CHAPTER RELEASE - DECEMBER 2019

Crawling down the narrow, carpeted hallway of Willow Lane on my hands and knees, I made the turn out of my bedroom, and down to halfway, where in silence I nestle up against Mat’s bedroom door. He and a few of his mates have blockaded themselves in there to listen to music and talk about whatever high school teenagers talk about. It was summer holidays, so they weren’t in any rush to go anywhere, which meant they would spend all afternoon in there. With my ear pressed against the hollow timber veneer door, I could hear the tremble of the bass, and the muffled music to Nirvana’s Nevermind, Pearl Jam’s Ten, Offspring’s Smash or what I consider the album we played the most, Silverchair’s Frogstomp.

Mum had bought the 3 albums Nevermind, Ten and Frogstomp for $20 from Brashes Music Store, for Mat for Christmas the year before. It was something about Silverchair that we related to. We listened to that album morning, day and night, at home, down the shack and in the car. We knew the album back to front, lyric for lyric and every beat of the drum, hit of the snare and crash of the symbols. There was something in particular that felt familiar about Daniel Johns. He was like the voice to our childhood. We would hang on every word of each song, and every interview he would give on ABC’s Recovery music show that we sat and watched in the lounge room every Saturday morning. Every time a new album came out, we would demand mum take us into town so that we could buy it, and then race home and argue about who’s room we would listen to it in first – it was always Mat’s room, even though we had a CD player in the lounge room.

That same summer Mat was given a second-hand drum kit for Christmas. He had been in a band at High School for the last couple of years, having his own at home would allow him to practice more often. When the drum kit first arrived, I wasn’t even allowed to look at it, let alone touch it with one of the timber drum sticks that sat perfectly vertical on the snare drum.  Mat would shut his door, turn up the music on his stereo, before banging away in time with whatever song he was playing along to. Once Mat started playing, this meant he was preoccupied enough, to not notice his bedroom door being slowly creaked open. Without looking at the corner where he was sitting, I would poke my head through the crack in the door, eyes towards the floor, and slide the rest of my body through the gap as if I was moving between an electric fence and didn’t want to get zapped. I would be careful with each step that I made not to knock anything or to cause a distraction, before slowly and calmly sitting on the end of his bed. Mat knew I was in the room, it was a tiny space, and I was all of 1 metre away, but he kept playing as if I wasn’t there. Once a minute or two had passed, I would guide my eyes up to watch his hand movements across each of the pieces of equipment that made the drum kit up. I watched every move, listened to every strike of the snare, roll of his wrists over the rack toms, the kick of the floor drum and crash of the cymbals.  I spent hours observing him and on a Saturday morning watching the music videos on Rage. After weeks of doing this, I eventually learned how to visualise the drumming, with what hand or foot move was connected to what sound. I would have to wait until Mat wasn’t home to even consider going near his drum kit, because if he knew I was touching it, blood would be spilled. I wasn’t even allowed to step foot in his room when he wasn’t there, he would come home and see that a CD was not in place and all hell would break loose and Mum would have to break us up.

As soon as Mat had left home, I would hear the back fly screen door slam shut, and out the kitchen window I would watch him make his way up the street on his bike. On a top secret mission, I would then dart my way to his bedroom, shut the door and position myself behind his black drumkit. It took a moment for me to reach down to pick up the drum sticks that I had spent hours watching, and wanting to put to use myself. Mum had made Mat put a doona in the floor tom so that it wouldn’t make as much noise and to avoid the complaints from our neighbours. When hit hard enough, a large amount of noise would boom out of the bedroom windows even when they were shut. I would spend hours sitting on that stool, to the point where my back would ache and the skin on the inside of my index fingers would start to blister. The pain I could bare for the sake of getting better. After watching 2-3 hours of Rage which we recorded religiously every Saturday morning, I would get a song in mind, listen to it over and over, and play close attention to what the drummer was doing in the film clip. I would watch every move made behind the drum kit and then take myself to Mat’s bedroom to put it into practice. I would have the song playing inside my head, hum the beat and would start playing slowly and quietly until I would eventually find the rhythm of the song and be able to play it freely.

The first song I mastered was Silverchair's ‘Leave Me Out’ off the Frogstomp Album. I got to the stage where I could confidently play it from start to finish, which also meant I wanted to play it louder and harder. This also meant that I couldn’t hear the back fly screen door slam when someone come home Sitting on the stool, dripping in sweat after playing for hours, Mat’s bedroom door swings open and the gush of air from it hits me in the face and I’m almost blows me off the stool, not because the strength of the breeze, but the shock that entered my body when I realised the only person that would be opening the door like that was Mat. My life was now in danger. I jump up off the stool, trying to disown the drumsticks and what I had being doing. There is a look of rage in Mat’s eyes, as his dark eyebrows narrow, nostrils widen, and breath gets heavier as if he is a bull about to charge at a red cape. Cornered in his bedroom against his wardrobe, there is only one way out of the bedroom, through the door way he is standing in. In a flash of a moment, and do or die circumstance, I turn around to face his bedroom window, rip the curtains out of the way, and slide the window almost off it’s railing and jump out of the window head first onto the dry, hard, cactus like front lawn, and army roll my way out of there. As soon as I get to my feet I turn around to face Mat’s bedroom window waiting for him to follow me. All I can see is his silhouette standing still through the curtains before it disappears. I stay out on the front lawn with my eyes switching from one side of the house to the other, expecting a full on attack from either the back or front door. For 10 minutes I am on high alert, until I hear the back door slam shut. I make my way to the street side of the house, to see Mat back on his bike riding up towards Mt Leslie Road. With a sigh of relief, my heart rate begins to lower, I have managed to survive.  

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