he should have stuck to "singing." Come to think of it, I think he “sang” on a couple of tunes because there was a mic there... Jesus. Robbie was having technical issues with a shitty cable that he was too stubborn to replace, we couldn't score any weed beforehand, and we didn't want to show up drunk because our parents were there.

I remember looking out into an audience of pained expressions and people heading for the doors. Stone-cold sober reality set in. 

To make matters worse, the band that played after us were older guys, obviously well-rehearsed pros, and they were kicking major ass. They were doing Skynyrd and Marshall Tucker, playing harmony leads, they had a bass player, they could sing...the whole nine.

As we were packing up our gear backstage in our non-high, sober shame, those guys drove the stake in our hearts one song at a time. Robbie kept saying, "Man! They are blowing us away! They are kicking our ass! We suck!"

Jeff kept passing it off. "Nah, man, we weren't that bad; we were pretty good. We just had an off night. Those guys are just older; we kick-ass, man!" He said it halfheartedly, but you could even see it in his eyes...he knew.

The dream was over, the illusion was gone... we were not bad as fuck, man.

We sucked ass.

This is the place in many a young rocker’s life where you have to make a decision...

“Am I really gonna try to do this shit? Or, should I start thinking about my future?”

That last part never even occurred to me.

I made a pact with myself that night. 

"I live for fucking rock n roll. I’m going to learn how to play lead guitar. And... I will never set foot on a stage again unless I'm well-rehearsed and playing real songs with a goddamn bass player and a real singer! We are going to kick fucking ass and take fucking names!" Something like that.

It was time to go to the woodshed.

                                   Me and Grandma with the Electra....she prayed for me constantly ;)