THE SOUND THAT WOULDN'T LET HIM LEAVE
Reno, Nevada — August 1979
Jace Elias had already walked past the house when the sound caught him. Not the volume. A chord that seemed to hang in the humid air longer than physics should allow, a dissonant hum that vibrated not in his ribs but behind his eyes, like a memory he didn't own.
He stopped without deciding to. The garage door was a gaping mouth. Inside, five young men fought with their instruments, and the music was a living thing; beautiful and violent, and it was tearing itself apart.
Five of them. The singer had long black ringlet curls tied back against the heat, strikingly good-looking, even sweaty and irritated, with eyes so green they were almost unsettling, pacing the length of the garage like the walls were personally offensive to him. The bassist was blond, not yet filled out to his full size but already built like a linebacker in the making, steady even when the music wasn't. The keyboard player was older than the rest, sandy-haired, hunched over his keys with the focus of a man doing math under gunfire. The guitarist in the corner had light auburn ringlet curls past his shoulders, the loosest, wildest hair in the room, and a grin he hadn't bothered to aim at anyone yet. And behind the kit sat the drummer, the problem: stocky, spiky-haired, and at war with everyone present.
The cancer sat behind the drum kit.
Matt Sorkel played like he was at war with the rest of the band. Every fill was a scream for attention; every cymbal crash a thrown punch. He rushed the beat like he was trying to drag it into an alley and mug it. The music fought back, thrashing under the weight of his ego.
Connor Braydee, all coiled energy and black ringlets, paced like a caged animal as he snarled into the mic.
"You're rushing again, Matt!"
"I'm driving it!" Matt snapped back, not missing a beat that wasn't his to begin with.
Nathan Dallenger didn't even look up from his keyboard. His sandy hair was damp with sweat, his fingers a blur of controlled motion as he played.
"Driving isn't the same as dragging," he said.
Ricky Stråthan just laughed from the corner.
"Relax, man. It's rock and roll."
Erik Hahn said nothing. He just compensated, his bass a low, steady pulse against chaos, muscles straining in his shoulders as he tried to anchor a song that wanted to float away. He was the only one listening.
Jace leaned against the doorframe. He could feel it instantly. It went beyond bad timing. It was a sickness. The beat wanted to settle somewhere solid and Matt refused to let it.
The argument finally boiled over. Matt slammed a stick down on the snare.
"Whatever. Play it without me."
He shouldered past Jace on his way out, a flash of hot, petty resentment. The silence he left behind was heavy, wounded.
Jace stepped into the light before he could stop himself. He pointed at the hi-hat stand. "Mind if I?"
Connor eyed him, suspicion warring with desperation. "You play?"
"A little," Jace said.
"Go ahead," Erik told him, "It's my kit and anything you can do to make it better is fine by me."
He adjusted the stand. His fingers knew the metal, knew the tension. He gave the pedal a slight tweak, a fraction of an inch, and the whole kit seemed to exhale. He grabbed the sticks and did a quick run over the toms to test tension and delivered a quick “gaduck” on the snare. Connor raised his eyebrows and looked at Nathan.
When Matt didn't come back, he took a breath and nodded toward the stool.
"Sit in. Just to see."
"You sure?" Jace asked.
Connor nodded.
He closed his eyes for a second, found that inner hum that had brought him into the garage, and let it flow through his hands.
He played simply: solid, patient, and absolute. The song snapped into place so cleanly it was like a bone setting. The sickness receded.
Erik looked up first, his face a mask of shock. Nathan smiled, a real, involuntary thing. Connor stopped mid-verse, a laugh of pure disbelief escaping his lips.
"Holy shit," he said, shooting Jace a surprised look, "Only play a little, huh?"
Ricky chuckled and bounced on the balls of his feet enthusiastically.
Matt chose that moment to return. He stood in the doorway, taking in the new sound, the new cohesion. He saw Jace behind the kit, and his face tightened. He didn't say a word. He just turned and walked away for good. No one chased him, and there was no longer any reason to.
They played together for hours. The music was tight, something it hadn't been for a long time. Jace was intuitive, easily finding the right grooves for each song. He learned them amazingly fast, which was both a relief and a delight to Connor and Nathan.
"You're a pretty amazing drummer, man," Erik complimented.
"Are you in any other bands?" Connor asked.
Jace shook his head and told him, "I'm not in a band right now."
"Do ya wanna be?" Ricky inquired quickly with a grin, prompting a little nervous chuckling from the rest of the band.
Jace considered it. All day long he had been feeling something different in the air, as if something was coming. A feeling of hope... the beginning of it. His mother referred to this intuitive side of him as his "inner dragon." Jace didn't know what it was, but all he knew was it felt like life was about to change.
He'd felt a strong pull to the sound, and then to the kit itself. Now, he felt a pull to be a part of these guys. He couldn't explain it, but it seemed like a natural fit.
"I think I could help you out," Jace said with a grin.
Nathan finally looked up from his keys, studying the new drummer fully for the first time. The build said hard work rather than a weight room, and the hands confirmed it. Very long dark hair to his waist that was wavy, sun kissed from working outside in the Summertime, and pulled back due to the heat. He wore a handmade beaded choker that looked earned rather than bought. His eyes were a startlingly vivid amber-gold that made it difficult to look away once you'd found them.
There was only one problem that remained.
"I have one extremely important question first," Nathan said, looking at Jace seriously, "What the hell is your name?!"
They all laughed at this, realizing they'd been jamming for hours and had no clue who their new drummer really was.
"Jason Elias. Sorry...I should have introduced myself a lot earlier."
"Well, you kind of did, just with your drumming," Connor admitted.
The questions came about his experience, the music he'd played in the past, and other details they were amazed by.
"So, you're a tribal drummer?" Nathan asked, "Are you Paiute? From the reservation?"
Jace nodded.
"Born and raised. My father and brother both taught me. Since I was two."
"Woah, that's really cool!" Ricky enthused, "Do they still play, too?"
"My brother, Tobin, does," Jace said, "My father died when I was sixteen."
"Sorry to hear that, man," Nathan told him, "But it sure sounds like he and your brother gave you a very solid foundation to build from on drums."
"I just have my mom left, and my brother," Jace said, "I work with him building homes around Reno. Elias Construction."
"I've seen the name around," Erik commented, "You look like you do hard work, so that makes sense."
"You look like you're more than Paiute..." Connor added, "Kind of like me with my Persian and Irish parents."
"My mom is Irish," Jace admitted, "Both my brother and I took a lot of shit in school for being only half-Paiute or only half-white. Personally, I like being both even if other people don't like it."
"Well, you're in good company here," Erik said with a grin, "I'm German and Norwegian."
"He's a Viking," Ricky teased, "Give him a hammer. He could come off as Thor."
"Meanwhile, this one..." Nathan said, pointing at Connor, "Is our resident Iranian-Irish vocalist and fiddler."
"An Irish father and an Iranian mother?" Jace asked Connor.
"It's the other way around," Connor replied, "My parents met after my dad left Iran. Two people from two different worlds. They both immigrated here in 1960, married in Reno and I was born a year later."
"Two different worlds that created a very different guy, too," Nathan joked, "I have no clue what all is in me. Probably a little Irish, a little British, and a lot of American stubbornness."
"With an IQ of a genius," Ricky quipped.
Jace looked at Nathan quizzically, "You have a high IQ? How high?"
"198...give or take a point," Nathan responded with a shrug.
"I love how casual he is about it," Connor chuckled, "He's a brilliant little fucker, actually!"
"In a multitude of things," Erik added.
"He just wrapped up TWO doctorate degrees, Jace," Connor added.
"And he's studying a little medicine, too," Ricky added.
Jace looked at Nathan and grinned, teasing, "Overachiever..."
"Just think better when I have more than one project," Nathan said, trying to justify his methods.
Laughter gave way at this and soon the subject switched to business.
"Can you make it to rehearsals?" Erik asked, "We're here almost daily. Some of us work. Some just chase women all day."
Erik grinned at Connor.
"Hey, I'm not THAT bad!" Connor retorted.
Groans erupted and Ricky cried, "You're a menace to the female population of Reno, Nevada, dude. Admit it!"
"Four girls, one room, 6 hours..." Nathan chimed.
"That was ONE time! Opportunity knocked!" Connor protested.
"Yeah...sounds like it knocked all over your dick!" Jace joked.
Instantly, Nathan, Erik, and Ricky all laughed hard, while Connor grinned at Jace and replied, "Well, I guess I deserve that. Not the best impression to give the new guy, huh?"
"What's Rock and Roll without the sex?" Jace asked with a grin, "And don't worry about the impression. I don't judge."
More questions and some good-natured banter later, they started to turn to a more pressing matter. At least to Ricky.
"Well," he said, "We can't call ourselves Garage Disaster anymore."
"Aw, but it was so accurate," Erik snickered.
"Not anymore," Nathan replied, pointing at Jace, "Not with this guy on the skins."
Names flew, stupid and glorious. Then Connor said it, quiet at first.
"Battle Cry."
The words landed in Jace's chest like a physical blow. A promise. A threat.
Nathan nodded a little and looked at each of his bandmates.
"I like it!" Erik nodded, "It feels right."
"I agree," Ricky enthused, "It hits just right."
"Jason? What do you think?" Connor asked.
Jace took his time answering, a little surprised since not many bands he'd been a part of ever cared about his opinion on anything.
"I think it's the right name," he said quietly, "It says we're coming at you. No apologies."
"That's a nice way to put it, man," Nathan told him, "Welcome to Battle Cry, Jason."
"Call me Jace. Everyone else does."
Erik had gone to the refrigerator and grabbed five beers, handing them out and declaring, "It's time for a toast...or just a cold beer, because it's too damned hot outside."
Cracking open the beverages, Ricky raised his and called out, "To Battle Cry!"
"To finding a great drummer that doesn't take himself too seriously," Connor added.
"Mazel tov!" Ricky cried.
They all took a drink and Erik quipped, "I didn't know you were Jewish, Rick."
"I'm not...I just like that salute."
"Look, Jace," Connor advised, "We're up for a gig at the VFW hall on Friday night. You can make it, right?"
"Yeah, I'll be there," Jace confirmed.
The day of the VFW gig arrived quickly. Folding chairs, crossed arms, and the smell of old beer and patriotism, the kind of room that paid you and forgot you. The crowd was exactly what a VFW crowd was. A couple of middle-aged pairs got up near the folding chairs and actually danced, arms loose, unembarrassed. The rest, mostly older, mostly veterans who'd seen sixty years of bands come through that hall, watched from their seats with the flat, patient expressions of men waiting for it to be over, like the five of them had sprouted something extra out of their skulls.
Nobody in Battle Cry cared. Ricky counted it as a win regardless.
"Two dancers," he announced, hauling an amp into the back of Erik's van. "That's a landslide, statistically."
"Statistically, that's four people," Nathan said. "Out of maybe sixty."
"I said what I said."
Erik pulled the doors shut and climbed behind the wheel, and the van rattled to life like it had to think about it first. Connor stretched out in the back seat, boots up on an amp case, grinning at nothing in particular.
"Well," Connor said. "We got paid."
Erik agreed. "Which reminds me, you guys owe me gas money."
"You drive one gig and suddenly you're a landlord," Ricky said.
"I drive every gig, Ricky. Pay up."
Ricky dug a five out of his back pocket and slapped it into Erik's waiting palm without further argument.
Connor groaned like it physically pained him but handed his over too. By the time Erik reached out again, Nathan and Jace had already passed theirs up, no argument needed from either of them.
"Twenty bucks," Erik said, thumbing through the bills. "That's two fill-ups, easy."
"Look at us," Ricky said. "Fiscally responsible."
"Don't get used to it." Jace chuckled.
"At least I can get it filled up," Erik said, pocketing the cash. "Assuming the station's even got any."
"Blame Carter," Nathan said, not looking up from where he was coiling a cable.
Jace sat by the window and watched the VFW hall's string lights shrink behind them in the side mirror. Whatever had happened tonight, it wasn't nothing, and some part of him already knew he'd be doing this again next week and the week after that for as long as they'd have him.
But underneath the good feeling, something else sat quiet and unmoved, the same thing that had stopped his feet on the sidewalk outside that garage two days ago.
It hadn't been the sound. Not really. He could admit that now, riding in the dark with four men he'd known less than a week. It had been these four, specifically, like something had already decided before he ever set foot in that driveway. As if his bones were telling him there had been something missing in his life, and somehow these four guys were that something.
The months that followed blurred into rehearsals and bar gigs. Reno gave them everything it had first, dive bars and half-empty lounges that paid in beer as often as cash, word passing bartender to bartender the way it does in a small circuit. By the new year they'd started branching past the city limits, into the smaller towns scattered around the valley, and eventually into Carson City itself. Over a year after Jace first sat down behind that kit, Battle Cry had built something real. Small still, but real, and a booking at a Carson City club that promised their biggest crowd yet.
The room outside Carson City where the lights were too bright, the stage barely a stage at all, just plywood and cables, but the room was packed. Women pressed toward the front, excitement in their eyes. Men followed, some just standing there with their girlfriends appearing less than enthused.
Battle Cry walked out dressed in leather and denim, neither flashy nor theatrical, just right. Cheers erupted as they took the stage and donned their gear. Connor took center instinctively. The women at the front of the stage were already beginning to flirt brazenly with him before a single note was played.
Ricky hovered close, light auburn ringlets bouncing as he tested his cable. Erik stood solid and grounded, blond hair loose around his shoulders, bass resting against his hip like it belonged there. And Jace took his place behind the kit. The garage drums again. Scarred, tuned tight by his hands alone. He rolled his shoulders once, cracked his neck, and looked up to catch Erik's eye. They nodded at each other, each ready.
Connor leaned into the mic.
"All right, people... " he said, voice smooth, teasing. "Let's see what kind of night this wants to be, people."
They opened with covers, tight, confident, loud enough to wake the walls, and the room responded immediately. Heads started moving. Feet followed. Someone whooped. Someone else laughed, many cheered and danced.
By the third song, Jace had already shed his vest. It wasn't planned. The lights were hot, the room hotter, sweat slicking down his spine. He tossed the black leather aside, and the crowd got their first unobstructed look at him. At twenty-one, the construction work he did sculpted what years in a weight room couldn't fake. The reaction came fast. Surprised laughter, appreciative whistles, women calling out to him playfully, a ripple that moved through the crowd like a spark jumping wires.
Jace heard it, felt the heat of it, and the corner of his mouth pulled up and color touched the back of his neck. He offered a smile that masked the shyness, but only a little. That only made the cheers more enthusiastic.
The next song started off and Jace surged into it cleanly. He didn't play to the attention. He played through it. His strikes landed clean, locking with Erik so tightly it felt like they were breathing together.
By the time Connor glanced back over his shoulder and nodded, Jace knew what was coming.
They slid into "One Helluva One Night Stand."
The room exploded. Headbanging, hopping, bodies colliding with joy instead of anger. The riff hit hard and stayed there, dirty and fast, the kind of song that dared you to keep up.
When the song ended, the noise didn't. They didn't even stop. Connor barely waited before counting off "Shake Up the Night."
It hit like a declaration. The crowd responded instantly, hands in the air, bodies moving as one. Jace drove the tempo forward, hair plastered to his face now, sweat blurring the edges of the world until all that existed was sound and motion and the way everything fit. For the first time, Jace felt it clearly. They weren't playing at the crowd anymore.
They had them.
After the set, the room buzzed, laughter, raised voices, hands clapping them on the back as they packed up. Compliments came from all directions, messy and sincere, some women approached various band members for close flirtatious contact, placing hands on bare chests, sneaking touches in areas hands should not travel in polite company at times. While it was sexy and fun for Connor and Ricky, Jace and Erik shyly steered themselves out of reach, while Nathan's attention snagged on something else entirely.
A look. A man near the bar, simply observing. Something about the man had already caught at the edge of Jace's own attention, a stillness that didn't belong to someone there to drink. He was watching them during their sets, nodding occasionally.
Jace had managed to towel off as much sweat as he could and stood next to Nathan with a freshly opened cold beer, calmly surveying the room. Suddenly, Nathan leaned close to Jace and nodded toward the door.
"Heads up."
Jace looked toward the side door, hearing what sounded like a commotion. He spotted Erik through the side door, outside near the alley, facing a drunk man who was too close and too loud. Erik's shoulders were squared, jaw tight. Jace moved fast, swiftly jumping over the railing and hitting the ground at a dead run.
By the time he got outside, the man was slurring something sharp and stupid, eyes flicking between Erik's hands and his face.
"Didn't mean anything by it, Thor," the guy sneered, "Just thought you excited my girl a little too much."
“Dude,” one of the man’s buddies called out to him, “You don’t have a girl, so he excited no one. Or did he excite you?”
“Shut up, ya idiot!” the drunk railed at his friend.
Erik's hands clenched tight enough to make his knuckles crack. He was prepared to unleash the strong retort he was building to the entire group. Jace stepped in beside him, his eyes dark.
"Is there a problem?" Jace asked, leveling a hard gaze at the man leveling the insults.
The man laughed, then said something he'd regret.
"Hell no, chief," the man cackled out, "Me and your Viking friend were just talkin'! What ya doin' so far off the reservation, boy?"
Jace heard Erik's breath quickly heave from his chest at this. The man's friends were telling him to just leave it alone, but the man wasn't getting the hint.
"You gonna go get the rest of the posse, half-breed?" The man practically cackled, "I can tell you ain't a full brave! Yer a Paiute mutt!"
Now he was just being a stupid drunk, and Jace had heard it before. Being treated like shit by ignorant and usually drunken men was nothing unusual. Jace glared at him, then cracked his neck instinctively. Once. The sound cut through the night like a warning shot.
Erik shot him a quick look, understanding that the drummer was more than capable of finishing the fight if it began.
"You should walk away now," Jace told the drunk icily, now popping and cracking the knuckles in each hand as he spoke, "Before you find out how wrong you really are."
"Dude," another of the man's friends said to him suddenly, "Knock it off! They're both twice as big as you are. We gotta go meet the girls at Rodney's place."
The man hesitated, finally taking in the size of both men and the darkness in Jace's eyes. He saw that Erik hadn't moved an inch, his own gaze hard.
"You faggots ain't worth my time," the man growled at both Jace and Erik.
"Shut up, dumbass," another friend told him, "They could kill ya, man."
"I could kill them first!!" the drunk man slurred.
"You really could not, dude," another friend told him, "Quit being an asshole to the band and let's go!"
His friends began to pull him away from Jace and Erik, who both looked more than willing to prove him wrong now.
The drunken idiot lobbed a few more muttered curses and racial slurs at Jace as he backed off, his nervous entourage finally pulling him away and directing him down the alley. Jace watched as they disappeared from view completely. He sighed quietly and Erik exhaled hard.
"Thanks," Erik said quietly.
Jace nodded.
"Anytime."
"Do you deal with that shit often?" Erik asked.
"I'm used to it." Jace admitted, "My brother and I got more of it as kids. From both sides."
"Sorry, man." Erik said.
"It’s life," Jace admitted, "Let's get back inside, huh?"
Inside, the band regrouped. All of them annoyed about the incident, but Jace advised them not to dwell on it, since the incident was over.
That was when the man from the bar approached.
"Hey, gentlemen...I'm John," he said, offering his hand. "John Kavanaugh."
He didn't waste time. Grasping Connor's hand in a firm handshake he complimented the singer's command of the stage, Ricky's connection with the crowd, Erik's grounding presence, Nathan's ear, and Jace's timing.
"You don't just play," John said to them. "You hold people. It's cohesiveness that's rare. Many bands don't have this like you do. In fact, you have many qualities I haven't seen in others. Qualities that make you unique and exciting to a rock audience."
He handed Connor a card. "My office. Two days from now. Two o'clock. If you want to see where this goes."
Then he smiled once and walked away.
They stood there in stunned silence.
Finally, Ricky laughed. "Did that just happen?"
Jace looked down at the card in Connor's hand. For the first time in a long while, he felt something steadier than the unexplainable pull toward this band. Like maybe, someone was looking out for them.
The evening's surprises also kept coming, in the form of another unexpected admirer.
Tommy Lee, a very skilled and exciting drummer himself, had been in the crowd from the first song, watching with the focus of another drummer. He had come through Carson City for reasons that had nothing to do with either Battle Cry or his own band, and watched the show, intent on finding out exactly who he'd just witnessed hold the crowd with such a strong command.
He found Jace almost immediately afterward. Jace was thrilled to finally meet Tommy, having seen him play several times with Suite 19 on the club circuit in Los Angeles. Rumor had it that he was building a new band, which he mentioned as they talked. The two men discussed drums for a long time, with each being complimentary of each other's styles and skill.
"You're really solid and ya don't rush," Tommy said, already grinning. "You have a great sense of time, and you don’t make things too punchy. You're really natural."
Jace shrugged. "Thanks, man. I don’t think songs like being bullied."
Tommy laughed and launched into a fast, half-breathless explanation of double kicks, broken cymbals, and a future where drum kits didn't stay put.
"What if it lifts?" Tommy asked.
"Lifts? You mean the whole kit?" Jace questioned.
"Spins? Moves with you?"
Jace shook his head, amused. "You’d need a seatbelt, so you don’t fall on your head, dude."
“Uh-huh,” Tommy confirmed quickly.
“Sounds dangerous.” Jace replied.
"Exactly!" Tommy exclaimed, with a delighted chuckle.
Tommy extended an invitation for Battle Cry to join him and Rock Candy singer Vince Neil at another party they'd been invited to in town.
"I'd actually heard about you guys from this chick who saw ya play in Reno," Tommy told Nathan, "Told me to check you out if I ever saw you on the bill somewhere. So, I did."
Nathan thanked him and it was pretty clear from the point where the invitation was shared with the rest of the band that they would be partying with Tommy and Vince that night. Jace had no idea what would ensue, but he had a feeling it would be unlike anything they'd experienced in their journey so far.
Hanging around Tommy had both perks and drawbacks, and the night intended to demonstrate both. Women were everywhere, all attractive, all drinking, none of them there by accident.
Jace felt it before he understood it all, and the moment he walked into the party he was noticed. It was only a matter of minutes before he was faced with a challenge.
The woman didn't drift over. She chose him.
"You're the quiet one," she said near his ear. "That's dangerous."
Jace smiled reflexively, polite, practiced, and shifted, trying to angle away without making a scene.
"I'm not dangerous," Jace told her, "I just like to read the room."
"But that is still a little dangerous," she cooed, caressing his bare forearm, "That means you're a man who knows what he wants."
Jace excused himself and moved closer to where he could still see Nathan, Erik, and Ricky socializing in the next room.
She followed. Still talking about how dangerous he seemed from a distance, and how incredibly hot that was. Her hand found his arm again, then slid lower. Possessive now. Testing. The pull went beyond desire. It was momentum. The sense of being steered. She began to caress his bare chest seductively through his open motorcycle vest.
"I can tell you want this," she murmured.
That landed wrong. Alarm prickled at the base of Jace's spine suddenly. It wasn't her words, it was the feeling he had after she said them, as if she was trying to direct him toward something. He felt she had motives... ones that did not bode well for him. He scanned the room for the rest of his band.
Connor was gone. Vince Neil had grabbed a hold of him and was on a mission to teach him real debauchery. Nathan seemed to hold things together, deflecting advances and navigating the partiers with careful attention.
Ricky flirted with the chaos, loud and bright. Erik drank and laughed, loose but upright. Jace checked in with both of them, keeping them from tipping. But he couldn't be everywhere.
Besides, he was continually being followed and felt up by that same woman who thought he wanted her. She touched him constantly and continually pointed out exactly how gorgeous she thought he was.
Finally, Jace became annoyed with her. She was being overly aggressive, and he could not stand it any longer. He finally backed away until his hands found the table behind him, creating space.
"No. Not interested."
The woman blinked, surprised, then smiled at him in an odd way before she turned away and disappeared back into the crowd.
Jace's pulse was quick. He didn't know why, but she made him feel like he was seconds away from disaster and had somehow dodged a bullet.
Connor returned later, victorious. Lipstick smeared all over his face and any skin that showed. His black locks were damp and some of his hair was stuck to his face. His body seemed to carry not only a sweaty sheen, but almost a satisfied glow. The girls he and Vince had been with stumbled out behind him, looking even more sweaty. One brazenly walked up to him and immediately kissed him so deeply he almost fell backwards.
"This place is very welcoming!" Connor exclaimed, grinning.
Vince Neil howled with laughter, pointing at him. "Yeah, Braydee!!"
Connor took it like he'd been given a medal. He grabbed the groupie who almost took out his tonsils with that kiss and pulled her back into the room they'd just exited from, quickly closing the door behind them.
Ricky shook his head at Connor, telling Erik, "He's going to be the father of a whole country if he's not careful."
Jace nodded in agreement at this. After all the excitement of the show, John Kavanaugh, and then Tommy Lee and Vince Neil... there was indeed a reason to party.
"I guess this is how he celebrates," He chuckled.