Page 5

“I think we should try out some new material at our next show,” I say, strumming a few strings on my Martin as the tour van bounces along the highway. Headlights glide past us in the dark. We’ve just finished up a two-night stint in Cleveland and are headed to Chicago by way of Indianapolis. We haven’t had much time off the past few weeks—not that I’m complaining—but back-to-back nights of shows and being on the road take a lot out of you.

Thankfully, we have a few days off before our next gig, which means it’s a perfect opportunity for us to rehearse some new songs. And grab some horizontal sleep.

“We don’t have any new material.” Justin, who’s in the backseat next to me, glances up, his eyes narrowing. He looks like a ghost in the light radiating from his phone screen. “I haven’t had time to work on anything since the tour kicked off.”

“I have,” I say, plucking a few random notes. It hasn’t been easy, scratching down ideas on the back of receipts at rest stops or humming riffs into the voice memo app on my phone at two a.m., when inspiration strikes. All those bits and pieces have added up, and I think there’s enough material there for at least a song or two. Maybe more.

Ryder, who’s sitting shotgun, starts patting out a beat on the van’s interior with his drumsticks.

Justin gives me side-eye and I suspect he snorts, but I can’t tell for sure over Ryder’s dashboard drumming. “Dude, you haven’t written anything in ages.”

“How would you know?”

We were in seventh grade when we started Six String Justice, fueled by Sour Patch Kids and impossibly large dreams. Back then, before the sold-out local gigs and our record deal, we’d all crowd into the rickety shed behind my house. I would share early versions of songs with them. Johnny’d come up with a great bass riff, and Ryder would tap out a sick beat with drumsticks on a rusty old shovel. After a while, Justin started writing songs, too, and then we had twice as much material to choose from. Back then, Justin and I had equal shares of the lead singer and lead guitar duties. Lately, though, it seems like our set lists include more songs that feature him than me.

I push the jealousy away as Johnny weaves the tour van through traffic, accelerating to get in front of a slow-moving semi. We’re all jostled around thanks to the van’s less-than-stellar suspension. Someday we’ll have a proper tour bus. Sleep in five-star hotels. And have a team of roadies to haul our equipment.

“So, this song I’m working on,” I say.

“What about it?” Justin’s tone is bored and dismissive, like he’s asking out of habit instead of interest. As if to prove his point that he couldn’t give a crap about my song, he doesn’t even bother looking up from his phone. His thumbs tap at the screen, which has all his focus.

I’m disappointed but not surprised. Justin’s been running Six String Justice’s social media for the past few months and is always looking for ways to make us go viral. Sure, growing followers is great, but so is making music. It kind of pisses me off that he’s scrolling and captioning when he should be strumming and composing.

It’s become a tug-of-war between branding and banding.

I miss when it was mostly about the music.

My other bandmates aren’t as caught up in chasing likes and shares as Justin, but they haven’t exactly been pressing for us to create new material, either. Ryder and Johnny are more live-in-the-moment guys, which was okay when we were just a few kids messing around. They’d be perfectly fine coasting along forever in this beat-up van with no plan.

While it seems sudden, there’s been a slow and steady change in our band dynamics for the past year that I’m only just noticing. Some days, it feels like we only look up from our phones to play a gig. We barely have conversations anymore. I can’t remember the last time we shared an inside joke or even had a good laugh. And Justin’s been making a lot of decisions for Six String Justice that would have been up for a group vote only a few months ago.

I bristle again at how dismissive he’s being about my new song idea and then force myself to take a deep breath. We’ve been packed into close quarters for weeks now, with hardly any privacy and barely any time away from each other. Add in a crap diet and lack of sleep, and it’s sure to cause a little cabin fever. Just because I’m feeling irritable doesn’t mean I should be.

My hand runs over the fretboard, cool beneath my fingertips, and I start strumming the tune that’s been noodling around in my brain for weeks now. When the intro ends, I hum the melody over the chords. Bits and pieces of lyrics swirl through my mind, but the wisps of words are like bonfire smoke, drifting away before they form anything coherent. I finish the first verse, and the pre-chorus hits with a power chord progression.

Ryder shifts in the passenger seat and joins in with a building beat he taps out on the dash. He tosses me a grin and we drop into the chorus together, perfectly in sync. At the start of the second verse, Johnny jumps in by improvising a bass riff, which he changes around a couple of times until he settles on one he likes and gives a sharp nod of approval. His hands tighten on the steering wheel as he sings the bass line. He’s locked in.

With only my acoustic guitar, Johnny’s bass line humming, and the thumping of the tires on the highway blending with Ryder’s beats, the song sounds more like a ballad than the country-rock song I envisioned. Still, the way it’s coming together in this van, out on the road, reminds me of the shed days.

Everyone’s into it but Justin, who’s still scrolling on his phone. He’s either oblivious or ignoring us, but either way, it sucks that he’s not paying attention.

Just as we head into the song’s bridge, the van approaches an actual bridge, which I take as a good sign. I’m here, on the road with my buddies, hustling to make our dreams come true. The music builds to a crescendo as we bump across the bridge. A chill races down my spine because we’ve recaptured that fleeting music magic again. Johnny and Ryder in the front, bopping along to the tune I’m strumming. Watch out, world, Six String Justice is just getting started.

I glance over at Justin. He’s finally looking up from his phone and has a contemplative, faraway look in his eyes. He reaches for his guitar case and pulls out his Fender. A moment later, he’s playing along with me. For a few bars, we’re in harmony, but then he alters the strumming pattern, the chord progression, and just goes off and does his own thing, changing almost everything.

I stop playing. “That’s not how it goes.”

Justin glances at me and shrugs. “This version’s better.”

“It’s completely different,” I say.

“So?”

“So, I want us to play the song I wrote, the way I wrote it.”

Why is he suddenly trying to take over everything?

“Whatever,” he says in a bored tone, sliding his guitar back into its case. “You have lyrics?”