The audition had been bloody. Smith had various band members by the lapels, shaking them like human piñatas, waiting for ideas to just fall out. Smith kept screaming, for reasons best known to himself, “Peters and Lee!” A new musical detour for us to consider, no doubt. There had been dark mutterings in the ranks about flirtations with “neo-Nazi imagery”. Maybe some black shirts, purchased at BHS. I muttered, somewhat fruitlessly, “Who makes the Nazis?”
All I remembered doing, for my part, was suggesting a lurch towards Krautrock in the new album. And a willingness to play theremin. Id been listening to fifties sci-fi soundtracks on a loop, and drinking energy drinks on painkillers, all day. In my head it had all been so simple. I was no match for Smith’s bellicose nihilism, so had slunk off to bed in the hotel, to stare at the European decor in some vain attempt to glean something akin to clarity. No dice (man).
When I came to, it was three pm. My head felt like a city centre. The band had scarpered, en route I’d heard, to the studio. The newest member, a rudimentary bassist called Seb, only sixteen, spotty little milksop, and but one recipient of said lapel shaking, left a hastily scribbled note for me. It read:
“Smith’s less than enthused by your suggestions. The theremin is for art school wankers. His words, not mine. He’s obsessed with the Peelers just now, and was mumbling about a new EP called ‘Coppers and Peelers’. Said we’d self -produce in Munich, hates birds like you for thinking you can run his group. Usual power trip shit. By the way, it falls to me to tell you, you’re fired.
Soz.
Seb”.
Hit The North 