Читать книгу My Appetite for Destruction: Sex & Drugs & Guns ‘N’ Roses - Steven Adler - Страница 42

I was fifteen now, and despite pissing off my parents by being late for dinner, I sincerely wanted things to work out at home. So when Mom told me she had enrolled me at Chatsworth High School after I settled in, I did my best to be a model student. It all came down to my ability to get along with people, whether they were in the dining room or the classroom.

During my hitch at Chatsworth, I met Dan Scheib. He was the grandson of Earl Scheib, the famous auto paint guy. Dan was a decent guy who played guitar but because he came from money, he had every other instrument in creation lying around his house. So I talked him into selling me his drum set. I even tried to jam with him when I went to check the set out. It was my very first time behind a real drum set and it didn’t go too well.

Dan told me I could have the set for a hundred bucks. But when I showed up to pay, his father walked into the room and told me he wouldn’t allow me to take the cymbals unless I gave him another $25. I looked at Dan, but he had his eyes glued to the floor. I couldn’t believe it. His old man was fucking loaded but it didn’t matter. What a prick! The rich eat their young before parting with a dime, and old man Scheib just looked at me like I was some lowlife shit weasel, a flea market refugee to be bullied into giving him more than I had agreed to pay.

What could I do? I wanted a real drum set more than anything else in my life, so I anted up the extra dough, took everything home, and set it up in my bedroom. Giving Scheib the extra twenty-five turned out to be a pure waste of money because the cymbals cracked the first time I played them. They were such pieces of shit, they didn’t even have a brand name on them.

As for the drums, I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I was great on books and pillows, but now I had a drum set where you had to coordinate one foot pedal with the other foot pedal and both hands, and I was like, “Oh my God, what do I do now?” So, I visualized myself at the Starwood, putting myself in that same hallowed spot where I had seen all the drummers perform. I put on eight-track tapes of the Doobie Brothers and Boston, closed my eyes, and just listened. After a bit, I tried to play along smartly, because I didn’t want to let down my fans.

Or I should say “fan,” because Jamie was the only one there and he was my audience. In his eyes, I could do no wrong, and that must have helped, because I quickly got the hang of it. And just like your first car, you never forget your first instrument. I played the hell out of those drums, pounding on them with such ferocity that I’d break the whole set down to the ground during each practice, then pick everything up and reassemble it all. A couple weeks later, I jammed with Dan Scheib again, and you know what? His eyes popped. I could tell he thought that I had gotten a lot better.