I used to be in a band you know…

Emily - 6 May 16

If I never sit at a drum kit in public again, then nobody I have met in the last ten years will ever find out how badly I used to play.

And that means that I can keep telling people about when I was in a band, and they’ll re-imagine for me a brilliant, kickass history which I am totally happy to go along with.  Things at nearly 40 are quite sensible sometimes, and those days in my twenties now belong in another, fuzzy lifetime. 

Me and my bandmates used to rehearse every week in a grimy studio under a railway bridge. We wrote songs, we played hiphop covers with big guitars and we discussed whether to wear cowboy costumes at our shows. I loved the band.  

We did have grand plans, but we mostly lived them quite small. We never made a real record; we never had secret affairs with each other and we hardly ever had people we didn’t know at our gigs. I never honed a good swagger or became cool or enigmatic, and it’s likely that the most rock & roll thing I ever did was turn up to a practise without good snacks.

Ah, but we had fun! And we sometimes made enough money on the door of a venue to get a cab home. Now we’ve got six kids and at least seven careers between us. Every so often, someone will send round a nostalgic email or photos of when we looked younger and drunker than we do now. I miss the time we spent together.  

Like most of us, I went through phases of feeling rubbish about myself.  And yet, again and again I managed to climb the steps up to whichever pokey stage was ours for half an hour and get behind the drums.  I acted so self-assured that every so often I almost convinced myself that I was.   

These days, I might play the Hello Kitty tambourine a bit too seriously when I have kitchen dance parties with the children. And I may have suggested a few times that we form a family band and tour the world together in a big noisy bus. The kids are still young enough to think that sounds ace.  

I’m looking forward to telling them about how it felt in the band. Telling them that my friend who comes to visit used to throw himself around in a fancy hat on stage and sing up a beautiful racket.  I can’t wait to tell them about how just after I met their dad, we played one of our- objectively- worst ever gigs, and that he fell for me anyway.  

I want to tell them that it doesn’t matter if you’re good at something; if you let yourself love it, then you can make it magic. I want them to know they can do their own version of getting up in front of a crowd and making a ruckus- whatever that might be- and I’ll be there to support them.  

And one day, before they’re old enough to be totally embarrassed by me, I’ll set up my kit, politely warn the neighbours, and show the kids how the drumsticks that I keep in a vase on the mantle-piece ended up so battered.

In the meantime, I’ll be sat on the floor of a pre-school music group playing the tiny maracas really loud. In my head I’m back on stage with my band around me. I may not be any good but it feels amazing.

Emily

View profile for posts, events and more info