Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,30

hadn’t totally sold out dates in the Midwest and East and those dates were selling out because we were on the bill.

So, they’d do anything to keep us out on the road, promoting that album and selling concert tickets without anything weighing it down.

That’s all I know.

Honest.

I’ll tell you this, that was punk-ass shit we pulled, breaking up that restaurant with Preach and Tom delivering a beatdown on Josh.

But be it there, or admittedly it woulda been better somewhere else…

He deserved it.

What he told that reporter ran.

And it was lies.

But once it’s out there, it doesn’t matter it’s lies. It doesn’t matter it’s retracted. It doesn’t matter there’s an apology.

You never live that kind of shit down.

You probably know dozens of urban legends that have no kernel of truth to them, but you know them, and you see a picture or a movie or a TV show or hear a song from who they were about and it gives you pause.

Josh delivered a blow to the band and to Lyla that we’d never recover from, and we never did, case in point, Lyla talking to you about this shit, thirty years down the line.

And me sitting right here, backing her up.

And the dude had met her once.

He never fuckin’ knew her.

And since he was gone that morning, fired from the band, he never did get to know her.

So, if he had a broken nose and jaw, he deserved it.

And worse.

And if it was Preach’s fist that made those breaks.

Well then…

Good.

You know, what’s lost in this is that the guy had talent.

I lost track of how many bands picked him up after we ousted him.

And then they dropped him.

I also know he tried to start his own band, but that disintegrated when all his bandmates took a hike.

He’s doing session work now.

And you know what?

Anyone who gets him is getting one of the best.

But he did what he did to us and Lyla.

And now if he’s known at all, he’s known as the keyboardist who got chucked out of every band he joined and then he disappeared.

That’s not karma.

Josh, man, he earned that.

Worked for it, straight up.

The label did not pull us off the tour, as you know, and things got worse between Bobby, the Mustangs and us from there.

And it isn’t just here, talking to you about this now, where I look back and know I was glad for it.

In this life, you’re doin’ it right, you live, you learn.

Bobby Sheridan was a lot like us. He worked hard, but he hit it young.

When we were touring with him, we were in our early twenties, he was in his late twenties.

This dude wasn’t Eric Clapton.

He’d released three albums.

In this business, you don’t let your guard down. You take every opportunity offered to you, even if it doesn’t seem like an opportunity.

You make it one.

In that mess, I learned some very important things that meant my career lasted longer than a couple of albums.

From Josh, I learned no man is an island. Especially if that man’s in a band. And if you think about it, every man, and woman, is in a band. They just might not play instruments.

And you don’t shit where you live.

Last, and maybe most important, just don’t be a douche.

From Bobby I learned never, not ever, to believe my own hype.

Lyla:

The breakfast.

[Smiles, shakes head]

That breakfast.

I have to say, to this day, I still don’t know if I’m glad Preacher left me upstairs.

Or if I wish I’d seen that.

Years later, there’s talk of that.

[Waves arm in front of her to indicate present]

We’re still talking about it.

There are a good many takes on that breakfast.

People who think it’s cool because it’s so rock ’n’ roll.

People who think Preacher was a tyrant in that band and him, and Tommy, going after Josh proved it.

Though, the only reason anyone thinks Preacher was a tyrant is because of some of the stuff Josh said.

It is absolutely true, Preacher was much bigger than Josh, physically.

It is also absolutely true that someone needed to teach Josh how to keep his mouth shut.

How that lesson should come about…

[Shrugs]

But from what I know of him, Josh didn’t learn it.

The thing is, people forget, with the careers they had and how long they lasted, that back then, they were very young.

If memory serves, Preacher was twenty-five. Jess and Tim, just twenty-one. Tom would turn thirty a few months after that event.

They were really still just boys.

Okay, [small smile] maybe not Tom.

But the guys.

They were.

And Preacher’s parents were