Moderation isn't as bad as you think it is, in moderation

  I am not the sort of drunk you would want at your party.  I am more fun to you sober.  Back when I was a naive teenager (all the way through to being a naive twenty-something, as opposed to now, where I am a naive thirty-something), people I went to college/university/work with wondered what I would be like if they got me blotto.  The answer is reasonably straightforward, but for the fact it's me giving the answer, ergo it might go around the houses a bit.

  I was barely 17, and was invited to a birthday party the day before the day before New Year's Eve - it was 1997, I think.  I mingled with my college chums, drank a can or two of beer, and elected to leave it at that.  I parked myself on a settee during a bout of karaoke.  Being the naive, trusting sort, any time I was offered a glass of orange juice, or lemonade was a welcome refreshment, not a cue to suspiciously sniff each glass for traces of spirits (not least because I didn't have a clue what spirits smelled like - naif barely covers it).  Until I stood up, and realised I had little to no coordination of my eyes or limbs, I felt fine.  Then it became evident that something was up, and one by one, my classmates all admitted they'd poured "a few other drinks" into my orange juice.  I stood in the kitchen, evening ruined, knocking back glasses of water and apologising for having been spiked by everyone else.  And then everyone found out what happens when you get me drunk.

  I decorate your bathroom with sick.

  Oh, the shame.  I can still remember being slightly too late getting upstairs, and just launching my guts at walls, the floor, you name it, everywhere except the loo.  I can remember the poor birthday girl's parents, mopping up the mess.  I can remember the echo of my voice as it apologised from the bowl of the sink.  (Porcelain is very cooling, isn't it?)  I can remember saying sorry to Dad, as the back of my head really took in the texture of the passenger seat's headrest while he drove me back home.  I can remember hearing Mum say to Rachael, my sister, "Just stay in your room for a few minutes," as I staggered upstairs, cleaned my teeth, and went to bed.

  All of this happened before 10:45pm.

  I know exactly what my alumni were hoping for.  You know how there's the sort of person who, with a few sniffs of the barmaid's apron, becomes the life and soul of the party, dancing on your coffee table, ringing taxi companies for a laugh and trying to tie a washing line to next door's pitbull terrier before setting a firework off from the roof of your shed and legging it home?  I am not that kind of drunk.  I am no fun, unless your favourite kind of inebriate is the one who sits at the table, staring at the grain in the wood, and thinking about things past.  There is also the point where I just fall asleep (such is my introspection that I kind of crumble in on myself), and that becomes fun for people, for a bit.  There is that hi-larious five minutes when we next meet up, and all my friends show me the photo of myself, sideways on a settee, face buried in the cushions, after everyone had coated me in toilet paper.  I'm that drunk.  I have seen photos of me passed out on a settee during a work's cocktail night (of which, sadly, I am not in possession).  I also took this photo of myself the morning after said cocktail night, as a reminder:

2004, post cocktail-night.  Note the greenish tinge to my face.  For the rest of that day I ran a shop from the back room with my head in my hands.

  I prefer to be in control of myself.  Always have done.  This, even now, baffles me as to why I have chosen to plod a path with, in so many ways, little control.  Far less control than you might think.  I believe that when music chooses you to communicate through it (and I do think, faintly, that music does choose you, after a fashion), that very process affords you very little decision-making, in terms of "career path".

  (At this point, we skirt around the very tricky issue of how much choice anything in life gives you, and how all our lives appear to be spent reacting to whatever circumstance throws at us, be it love, death, children, disease, cardigans, accidents, food poisoning, eviction, or finding out that you're responsible for the welfare of seventeen children after a set of freak paternity cases proves you to be the legitimate guardian of all of them bar one, who, it transpires, belongs to an estranged uncle.  We can only skirt around this, as it is rather late and I have been out bowling, and if I carry on, my nose will be touching the keyboard.)

  (It is now the next day, I have slept, made a cup of tea to drink in bed - which I just about stomached, although the milk was, I believe, "on the turn" - and found my hastily-discarded work shirt from yesterday draped on the toilet seat before I shaved and left the house to go bowling.)

  So, where was I?  Control!  I decided quite early on, after having one or two tipsy gigs, and seeing some quite severely drunk people playing music at muted audiences, that music was no fun if you were completely out of it, and the self-conscious quality I own when under the influence came to the fore yet further when on stage and slightly steaming.  The one thing music deserves is dedication and focus.  You can have the best ideas in the world (or at least in your hometown, or at the very least in your own house), but if you aren't compos mentis enough to physically and mentally interpret and broadcast them, you won't be able to achieve much, positively speaking.  In this interview with Zane Lowe on Radio 1, celebrating 2002's 'Songs For The Deaf' record, Queens Of The Stone Age's Josh Homme rather nicely articulates what I'm getting at:

Zane Lowe: At the time, you guys were also known for enjoying yourselves when you were on the road, and I think it's safe to say - without sending the wrong message to anyone listening who's impressionable - that you were considered a drinking band, and possibly even considered a drug band, and considered a band that enjoyed a good time, and lived your life freely.  'Songs For The Deaf' sounds so focused, does that feel like it captures that time for you as well, or were you completely focused on the record when you were making it?

Josh Homme:  "Well, I mean, we always had the philosophy that you can be who you want to be in 'Queens...', you know, and so I think in a lot of ways we got that notoriety because we were a sanctuary for a lot of people that just wanted to be themselves.  We never sort of judged, or told you what you needed to do.  But one thing that we always had was you could do whatever you wanted, as long as you work first, and if you're going to be a 'party person', you party after.  And that's still the ethic that the band has, that, you know, you should be yourself, but you owe it to everyone else to work first, and I think that's what always makes a difference, that you work hard first."

  I suppose this is why I don't drink much, and have never been tempted to "dabble".  I enjoy the way my brain sifts through the world, and reconciles it to day-to-day life, and aside from the fear of addiction, there is the fear that I could irrevocably damage the way I see the world, and the way I look at things.  The way I perceive my personality to work is that I am fairly excitable, and have a rather crooked slant on the world, which either produces very silly jokes, or songs that I am particularly proud of.  Imagine if I took something that interfered with my brain chemistry in such a way that I never looked at anything that way again.  Ever.  I am terrified of that ever happening.

  And so we get to the reason that control is the theme of this little diatribe.  As I said earlier, there is less control than one might think when pursuing music (and I am pursuing it), or at least, to do it the way you truly want to, unless you're massively lucky.  This is not to say gigs aren't fun and exciting, but we all dream of that gig in a theatre, and a rapt, attentive crowd (nay, audience), and we dream of going on a tour, of being able to make records and of getting as many people as possible to hear our music.  This makes the gig where you're playing one of your more lilting ballads, and battling against the pub drunk for volume, so heartbreaking.  You come off stage, knowing that you had a good time, but that one guy's "BEHHHHAHAHAHAHHAHEEERGH!" laugh really knackered your flow, and were it not such bad grace to do so, you would have stamped your little feet and demanded that the world stop and acknowledge how hard you were working, because this, after all, was supposed to be your moment.

  It wasn't your moment.  Not to the world at least, only to you.  And in all honesty, every moment is your moment, you just have to know how to play it.  But the best way to play it is with clarity and positivity.  I have played some lovely gigs this year, and some great moments have come out of them, and that control over my music has been strengthened by sharing it with three wonderful musicians.  I hope that 2013 allows some more options, and more magical adventures which I can share with you via the medium of technology (although mostly, not to mention preferably, via the even more magical medium of you being in the room with us as we play).

  Control comes from taking the music in your head, arranging it into a good song, and doing what you can with it.  It takes the love of music, and harnessing the enthusiasm that your band has for it (I am very lucky that my band get behind my songs as much as they do - we get it right in practice, right down to the mood of the song, and we're all mentally hugging each other, not physically though, because you can't properly hug someone over, say a drum-kit, a synth, or an accordion).

  Enjoy riding this year out and travelling into the next, and please don't associate bits of this blog post as a cry for Prohibition, more as a cry for clarity and positivity.  The darker your times, the less good drinking will be to you.  You don't make problems go away, they just come back stronger.  The more you deal with life head on, the more having a drink actually feels like a nice thing to do.

  In the meantime, here is the free-to-download podcast I made with Paul Hancock and Angela Lazenby from my band.  Merry Christmas!



Lots of Festive Love,
John xx