Tuning Up

Rehearsing for the reunion tour was interesting. After a few conversations with Borgen, I decided that I was going to run everything aside from my vocals, guitars, and Kevin’s drums on a track. This made practice far more difficult, as I had zero margin for error with the bass and synths being perfect whether or not we were.

I chose to make this even more difficult for myself by adding three songs from the new EP to the setlist. Those songs had never been played outside of a writing and recording environment, so Kevin and I spent hours figuring out the transitions. As difficult as this was, I was having fun. I never felt this joy during the early years of BTR, we were all so serious back then about how we were going to make it, and never took the time to really enjoy the small things.

We were rehearsing next door to Ozean Horizon, so Kiia and I made it our routine to step out and snack together every two hours on the dot. Kevin ended up making a big social media presence for himself with this as he made it a habit to post pictures of us talking and feeding each other in the hallway. At first, I was annoyed by it, but he grew his following from a little over two thousand people to six million in a span of a week.

The media whirlwind around the tour and speculation about us led to a heavy security presence at the practice space, as well as her apartment. The headlines wavered between how saccharin sweet we were to how we were everything wrong with the music industry. As the short space before the tour went along, I started to appreciate Kevin’s posting. That was the place where the narrative was the most accurate, that we were just two adults in their twenties enjoying being in love for the first time.

Five days before the tour, Tony and Kiia were able to start working with us on When Angels Cry and Prisoner. Kiia’s playing on Prisoner took some time to adjust to. Usually, I played rhythm on the song while Richie was lead, but with the time constraints, Kiia played my part while I handled lead. For When Angels Cry, since I already played the lead parts, Kiia was able to play the simple underlying chords. This made her life easier so she could just focus on the learning and rearranging the secondary vocal lines.

“Wow, this version really is much better than the original,” Kevin remarked after our tightest run of When Angels Cry.

“Yeah, she’s got my vocal beat,” Tony added. “It’s kind of crazy that you’ve never considered doing a more mellow solo album.”

Kiia shrugged, “I’ve never had any interest in it. After meeting Cy, I’m even less interested in it. Sure, I’m a really good frontwoman, but I’ve always been backed up by a great band.”

“Speaking of bands, I keep seeing your bass player, Nate. Whatever happened to Rome?” Kevin cut in.

Kiia looked nervously at me before speaking, “Well, we had a big fight with Rome during the whole Tara scandal…We were on tour with her a couple of months after it happened and she wouldn’t stop saying awful things about Cy,” she paused. “One night, Rome got really frustrated about it and got into a fist fight with her drummer.”

She pulled me in closer for comfort.

“After the incident we got cornered by Tara and the promoter. We were fine with getting kicked off the tour over it, but the promoter was threatening to black ball us over the incident. Rome lost his mind in the meeting, talking about having some integrity to stick up for a band that always put in a good word for us…Hank and him got into a screaming match about it, and that was it.”

She gave me a pained look.

“Rome just left that night and never spoke to any of us again…I know he did it to protect our reputation, but I wished he had handled it differently.”

I kept her hand in mine as she finished. I did wonder what happened to him, but I was afraid to ask. Rome and I kept in touch for a little while after he left OH, but he never told me what happened, and like everyone else he disappeared on me too.

“Wow, I mean, I just ran into him. He’s been working for some promoter, but after the indie showcase he took over as Hedgehogs’ manager,” Tony added, not realizing how surprising this was.

“You’re kidding,” Kiia let slip without a thought.

“Yeah, he’s been great for them too. He’s gotten them on a bunch of emo-night shows with cover bands, and that’s been huge for them. All of the elder emos are getting forced exposure to a band that walked straight out of 2012,” Tony continued, showing he knew way more about this than he should have.

“Anyway, maybe we’ll run into them at some point,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“Yeah, let’s try to get a few more runs in of the songs. I want to make sure that we’re fine for the kickoff show in Pittsburgh,” Tony took my cue. “But, Cy, why the Hell do you have the tour going from Pittsburgh to Buffalo to Foxboro to East Rutherford? That just seems a little unnecessary.”

I smirked, not really knowing how to explain it. “Well, I just didn’t want OH to do hometown kickoff shows on back-to-back tours. The hometown show is supposed to give you a boost of energy. The third show isn’t ideal, but it’s better than the first.”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense,” Tony accepted my reasoning.

We finished our musical preparation that night. Everything was as tight as it was going to be. All that was left was getting in the headspace for the road.

Borgen’s biggest prize for this tour was how much he was saving on transportation and lodging. With Kiia and I being a package deal, and Kevin and Tony accepting being a package deal, the need for two buses and three rooms for a major tour was outright robbery.