If you believe the movies, rock bands would constantly be strung out, bickering among themselves, travelling by luxury bus and sleeping with an inexhaustible supply of groupies. One-time band member Anna Careycompares her own rock'n'roll experiences with the Hollywood version
EVER SINCE Bill Haley and the Comets inadvertently inspired a generation of teenage tearaways to rip up cinema seats in Rock Around the Clockin 1956, Hollywood has loved making movies about rock stars. The latest addition to cinema's rock'n'roll canon is The Runaways, Floria Sigismondi's entertaining film about the lives of the eponymous first successful all-girl rock band. According to the film, life in The Runawaysis a sleazy, exciting, non-stop adventure, as the girls hit the road, become hugely successful, do loads of drugs and end up falling apart.
For better or worse, this isn’t what happens to most people who start bands. Most bands, if they’re lucky, will get to release a couple of albums, maybe go on a tour, maybe play a few festivals and get some good support slots. Most of them won’t be able to make a full-time living from music. I know this from not-particularly-bitter experience, having been in bands from my mid-teens to late 20. My last band, El Diablo, released two albums and toured all over the country, playing with bands such as Calexico and The Handsome Family. So will watching feature films about rock stars prepare the average would-be rock’n’roll star for the realities of life in a band? Perhaps it’s time to take a close look at what some of these films tell us.
YOU WILL HAVE AN EVIL MANAGER
One of the slightly terrifying highlights of The Runawaysis Michael Shannon's performance as the band's infamous manager, Kim Fowley. A sex-crazed glam-rock Frankenstein, Fowley constantly manipulates, exploits and goads Runaways frontwoman Cherie Currie (Dakota Fanning) and guitarist Joan Jett (Kristen Stewart). But his madness is nothing in comparison to that of Z-Man, the manager of The Carrie Nations in Russ Meyer's Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, who goes on a killing spree during which he beheads the lead singer's ex-boyfriend with a sword. This probably won't happen to you. When it comes to managers, novice bands should really just watch out for incompetent buffoons rather than insane villains.
YOU WILL BE DISCOVERED IN A NIGHT CLUB
In The Runaways, Joan introduces herself to Kim Fowley at an LA nightclub, where they also discover future Runaway frontwoman Cherie Currie. In Mariah Carey's semi- autobiographical cinematic triumph Glitter, her character Billie is working as a backing vocalist for a talentless diva. Billie proves that she's the truly talented one when a DJ called Dice (oh yes), encourages her to sing during a freestyle session at his club. Billie opens her mouth and emits ear-piercing shrieks, which inexplicably delight the crowd and set her on the road to bland r'n'b stardom. Sadly, if your band is discovered at all by the powers that be, it will probably be as a result of playing lots of gigs and recording something half-decent, not simply by going clubbing.
YOU WILL BE SURROUNDED BY GROUPIES
In Almost Famous, the band Stillwater are accompanied on the road by a gang of gorgeous groupies. While most bands will never be constantly pursued by people like Kate Hudson and Anna Paquin (of course, most people in bands don't look like Billy Crudup), it's true that if you are on a stage and doing something with any level of skill, at least one person in the audience will find you attractive. So while you are unlikely to have your own groupie army, someone will probably chat you up after a show. However, it must be added that if you are female, you will probably just be approached by shy blokes who want to talk about effects pedals.
YOU WILL CONSUME YOUR OWN WEIGHT IN DRINK AND DRUGS
Pretty much every film ever made about rock music features a now-they're-all-on-drugs sequence. In The Runaways, Joan and Cherie stumble through a haze of booze and cocaine in their glittery wedges, and Sid and Nancyis essentially a cinematic drug binge. And while most bands can't afford to consume that much narcotics even if they wanted to, it's true that playing loads of gigs is conducive to overindulgence. The real touring danger for those who aren't full-on hedonists is that just one or two drinks every night combined with petrol-station sandwiches for lunch and pub grub for dinner can eventually give you the sort of horrible, sluggish, post-Christmas feeling that leaves you yearning for a diet of water and lettuce.
YOU WILL FIGHT WITH EACH OTHER
By the end of The Commitments, most of the Dublin band aren't talking to each other. In This Is Spinal Tap, Nigel Tufnel is pushed out of the band (only to triumphantly rejoin them on stage in Japan at the end). It's true that being in a band can be tough on friendships, but while fighting is likely, it's not inevitable if people make an effort. This is one circumstance in which heeding the experience of on-screen rockers and avoiding their diva-like mistakes might actually be useful.
YOU WILL PLAY OTHER PEOPLE’S SONGS. AGAIN AND AGAIN
In the fantastic Japanese film Linda Linda Linda, a group of schoolgirls practise for their school talent show by repeatedly playing one song: Linda Lindaby the Blue Hearts. This is par for the course for any youthful band. You will start off by playing one or two songs (basically whatever ones you can play on guitar from beginning to end), and you will play them until sheer boredom drives you to actually write something new.
YOUR BANDMATE’S EVIL GIRLFRIENDS WILL TRY TO TAKE OVER
Who can forget the glorious Jeanine in This Is Spinal Tap, with her horoscope-themed stage outfits? David St Hubbins's life partner is the archetypical controlling girlfriend who wants to destroy the boys' friendship. Such figures are rare in real life, mostly because hanging around during other people's band practices and meetings is incredibly boring.
YOU WILL HAVE WACKY ADVENTURES
One of the best bits of A Hard Day's Nightis the scene in which Ringo gets his head "filled with notions" by Paul's Irish grandad and goes off on his own, eventually getting arrested when an attempt at chivalry goes amusingly wrong. In the Fab Four's second film, Help!,he is pursued by a fiendish cult. The Blues Brothers, meanwhile, spend most of their time trying to survive murder attempts and car chases. In real life, however, the most dangerous and exciting thing you will encounter on tour is likely to be the aforementioned dodgy sandwiches.
LOVE (OR AT LEAST SEX) WILL BLOSSOM BETWEEN BANDMATES
If you believe what you see on screen, then most bands are hotbeds of lust. In The Runaways, Joan and Cherie hook up on the road. In The Commitments, all the female members fall (if only briefly) for the dubious charms of Joey "The Lips" Fagan. If a band includes people whose sexual preferences mean that they could possibly fancy each other, then I'm afraid something usually does happen at least once. Or more than once – I am now happily married to a former bandmate.
BEING IN A BAND WILL MAKE YOU RICH AND FAMOUS
Forget the stadium shows, magazine shoots, screaming fans, luxury buses and glamorous parties seen in everything from The Runawaysto Almost Famous. Forget tour buses – if any of your band is unlucky enough to have a driving licence, he or she will be staying sober and ferrying you and the gear around the country in a small hatchback. Very few people earn a full-time living from music, and even fewer can keep it going forever. Of course, as Nigel Tufnel reminds us, if the music thing doesn't work out, you can always go and work in a shop. As long as the hours are right, of course.
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