Chapter 5: The Urban Legend
While Angels of Hellfire was in the midst of financial disagreements, I did not feel good about the outcome. I was pretty convinced we were done before we even really started, so I started making backup plans. At that time, my mother was teaching preschool, and I started to volunteer as her classroom aide while inquiring around the school for job openings. Mom always complained that the bookkeeper there was a bit... well, old, and really couldn't keep up with the job anymore, but everyone just let things slide because she'd been there forever, even though it meant sometimes people got paid three weeks late. My plan was to start offering to help the woman out and start currying favor with administration, and ultimately either take over the job or at least earn one of my own out of it. It never happened, which I guess is a good thing since the band stuff worked itself out in the end and I would have had to quit anyway. However, I did continue to volunteer with my mom’s class because those kids were just too cute, and one afternoon I was there cleaning up while Mom was doing parent-teacher conferences.
In walks this total Banana Republic-looking guy, with a little boy in tow. He looked so out of place there, like he didn’t know where he was or how he even got there, so I asked if I could help him with something, prepared to scream for help if he turned out to be crazy. As it turned out, the little boy was his son and he was trying to get him enrolled in my mom’s class. I swear his timing was perfect, as this set of twins had just moved out to Brooklyn and there were two openings in the class. So I got him all the appropriate paperwork, and because of the conferences, the school nurse was still around so I asked her if she’d be willing to give him a quick pre-screening. While she worked with the little boy – Oliver – I engaged in a lot of small talk with his father – Richard Urban.
I talked a lot about the little music program Mom ran with the kids, mostly because that’s the part of the day where I participated the most. He seemed interested, so I asked if music was something he enjoyed. I will never forget this, he just laughed and said, “Yeah, a little bit.” I wasn’t sure why it was so funny, and I started to wonder if maybe he actually was crazy. Within about an hour, Oliver had gone through the screening process for school and was able to start the following week. On the way out, Richard asked for my number. When I asked why, he told me he just wanted it in case of an emergency, for instance if something came up and he wasn’t able to get Oliver there for his first day. I was reluctant, told him he could just call the main office and they would get us the message. He was adamant, stating that he remembered being in school, the main office never got the messages to the classrooms on time (it was true, and our office was one of the worst – again, one of the reasons I was trying to get a job in there). So I agreed.
I didn’t receive a call on Oliver’s first day, and he was there, right on time. Richard and I exchanged pleasant hellos, smiles, and then we each went about our day. It went on like this for several weeks, until one afternoon when he came to pick his son up and he lingered around, waiting for the other parents to leave.
And that’s when he asked if he could call me even if it had nothing to do with school or Oliver. I’m not sure who was more surprised when I said yes. He called me that evening, and we talked for a few hours. That’s when I found out that he was a drummer, and that he’d actually enjoyed some success in a heavy metal band, Brain-Storm. Now his comment about liking music made sense to me, and we spoke more about each of our experiences. I told him about our steady and organic growth as a band, and how we were already having disparities over money, and he told me how his own career had been cut short due to the actions of his bandmates. One of the men was a frequent drug abuser, and Richard had caught him nearly overdosing several times after gigs. One night, he finally took one hit too many, and was found by Richard and a member of security. The loss was a devastating blow, and the remaining bandmates soon parted ways. Richard turned away from music he was making a half-hearted attempt at finding a new band while also considering returning to school to be a doctor.
We started seeing each other, not very seriously or exclusively at first (I was still pretty fresh off the breakup from the guy that my sister hooked up with), and as we slowly progressed, we actually ended up seeing each other less, because that’s when AOH resolved our money argument and started playing again. Richard was always supportive, coming to see us play whenever he could, but he'd finally enrolled in med school, which was a huge commitment and took up a lot of his time.
As you already know, AOH success again hit that snag with Katy got sick, and when Claudia didn’t work out. When Taryn and I turned to Richard, I can only describe the feeling as one of desperation. We couldn’t handle another career setback, but I was beyond leery at the idea of having this man that I had only just started to refer to as my boyfriend join us. It went against about ten different ideals that Taryn, Katy, and I had set for the band, as well as ones I’d set for myself, even if it was only supposed to be temporary.
If I sat here and tried to tell you that playing together as a band didn't make me fall the last bit in love with him. I'd be lying. I already mentioned how the three of us became something magical on stage, but off stage, he and I were really becoming something amazing as well. However, when he asked me to marry him, I almost told him no. My parents' divorce still hovered over me, and I kept wondering why we needed to change the way things already were. But then I realized there was no other possible answer than yes. A lot of people thought I was crazy - myself included - when I accepted the proposal. We hadn't really been an exclusive couple for very long, and a lot of people thought we were rushing things. After talking it over, we decided we would just have a long engagement.
It only took a few weeks to change our minds on that. Our engagement was less than six months. I guess that's not really that short, but it seemed short at the time. I think it just seems fast now because things with the band were also picking up speed. In addition to planning a wedding, we were planning an actual tour. It wasn't a world tour, or even a North and South American tour, it was just the northeast, but it was still a tour. Prior to that, we would just travel to a town, play a couple shows there, and come home. We had never gone from city to city on any comprehensive tour. That ended up being most of our honeymoon. Touring. Which meant a lot of canoodling happened backstage. To this day Taryn adamantly states that she walked in on us no less than twenty times. I think this is a bit of an exaggeration, though I readily admit having been walked in on several times over the course of the marriage. I don't think our children have forgiven us for some of the things they've seen.
Most of my actual wedding day is still a blur to me. People always assure me this is normal, that with everything that's going on, plus all the people, all the rushing, all the relief that all the planning is over, that your body just kind of stops working for the day and puts you on autopilot. I know that at least some of this is true, many of my friends and family members have huge blank spaces in their memories of their wedding day. However, for me, the loss of memory has a lot more to do with my level of intoxication.
You see, Tatum and Taryn were in charge of my bachelorette party. Just due to everyone's schedules, we weren't able to get everyone together until the night before the wedding. Tat and Taryn assured me this would be fine. They both had amazing hangover cures, which they both insisted no one would need, because they had everything so well planned. Unfortunately, half of the party went rogue, and when Tatum split from me to go round those girls up before they got in trouble, it left Taryn, me, and my bridesmaids Riley ter Laak and Abigail Harvey to go off on our own as well. We found a bar of men that were more than happy to buy a bridal party drinks for the rest of the night
The drinking didn't stop until approximately three hours before we were due at the salon for hair and makeup. We rushed back to my place and passed out. I slept that nice, deep, drunk sleep, woke up all kinds of obnoxiously perky - because I was still drunk - and according to Taryn, babbled incessantly the whole time we were getting done up. Tatum slept through her hair getting done, which astonishes me even to this day. I mean, she was sitting straight up in the seat, not even slumped over, and when the stylist repositioned her head, that's where it stayed. This is a skill we all need.
While we were being pampered, we were given mimosas. Give the girl who's still trying to sober up from the night before champagne. Wise. When Tatum woke up, she advised to keep drinking, because at this point, sobering up would just make me crash and pass out. And that is how my bridal party became the Champagne Committee. Taryn suggested I stick to mimosas and champagne, to avoid mixing liquor and all that, and for the rest of the day and night, Taryn, Tatum, Riley, and Abigail were never far from a bottle of champagne, refilling my glass if needed, or directing servers with trays full of flutes my way. I never got wasted, just maintained a steady buzz for the whole day. Nevertheless, I remember feeling like I was on top of the world.
Like nothing could ever go wrong.
In walks this total Banana Republic-looking guy, with a little boy in tow. He looked so out of place there, like he didn’t know where he was or how he even got there, so I asked if I could help him with something, prepared to scream for help if he turned out to be crazy. As it turned out, the little boy was his son and he was trying to get him enrolled in my mom’s class. I swear his timing was perfect, as this set of twins had just moved out to Brooklyn and there were two openings in the class. So I got him all the appropriate paperwork, and because of the conferences, the school nurse was still around so I asked her if she’d be willing to give him a quick pre-screening. While she worked with the little boy – Oliver – I engaged in a lot of small talk with his father – Richard Urban.
I talked a lot about the little music program Mom ran with the kids, mostly because that’s the part of the day where I participated the most. He seemed interested, so I asked if music was something he enjoyed. I will never forget this, he just laughed and said, “Yeah, a little bit.” I wasn’t sure why it was so funny, and I started to wonder if maybe he actually was crazy. Within about an hour, Oliver had gone through the screening process for school and was able to start the following week. On the way out, Richard asked for my number. When I asked why, he told me he just wanted it in case of an emergency, for instance if something came up and he wasn’t able to get Oliver there for his first day. I was reluctant, told him he could just call the main office and they would get us the message. He was adamant, stating that he remembered being in school, the main office never got the messages to the classrooms on time (it was true, and our office was one of the worst – again, one of the reasons I was trying to get a job in there). So I agreed.
I didn’t receive a call on Oliver’s first day, and he was there, right on time. Richard and I exchanged pleasant hellos, smiles, and then we each went about our day. It went on like this for several weeks, until one afternoon when he came to pick his son up and he lingered around, waiting for the other parents to leave.
And that’s when he asked if he could call me even if it had nothing to do with school or Oliver. I’m not sure who was more surprised when I said yes. He called me that evening, and we talked for a few hours. That’s when I found out that he was a drummer, and that he’d actually enjoyed some success in a heavy metal band, Brain-Storm. Now his comment about liking music made sense to me, and we spoke more about each of our experiences. I told him about our steady and organic growth as a band, and how we were already having disparities over money, and he told me how his own career had been cut short due to the actions of his bandmates. One of the men was a frequent drug abuser, and Richard had caught him nearly overdosing several times after gigs. One night, he finally took one hit too many, and was found by Richard and a member of security. The loss was a devastating blow, and the remaining bandmates soon parted ways. Richard turned away from music he was making a half-hearted attempt at finding a new band while also considering returning to school to be a doctor.
We started seeing each other, not very seriously or exclusively at first (I was still pretty fresh off the breakup from the guy that my sister hooked up with), and as we slowly progressed, we actually ended up seeing each other less, because that’s when AOH resolved our money argument and started playing again. Richard was always supportive, coming to see us play whenever he could, but he'd finally enrolled in med school, which was a huge commitment and took up a lot of his time.
As you already know, AOH success again hit that snag with Katy got sick, and when Claudia didn’t work out. When Taryn and I turned to Richard, I can only describe the feeling as one of desperation. We couldn’t handle another career setback, but I was beyond leery at the idea of having this man that I had only just started to refer to as my boyfriend join us. It went against about ten different ideals that Taryn, Katy, and I had set for the band, as well as ones I’d set for myself, even if it was only supposed to be temporary.
If I sat here and tried to tell you that playing together as a band didn't make me fall the last bit in love with him. I'd be lying. I already mentioned how the three of us became something magical on stage, but off stage, he and I were really becoming something amazing as well. However, when he asked me to marry him, I almost told him no. My parents' divorce still hovered over me, and I kept wondering why we needed to change the way things already were. But then I realized there was no other possible answer than yes. A lot of people thought I was crazy - myself included - when I accepted the proposal. We hadn't really been an exclusive couple for very long, and a lot of people thought we were rushing things. After talking it over, we decided we would just have a long engagement.
It only took a few weeks to change our minds on that. Our engagement was less than six months. I guess that's not really that short, but it seemed short at the time. I think it just seems fast now because things with the band were also picking up speed. In addition to planning a wedding, we were planning an actual tour. It wasn't a world tour, or even a North and South American tour, it was just the northeast, but it was still a tour. Prior to that, we would just travel to a town, play a couple shows there, and come home. We had never gone from city to city on any comprehensive tour. That ended up being most of our honeymoon. Touring. Which meant a lot of canoodling happened backstage. To this day Taryn adamantly states that she walked in on us no less than twenty times. I think this is a bit of an exaggeration, though I readily admit having been walked in on several times over the course of the marriage. I don't think our children have forgiven us for some of the things they've seen.
Most of my actual wedding day is still a blur to me. People always assure me this is normal, that with everything that's going on, plus all the people, all the rushing, all the relief that all the planning is over, that your body just kind of stops working for the day and puts you on autopilot. I know that at least some of this is true, many of my friends and family members have huge blank spaces in their memories of their wedding day. However, for me, the loss of memory has a lot more to do with my level of intoxication.
You see, Tatum and Taryn were in charge of my bachelorette party. Just due to everyone's schedules, we weren't able to get everyone together until the night before the wedding. Tat and Taryn assured me this would be fine. They both had amazing hangover cures, which they both insisted no one would need, because they had everything so well planned. Unfortunately, half of the party went rogue, and when Tatum split from me to go round those girls up before they got in trouble, it left Taryn, me, and my bridesmaids Riley ter Laak and Abigail Harvey to go off on our own as well. We found a bar of men that were more than happy to buy a bridal party drinks for the rest of the night
The drinking didn't stop until approximately three hours before we were due at the salon for hair and makeup. We rushed back to my place and passed out. I slept that nice, deep, drunk sleep, woke up all kinds of obnoxiously perky - because I was still drunk - and according to Taryn, babbled incessantly the whole time we were getting done up. Tatum slept through her hair getting done, which astonishes me even to this day. I mean, she was sitting straight up in the seat, not even slumped over, and when the stylist repositioned her head, that's where it stayed. This is a skill we all need.
While we were being pampered, we were given mimosas. Give the girl who's still trying to sober up from the night before champagne. Wise. When Tatum woke up, she advised to keep drinking, because at this point, sobering up would just make me crash and pass out. And that is how my bridal party became the Champagne Committee. Taryn suggested I stick to mimosas and champagne, to avoid mixing liquor and all that, and for the rest of the day and night, Taryn, Tatum, Riley, and Abigail were never far from a bottle of champagne, refilling my glass if needed, or directing servers with trays full of flutes my way. I never got wasted, just maintained a steady buzz for the whole day. Nevertheless, I remember feeling like I was on top of the world.
Like nothing could ever go wrong.