This was Lister Bird they were talking about. Jimmy did not want Lister to join their band. A boy who never did any homework, picked fights, and was constantly in detention. The drummer was none other than their school’s resident delinquent, class joker, and troublemaker. “You have to be shitting me,” said Rowan. They knew exactly what the other was thinking, but voiced their thoughts anyway.Īs quietly as possible, they approached practise room 4 and peered through the door window. The sound was unmistakably real and it was coming from practise room 4. This was more complex drumming than he’d ever heard anyone play in school, including their music teacher, who actually used to drum in an amateur metal band.īut no. But as they approached the practise rooms, a sound caused them to halt in their tracks.įor a moment, Jimmy wondered whether they were just listening to a recording. Jimmy and Rowan wandered through the corridors towards the music department as usual, ready for another hour trying to turn ‘Plug It In’ by Basement Jaxx into some sort of guitar duet. In fact, the day came much sooner than either of them expected. They went back to playing covers and dreaming about the day they’d find the perfect person to join their duo. Jimmy and Rowan doubted they’d want to join a band with a couple of thirteen-year-olds.įor a while, they gave up. They scoped out the private music lesson timetables up on the walls of the music department – apparently only four kids in their school had private drum lessons, and they were all in Year 11 or above. They asked all of their friends and acquaintances. Rowan was slightly better but had no interest in learning to play it well – if he was going to be in a band, he wanted to play the guitar, or nothing at all. But Jimmy had terrible arm/leg coordination and could barely get a basic 4/4 rock beat going whenever he tried on one of the practise room drumkits. And while they had a wide breadth of musical talent – Jimmy could play both the piano and the guitar with exceptional proficiency for his age as well as being a strong vocalist and Rowan could play most instruments he turned a hand to – neither of them could play percussion. Not the sort of band Jimmy and Rowan wanted to be in, anyway. Bass guitar was his thing.īut there weren’t many bands that could thrive with only two members. Rowan enjoyed playing the cello, but that had been his parents’ idea from the start. But to Rowan it felt like a necessity after he started to enjoy playing the bass guitar far more than the cello. Music was the centre of his world and he knew it always would be. For Jimmy it had always felt like an inevitability – he’d grown up with his grandad’s love of seventies rock and his grandma’s love of the piano. Neither of them were sure when the desire to start a band hit them. Unlike their other friends, Jimmy and Rowan were serious about music. They didn’t admit it to anyone but that’s how they preferred it. Sometimes friends joined them, but often they were alone. That was their hangout spot, always, even in the summer when most other kids would spend their lunchtimes playing football or lounging on the school field. If you needed to talk to Jimmy or Rowan, the school’s music department was the place to search. They would have no reason at all to approach someone like Lister Bird. There were occasional encounters with bullies, but they preferred not to dwell on those. They were the school’s star music pupils – Rowan was taking his grade 8 cello exam aged only thirteen, while Jimmy was always called upon to play the guitar at school events.Īnd they never got into any trouble. They spent their lunch breaks in the music practise rooms, playing Kula Shaker and The Killers covers, and their evenings in Jimmy’s grandad’s garage, making up songs. That’s how it had been since primary school and how it would undoubtedly stay. They had other friends, but they didn’t need to let anyone else into their inner circle. Jimmy and Rowan had no desire for a friend like that. Lister didn’t seem to do much except cause trouble, scowl, and refuse to roll down his sleeves. And he was often spotted sitting outside the Head of Year 7-9′s office catching up on homework he’d obviously failed to turn in. His appearance was so often messy that it had to be deliberate – loose tie, untucked shirt, and scuffed knees. If a teacher was screaming at someone in the corridor outside your class, chances are it was at Lister. If there was a fight outside the school gate, Lister was probably involved. You couldn’t not know who Lister Bird was. If Jimmy and Rowan could have picked the last kid in school they ever expected to become friends with, it would have been Allister Bird.
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