The Old Boy Pretending To Be Nineteen Again, Part II

I arrived twenty minutes early for my first RCX rehearsal.  I mostly wanted to make sure that the drums were set up in the same format I was used to.  The studio has an in-house drum kit, and the drummers in each camp are free to arrange them any way they wish.  Worst case scenario would be having a left-handed drummer being the last guy to use the RCX kit before you.  Luckily for me, the drums were precisely how I liked them, given the equipment at hand.  The main differences between the RCX kit and the one I have in the cobwebbed basement of the Quentin Estates is that the RCX kit has one instead of two "ride" tom toms (i.e., attached to the bass drum), and there are two crash cymbals at the studio instead of one.  It did not take long to adjust to the discrepancy.

The first person I met before practice was the lead guitarist, Alex.  (Just as in Part I, I am using fictitious names here.)  He quickly informed me that this would be his sixty-second camp.  What??  I had been under the impression that RCX alums were all in 301 camps.  What was he doing here in a 201?  Also, what if the other four band members, i.e., everyone but me, were also RCX alums?  As it turned out, that was exactly the case.  I would be the only new kid on the block.  (I use the term "kid" loosely, as I was at least fifteen years older than the next oldest bandmate.)

The remaining campers arrived before 7:00, and they all knew each other, at least to varying degrees.  The second guitarist was Paul.  His day job was being a radiologist, and once or twice he showed up from work with his blue med shirt on.  He is the only bandmate whose occupation I learned.  The bass player was Kerry, a name I intentionally chose for this post because, for some reason, I inexplicably called him by that erroneous name periodically.  I guess he "looked like" a Kerry to me.  (His real name does begin with a "K.")  Tammy and Sara were the keyboardist and lead singer, respectively.  Although there had been an introductory round of emails, this was my first opportunity to meet my bandmates in person.  I found them to have the right mixture of friendliness and seriousness.  We were all there to have an enjoyable experience, but on the other hand we had each plunked down money to form a band, as it were, so there was work to be done.

Although Rock Camp had assigned a fellow named Terry to be our coach, he had a gig with his own band that first evening, so Henry, the same coach who auditioned me in April, subbed for him.  Henry enthusiastically welcomed the six of us, then had us briefly introduce ourselves to our bandmates and explain why we chose the Foreigner camp.  The first two to speak were Paul and Kerry, both probably in their early forties.  They stated that even though they were too young to remember when Foreigner was cranking out hits, they were still big fans.  Then it was my turn.  My statement was that, unfortunately, I was not too young to recall Foreigner's heyday.  In fact, I was one of their contemporaries, just three years younger than Mick Jones and three years older than Lou Gramm and Dennis Elliott.

After the intros Henry gave us a preview of what was in store for that first session and the remaining three.  The plan for the first session was to dig into the first three songs designated by RCX for this camp.  Then, in the next two succeeding weeks we'd add somewhere between three to five more Foreigner songs.  For the fourth and final session, we would rehearse the six to eight songs in our repertoire, to be followed by an in-studio performance open to the public.  Henry emphasized that even though this was advertised as a 201 camp, the music we'd be playing was closer in structure and complexity to what the 301 camps typically played.  This news didn't appear to surprise or cause consternation among any of us.  Given the fact that the Foreigner songs we'd most likely be playing were hits we’d heard before, we individually had the confidence we could "git 'er done."

The first two songs we tackled were Feels Like The First Time and Hot Blooded, two of my three favorite Foreigner songs.  Henry played each song over the sound system; then we would play it ourselves.  I quickly realized that these musicians in the room were excellent players.  Even on just the first or second time through a song, the similarity between our sound and the recorded original was surprisingly close.  This camp was going to be even better than I had  predicted.  It sure beat playing alone to the lo-fi records in my basement.

Not long into the session I realized I would have to make at least two changes.  First, the decibel level in the studio was very high, much louder than anywhere I had played before.  This was both good and bad.  The good part, obviously, was that I could easily hear the other instruments and the vocals, and always knew where we were in any given song.  (When I drummed in college we did not have monitors.  Our speakers and amplifiers were aimed out toward the crowd, making it sometimes tough for me to hear the guitars.)  The negative was that I had to hit the skins harder than what I was used to so that the percussion would not be overwhelmed.  It might sound like a minor tweak, but having to put more energy into each stroke requires more strength and stamina.  Good thing I'd been doing those twelve ounce curls all these years!

The second change was another that doesn't sound like that big a deal, but took some getting used to.  In my college bands, if the first notes of a song required more than one instrument to start simultaneously, our lead guitarist would simply count down verbally.  As an example, the most famous verbal countdown in music history is arguably the intro to the Beatles' I Saw Her Standing There, with Paul McCartney shouting, "One, two, three, four!" or "One, two, three, bomb!" right before the guitars kick in.  At RCX, the coach preferred that the drummer supply the countdown by hitting the two drumsticks together.  Seems easy enough, except that the cadence of my clashing of sticks was supposed to match the beat of the song we were about to play.  When we got to the point in the third session where we were playing seven different songs, it was not always easy, going by memory, to nail each unique beat in the countdown.

We usually took a five to ten minute break after the first hour.  On that first night, we sat around a table in the front of the building and voted on which Foreigner songs we wanted to put in our repertoire in addition to the three pre-selected by RCX, viz., the two we started with plus Urgent.  Henry stated that it was more important to try to perfect, say, six songs than it would be to play seven or eight songs merely adequately.  Based on what he'd heard so far, he thought we could learn a total of seven songs but trying for eight would be stretching it.  No argument there.

Juke Box Hero and Double Vision, the third of my three favorite Foreigner tunes, quickly garnered the most support for set list inclusion.  Sara, our lead singer and probably the band member with the best sense of humor, told us that it had always been her dream to sing Dirty White Boy in a band.  Well, why not!?  Plus, it's a great song to drum to!  DWB became our sixth song.    

As our break extended for another five to ten minutes, we bantered some more, throwing out ideas for a seventh Foreigner tune in case we made it to seven.  Alex opined that he definitely did not want us to tackle I Want To Know What Love Is, even though it was Foreigner's biggest hit.  "There is nothing for the guitars to do in that song," he pointed out.  Thinking back to my observation of the Beatles camp playing You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (a song without drums, as mentioned in Part I), I concurred.  We joked about bringing in a choir to back us up, just as Foreigner did on the original.  Toward the end of our break we all came to an agreement on a seventh song, Cold As Ice.

Back we went into the studio to have a go at Urgent.  Henry had wisely saved this song for last mainly because, of the three we were trying that night, Urgent was by far the hardest to learn.  From my perspective, it was definitely the most difficult to get into because the first notes are played by a single guitar (for this song, Paul) and then the drums come in at what, for the first several seconds, sounds offbeat.  It isn't until the fifth bar that the instruments are in synch, but yet that's how Mick Jones wrote the song.  (Note: Other examples of songs in which the drums' entrance initially sounds offbeat are I Cant Let Go by the Hollies, and Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac.)  When the band finally kicks in together at that fifth bar, it does sound pretty cool.

Our band put great effort into getting Urgent right.  We needed several "takes" of the entire song, and then there were other times when Henry would cue the original on the sound system to particular places mid-song where we had meandered a little off course.  It was during the rehearsing of Urgent that I came to appreciate fully what amazing things a talented keyboard player can do to supplement a song.  The song contains a long saxophone break which, on the original, was played by the pride of South Bend, Indiana, Junior Walker of Junior Walker & The All Stars.  (Surely you have heard their big hit, Shotgun, on oldies radio.)  During our break we had discussed with Henry the possibility of bringing in a saxophonist just to play this one song.  Henry replied that he thought it would amount to "too many moving parts," so the idea was eighty-sixed.  No problem; Tammy to the rescue.  She was able to "patch" a sax sound into her keyboards to replicate the original recording.  If someone were only hearing the audio, he'd swear there was a sax player in the band.  Amazing!  Urgent turned out to be one of our best songs.

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I know you don't want the blow-by-blow of all the other sessions, so I shall accommodate your wish by offering a simple overview.  As we advanced into the second and third week, our playing became tighter.  Terry, the RCX coach who had to miss the first session, seemed impressed by the progress we were making. He reiterated two of the statements made by his colleague, Henry, in week one.  First, "We're not here to see how many songs you can add to your repertoire.  Our goal is to master the songs we do rehearse.  The number of songs is only of secondary concern."  Second, a refrain he repeated every week: "These songs are much more like a 301 camp than a 201."

In the second and third weeks we would first run through the songs we already had down, then added one song at a time.  I tried to practice on my own drums at least every other day, mixing it up between the Foreigner songs from before with the new ones we would be playing at the next rehearsal.  It was almost like having a homework assignment, only far more enjoyable.  I knew my bandmates were doing the same thing.  With only three sessions before our public gig, it could be no other way.  It also helped the we were covering Foreigner's original tracts, so when we were listening and practicing any particular song on our own, it was all to the same recording.

As I wrote in Part I, trying to emulate Foreigner's drummer, Dennis Elliott, can be an arduous task.  He is fast, energetic and creative.  It is said that Rolling Stones' drummer Charlie Watts never misses a beat.  I would say the same about Elliott.  Within a three verse song, he rarely does the same thing twice.  Some of his divergencies are subtle, but yet they are present.  Elliott uses a double-bass in his kit.  I have never played on a kit with a double bass, but I do love the sound.  If you listen to the drums at the end of the guitar intro to Double Vision, you will hear it.  To come as close as possible with a single bass on that tune, I had to improvise by using the ride tom and the floor tom.  I think it worked, but a double bass would have been cooler.

One of the many keys to Foreigner songs is the background singing.  Our band was fortunate to have not only Sara as lead singer, with the perfect personality to front the group, but also Tammy, who contributed excellent backup vocals and harmony.  Alex played lead guitar on most of the songs, but offered that responsibility to Paul if Paul wanted to take a shot.  The two played the guitar parts seamlessly.  Kerry, who positioned himself close to the drums, was a great teammate for our rhythm section.

On the evening of June 26 we gathered as usual at 7:00 for our fourth and final time.  During the first forty-five minutes we ran through the seven Foreigner songs we had been playing.  We only had time to go over each one once.  There would not be time to add another, eighth tune.  Our coach, Terry, game us a pep talk, telling us we were great and advising us to enjoy the moment.  At 7:45 the doors would be opened.  It would then be time for the Grande Finale.