From This Moment On (23 page)

I consigned the incident to the back of my mind, just so that I could face him the next time we saw each other. I never said a word to him or to anyone else, figuring that no one would understand or believe that my father was capable of crossing such a sacred line with me.

I’d brought my acoustic guitar to leave in the classroom for this purpose, along with a small tape machine to record my writing. These cubicles were the perfect hiding place for a class-skipping teenage
songwriter. They were a place you could go to isolate the sound and prevent driving everyone crazy with loud, bad notes.

This soundproof hideaway was my music refuge. I think it’s possible I got more accomplished in the soundproofed cubicle than I ever would have in class. Much of my writing skills was honed here in my private place. To prevent getting caught, I’d keep an eye on the time and work it out just right to file out with the flow of students from the class at the end of the period or sometimes even stay for two periods. It was tricky when there wasn’t a music class during the period I was skipping, though, as there was no student crowd to blend in with as I attempted to make a clean exit.

Occasionally, the music teacher spotted me, in which case I’d emerge from my inner sanctum brandishing a textbook and a readymade pretext for being there. “Oh, hi! I left a book in the cubicle from earlier today. Well, gotta get to class! See ya!” He always let it go or let on that he was wise to my scheme. For the record, I also excelled at forging notes from my parents, as missing a class required a parent’s or doctor’s note explaining your absence. Since my parents weren’t paying attention, no one ever questioned this, and I simply got away with it. Naughty me.

But I counted the days through those two years until I could finally make it back to the city of Toronto. I knew that if I was going to reach my long-term goal of becoming an adult professional in music, I would have to leave my hometown and head back to the city. Toronto was the obvious next step for me after high school, and at this point I’d already made the decision that while my other friends would carry on with their educations at college and university to prepare for their futures, my future was going to be in music, even though I really didn’t know where it was going to lead.

In both grades eleven and twelve at Timmins High, I played second trumpet in the school orchestra. As part of a band exchange program, we were scheduled to perform at a high school in Ottawa. Each of us would stay with a local family of band kids from the exchange school for a few days leading up to the concert. Although I’d been to
Toronto several times, Ottawa was our capital city, and I was excited to be away from home exploring somewhere new. I got to stay with a nice family that was a notch above your average “roast beef family,” with a bigger house and just more of everything. They were decidedly
not
dysfunctional: everyone was well mannered, everything was orderly, cooking aromas filled the air, and it was just … well, normal. The way I perceived a home should be.

Mr. Tony Ciccone, my grade-twelve music teacher, knew that I wrote my own songs and asked me if I would sing one of them at the concert, accompanying myself on guitar. Before I could stop myself, I said yes. Despite the fact that I’d been singing in public regularly since the age of eight, I was still self-conscious about performing and used to suffer terrible stage fright, torn between wanting to keep music as a private and personal experience, and feeling compelled to pursue it as a career. If I was surrounded by other musicians, I usually relaxed into it after a song or two. But the prospect of standing onstage all by myself scared the living shit out of me.

Sometimes I would get so stressed-out about having to perform that a day or two beforehand I’d develop a tight, sore throat. Now, my mother-manager wasn’t about to cancel a gig due to nerves, so she would nurse me with what she called hot toddies: a cocktail of hot water, honey, and whiskey.

My inflamed throat would sometimes develop into full-blown bronchitis, and I was regularly on a cycle of antibiotics all through my primary years. My mother wasn’t canceling anything, however, and hot toddies got me through. “Let’s give a warm welcome to … Eilleen Twain!” A nudge from my mother, and I’d walk onstage very stiffly, because the fact was that I was ready to pee my pants. And I don’t mean figuratively. It was a perpetual nightmare trying to get from the wings of backstage to the microphone, my lower abdomen feeling like a knotted-up garden hose about to burst.

I was to be highlighted as a soloist during the Ottawa high school student exchange concert. I prepared something I’d written and accompanied my vocals with my acoustic guitar. I cringe at the thought
of how awful that performance must have been considering I was such a weak guitarist, let alone the nerves in my voice. The most memorable part, however, was not the quality of it, but the sheer fear of the whole experience. After that performance, I was forever clear on why never to share my musical world with my peers. It was also the most glaring example of how pronounced my stage fright was.

As soon as our orchestra finished one of its classical pieces, I set down my trumpet and thought,
How did I get myself into this?
Time for my solo performance, in front of this huge high school, much bigger than ours. The emcee’s booming voice—“Please welcome from TH&VS: Eilleen Twain!”—startled me, and I swallowed hard as I got up from my chair. That’s when I felt a warm stream running down the insides of my legs. Shit. I was used to stage nerves bringing me some close calls in the past, but this had never happened before. Now what?

I’d set a tall glass of water by my seat to wet my throat before singing. Thank goodness, I had the presence of mind to accidentally on purpose kick it over, so that I could yelp, “Damn! I spilled my water!” As far as the trumpet players on either side of me knew, the puddle pooling at my feet was nothing more than H2O. Way to go, brain! Quick thinking!

In a second stroke of luck, we were wearing our band uniforms of gray bottoms, with skirts for girls. If I’d been wearing pants, there’d have been an obvious wet spot for the whole school to see, and I’d have bolted from the stage, mortified. Now that the burning in my bladder had been relieved, all I had to contend with was the anxiety from having to face all the pimply strangers sitting in front of me. I plunged into the song, doing my best to appear at ease, when in fact, my underwear, nylons, and even my shoes were soaked with pee. Much to my surprise, the audience was extremely appreciative, applauding loudly when I finished. I realized then that my stage fright stemmed totally from within and that my peers weren’t as critical as I’d feared they might be. I just wanted to get the hell out of the spotlight
all the same. I was proud I’d followed through with it, but filled with relief that it was over.

While still in high school, I joined a local rock band called Longshot. It was a big change for me musically, since up to now I’d performed mostly country and folk music professionally. Of course, I grew up singing soft rock and pop music around the house, but never in bars where I actually got paid. I’ve always loved country and learned about songwriting through the genius of many a country artist, but now I was free to explore other music, live.

Longshot consisted of me and four musicians: Rick Dion on guitar, Guy Martin on piano and vocals, Mike Mitchell on bass, and Mike Chabot on drums. They were all finished with high school, except for Rick, who was in his last year. We rehearsed at his house, which was practically around the corner from where my family lived on Montgomery. We were a cover band, performing the hits of the day—Pat Benatar, Journey, Foreigner—as well as some Beatles and other rock classics mixed in. Bar audiences weren’t much interested in a local act’s original material, if it even had any; people came to drink, dance, and have a good time listening to songs they knew, period. They wanted to hear the commercial Top 40.

After several weeks of practice in Rick’s basement, we’d built up enough of a repertoire (consuming boxloads of pizza in the process) to invite club owners down to audition us. J. P. Aube, the owner of the most happening nightspot in Timmins, J.P.’s Lounge at the Escapade Hotel, was impressed and booked us to play Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. A steady gig!

The nights typically didn’t end until one in the morning, so we amassed quite a lot of material. As a singer, I was enjoying the creative freedom of covering such a broad range of styles away from the usual country song list I’d stuck to for years. I was also finally starting to feel comfortable fronting the band, although it was a difficult adjustment to be up there when I first started leaving my beloved guitar
behind. When you’re clutching a guitar, even if you’re not particularly playing it much, it functions as a shield between you and the audience. It’s something to hide behind, and you don’t have to think about what to do with your hands.

Without it, I felt completely awkward—maybe
naked
is a better word. I’d never been much of a dancer, and I was still somewhat self-conscious about displaying my body. You know, you’re singing songs mostly about love and romance and longing, plus you’ve got this gale force of sound behind you, and you’re losing yourself in the seductive rhythm. It’s one thing to sway suggestively in front of a mirror in the privacy of your own room, and quite another when a whole club full of strangers is watching your every move. It took me a while to lose my inhibitions onstage, but I gradually became more comfortable in that role by mentally involving the audience and not isolating myself as the center focus. I developed the outlook of throwing a house party, where I was hosting but not alone. We were all having fun together, and this made me feel less in the spotlight.

I related best to female singers such as Pat Benatar and Ann Wilson from the band Heart, as they weren’t dancer-singers. They weren’t choreographed or staged, but they put the singing first, and their body language followed as a secondary, natural part of the performance.

June 1983 marked my graduation from high school. Given my spotty attendance during the year, it seems fitting that I didn’t make it to either the graduation ceremony or the senior prom. Nope, I was out on the road with a new band called Flirt. I passed the exams but didn’t attend the ceremony.

I’d heard Flirt at J.P.’s on a night when Longshot wasn’t booked, and they sounded pretty good. Certainly they were much louder than we were, with their more sophisticated gear; they also boasted elaborate arrangements of songs such as “Africa” by Toto and “Wind Him Up” by a popular Ontario band called Saga. The lead singer, Diane Chase, was tall, blonde, and very pretty, much more so than me, and she could sing quite well, too.

On the eve of a regional tour, she suddenly quit the group. Flirt needed a replacement and fast. Its agent knew me as the lead singer of Longshot and asked if I’d be interested in filling the spot. Seeing as how I already knew many of Flirt’s songs, I said yes. Twenty-four hours later, following an audition, I was in. We’d be leaving in two weeks.

Unbeknown to my parents, I asked my high school principal, Mr. Andrietta, if I could take my exams early, and he agreed. As for the prom, I wound up giving the white, lacy dress I’d bought with my savings to a girlfriend of mine. While she and the rest of the kids were dancing and drinking punch and presumably having a great time at the prom (I really wouldn’t know for certain; after all, I wasn’t there), I was off on the first road gig of my music career.

My whole life, music has been a passion rather than what I would describe as an ambition, and at the age of seventeen it was my passion for music that overpowered my desire to go to my prom and pretend to enjoy wearing a pretty dress for a night. Instead I was much more interested in joining a rock band and going on the road—the far less glamorous of the two and much more daring, but I felt no anticipation about prom night and was incredibly restless to get started, finally, as a full-time music professional. I was looking forward to singing over a big sound system and spending my time learning songs, parts, arrangements. I just wanted to be busy doing music.

My mother, long since used to granting me my independence, had no qualms about me being out on the road playing sweaty bars with a rock band or with me missing my prom. No, what upset her was that I’d be singing rock instead of country; whereas my father preferred it when I sang R&B. I was a free bird in that sense, balking at the idea of being caged by any one style of music. I liked good songs, regardless of what genre they were in. In particular, I was a sucker for ambiguous lyrics, since that would allow me to interpret the words however I wanted. If the song contained minor chords, so much the better, and vocal harmonies were always a big plus in my book.

Although I was Flirt’s lead singer, I was not the bandleader. The song choices were pretty much set in stone before I’d joined, so on a musical level, the group wasn’t all that fulfilling for me. But what a great experience to be independent and working professionally in music, even if that consisted of touring Ontario crowded together in the front bench seat of a small moving van, our amps, drum cases, and other equipment sliding around in back with every sharp curve. Nice bunch of guys, though, and it was a pleasant experience for me overall.