#backstage secrets

VSFS 2011 

My awakening of the previous night brought me into a state of need and urgency. I remember not being able to believe that people behaved like that. People would meet each other open the doors of the tour van and ravage their lips. I was never religious but getting kissed like that made me believe in sin. The school girl I still was left me replaying the words from the previous night over and over in my head. We have more shows this week, you should come. How dare he invite me to a world I knew nothing about! How dare he kiss me like I was a woman and then leave without telling me an address, a number, a time. At the start musicians will expect you to do all the leg work. You are a complete nobody no matter how pretty or funny or outrageous you are. They are a whole lot of somebodies – an immediate power imbalance that nobody in the scene wants to talk about.

I searched Myspace – now you have an insight on when I entered the scene - and I rifled through magazines and found their gig – a bus ride away. My sense of danger has never been good. Taking risks comes natural to me. I caught a bus that night all fishnet stockings, borrowed heels and hopeful eyes. I didn’t have my bus fair home. I didn’t tell anyone where I was really headed. All I brought was my cousin’s lipstick and a lighter. It was going to be a conversation starter with L and then the whole band. We would all joke about it and then D would kiss me again. The mind set of a teenager that obsessed with music and this new scene she had found was making her delusional. These were all also things no one should ever do. Each one of them could get a fourteen year old girl who wore her heart on her sleeve killed – besides maybe offering D a lighter.

I found the venue and headed in the equally dank, dark, grimy shoebox of a place without any ticket or money. My little heart was pounding and the only thing pulling me forwards was the way that the music had touched my soul in a way nothing else in my short life had. The man inside asked for my ticket. He was a huge bouncer like man that scared the life out of me. I actually came to know him quite well later – he was old Army and has three kids, two in university. I probably took a deep breath or maybe I stopped breathing all together. Most likely the latter, I used to panic a lot. “My tickets are inside.” I squeaked out and he let me past but regarded me with dangerous suspicion. I had broken the first barrier but I didn’t know enough about getting to the band to know what the next one was. Even that wouldn’t fly if I tried to enter the scene now.

Roadies were setting up onstage and were shouting orders while the early fans waited. They were barking at each other and flitting past security and through a doorway. They all had stickers on with their name written in scribbles. Tour laminates only really took place when bands start progressing. When they’re not big enough the expense is always too much. I didn’t have one of the stickers so I hung around the stage. My head went from side to side like an animal with paranoia someone was going to kick me out and leave me wanting. Eventually a group of them went backstage and I followed close behind. The best way to get back your first time is to blend. But that wouldn’t be possible now, security is so much tighter. You need to know someone to get back there. That’s why you can’t use this post as a guideline. It’s a lot harder now and you can’t just sneak backstage, especially if you’re not in a shoebox of a venue.

I followed the group of men wearing tired clothes and the door opened. Out walked D and L. D saw me and grinned. He was never charming back then, he was unapologetic. He called out to me and gave me a hug making the frenzy of anticipation that had held me all day get loose. Then I was pulled back and the big tough bouncer type looked down on me. I felt like all my hopes had been scattered, all my wishes had been dashed. I was here. I had everything in my grasp. “She’s with us.” D said. I felt like I had really achieved something. He let me go and I clung to D like a toddler clings to its mother. He gave me a quick kiss to remind me I was here and it wasn’t all just something I had made up in my head.

He took me to a room where the band were and I knew it was real. It’s a hard thing to describe to someone who has never been backstage, even in those tiny little rooms in those tiny little venues. Backstage isn’t a place, it’s a feeling. This time I’ll talk about that room and not the ones you get in arenas. It was tiny with a table for booze and some fold up chairs in the corner. There was a bowl of skittles balancing on an abandoned kick drum that someone was pouring cheap vodka into. The people are packed in like sardines and you can feel everyone’s breath when you make your way forward to get a drink. D poured me some vodka with soda and I took an unhealthy gulp. I had only drank a handful of times before. There were band guys on one side of the room, girls on the other and the odd one had fought through into no man’s land. It was like a school dance, except much edgier.

D asked me what I thought and I didn’t know a cool way to say everyone here were beautiful people who drank and smoked and did other equally rebellious things while I was pretending to be one of them secretly thinking about my curfew. I told D that it was cool but I had done this tons of times. He called me a liar. Everyone in the scene knows everyone, even the American girls know the British girls. I didn’t know that then though. He called over one of the girls in no man’s land and she was my first every experience of what a groupie was. There are different kinds of groupies, two kinds were there that night. There are those who wear tight dresses, too much make-up and are there to sleep with the band. Today they would just be called band whores – them suck off the band to name drop type girls. Then there were the other girls – the flower child, psychedelics, no bra, dreaming of the 60’s type girls. She was one of them girls who walked on air, that Woodstock type. She was a magical pixie with red wavy hair that brushed her waist. She was like Ariel on acid. Her skinny arms wrapped around me and pulled me to her chest engulfing me with her free spirit she would throw around like confetti and that clung to everything around her like glitter.

Her name was V. She was fifteen pretending to be eighteen. V linked arms with me and led me through the mass of bodies. She had a line of blue WKD bottles that were entirely reminiscent of a certain time and a certain place. In my ear she whispered a commentary to the backstage debauchery that in retrospect was very timid compared to what it would be like when the crowd changed later. There were girls standing in one corner who looked glamorous and alluring with long eyelashes and breasts that filled out their bras. They were with another band, a much bigger band. They were the old ones who were retiring. Groupies have a sell by date with anything over twenty eight getting thrown in the used pile. Everyone talks about the size of Connie Hamzy’s balls but no one actually wants to be her – on her knees, sucking off the singer, guitarist, drummer, bass player, tour manager, roadie and intern at the age of fifty. V and a couple of other girls were the next generation. They were first generation – groupies who didn’t know anyone. First generations are the ones who made their way backstage because of their own resilience. They were committed to the cause.

I said earlier that backstage isn’t a place it’s a feeling. Backstage is loud music, free beer and freedom. It is dancing on tables, junk food mixed with spirits, girls being pulled onto the knees of men who have guitars resting on the other. Backstage is the spirit of the music industry, the good parts without any of the deadlines or trivial interests. I was fourteen and out of my depth but I knew backstage was a place filled with geniuses and their muses doing what felt good because it felt good. That is why you can’t separate sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. You do what feels good. It is a selfish place.

D pulled me out with him when he went to go out. The older girls were watching me like disapproving mothers. D was their son and I was his shiny new toy. Who knew when he would use me and get bored? If you let them they will. He pushed me against the wall of the corridor in front of everyone and kissed me as he did before. His lips were against mine and everyone saw. God, I thought I had made it. I felt so important. He treated me rough and did what he wanted, no wonder I was always left wanting more. I was a girl who had been raised to take a peck on the cheek and he was showing me the reason we were born with lips. Deep in my stomach I felt a knot and it loosened when he pulled away. I tried to catch my breath but I would have given it all to him. He kissed me again which such vigour. I felt needed. There was so much need in between our lips.

Then he was grabbed by his shirt and pulled roughly against the opposite wall. L pushed him forwards and away from me leaving me exhausted and panting with no one looking up or even caring about the obvious display of blooming womanhood. V grabbed my hand and took me out after the band and to the back of the venue. Now girls stand side stage but back then they stood at the back unless they were brought on stage by the amp or behind the drummer. She didn’t say anything to me while the band played. We were one in the same, I found my soul sister. I didn’t talk or move. We felt the music and it went from the stage deep inside of me bringing feelings of unbridled ecstasy. To feel the music deep inside of you and get lost in it while the men who play it lose themselves too is goosebumps over the skin and sharp inhales leaving you breathless. To know those men know you and could be getting lost in you is selfish joy and school girl daydreams.

The gig had good music that had hot and sweaty bodies crashing into one another. V took me backstage and D came to me in the corridor. He was sweaty and his hair fell into his face as he pushed me into the pathetic excuse for a green room and pulled me down onto his lap. He pecked my neck which is daring and exciting when kisses have only been had on the lips. He tried to put his hand inside my tank top and through the attention and groupie baptism I had the sense to bat his hands away. He listened as he would always listen and kept me on his lap while the next band played. There were feet on the table and the bowl of skittles and vodka was being passed around but his arms were around my waist in ownership and this new girl wasn’t up for anyone. He had called dibs on the virgin pretending to be something she wasn’t.

Posted: July 20, 2020 Live Link - Facebook || Last Accessed 4/27/2022

A well celebrated birthday (@marcsenter’s, not mine, and two days ago;) is one where you don’t pick up your phone for at least 48 hours after to post anything about it because you’re too engaged in actually celebrating with that person. ❤️ Maybe next year I’ll be able to go a month! What a dream...

Every year, to celebrate Scorps, I post this very same picture (on-set shot from @thedevilscarnival film obvs) because it just can’t be topped. It was also taken mere moments after we first met, and will be the eternal reminder of why we still hang out: any two people who look this cool together legally have to. Really, it’s a law.

I thought it might be amusing to share a new “backstage secret” about this scene every year, beginning with this one: Whilst holding an awkward pose between takes, Scorps had, unasked, announced his body weight to me, though for what reason I still cannot guess, and neither can he. (It was 147.) I didn’t know how to respond to this statement of fact, so I pulled on his jacket and smudged the white makeup on the back of his neck. A crew member covered it with her red scarf, and that is how the 🧣 became a part of the iconic Scorpion costume. 🦂