Patty Schemel - If It Makes You Happy

 

 

It was 2014, and I had just started a six-week tour with my new band. We passed a sign that said Grand Canyon. And I said, “You guys remember that Brady Bunch episode where they go to the Grand Canyon and Bobby puts the beans in the flashlight?” And there was silence. Crickets. And then, I thought, Nicole, our bass player did say that Blink 182 was her favorite band when she was in junior high school. And then, it hit me. I was a 47-year-old married, mother of a four-year-old and I was in a pop punk band with three girls under the age of 30. [audience laughter] I was on a six-week tour with millennials. [audience laughter] 

 

The last time I'd been on a tour of this length, this long, was when I was in a band called Hole. 

 

[cheers and applause] 

 

We toured the world and played Madison Square Garden, cover the Rolling Stone. By the end of my five years in the band, I ended up addicted to drugs and alcohol. [audience laughter] But in the 20 years since then, I got clean and sober,- [audience cheers and applause] -fell in love, got married and had my daughter. My days of private jets and tour buses had been replaced with taking care of my daughter, play dates, school drop off and pickup. The old days were kind of a galaxy away. I grew up in a small town north of Seattle. I never really felt like I fit in there until it was farms and football. I started to feel comfortable and fit in when I discovered the drums at 11 years old. 

 

The physical act of playing the drums put me into my body and help me connect with the world. It was my way of expressing myself and my way of being heard loudly. When I discovered punk rock, I wanted to start my own band, which is pretty easy. You just come up with a cool band name like Cat Butt or Green Apple Quickstep or Blisterfist and then you ask your friends to join. [audience laughter] 

 

So, our first show was the high school cafeteria. And then, friends, neighbors, backyard party. And then, you graduate to the Elks Lodge and then the teen rec center. [audience laughter] So, as I grew up, I started playing music around Seattle and opening up for bands like Soundgarden, Mudhoney and Nirvana. And that was right before I joined Hole. But in this new version of myself, this new grownup version, I still have the desire to play drums. I still have the desire to create music and play live. 

 

One day, I got a message on Twitter from my friend Ali Kohler. Ali and I were friends on the internet, not friends in real life or IRL. [audience laughter] She messaged me and she said she was starting a new band and she wanted to know if I wanted to play drums in it. And I said, “Sure, I'll do that.” That's how our band Upset got started. It wasn't like from an ad in a local free weekly or a sign in a coffee shop that said drummer wanted. It was a tweet.

 

Imagine if the Ramones started like that or Jimi Hendrix. Think about Joey Ramone tweeting. So, we found Nicole, our bass player, and Lauren, our guitar player, and we played some shows around LA and we recorded a record and then we booked a six-week tour to promote the record. Now this is a van tour. This is like us loading our equipment into the van. There is no roadies, there's no buses. We load our gear every night and move on to every city and drive everywhere. So, I packed a small suitcase, and a sleeping bag and six small hand sanitizers [audience laughter] and we headed out to Tempe, Arizona, for our first show.

 

So, our rules of the road are the person driving gets to pick the music. So, Nicole, our bass player, is driving. She plugs her phone into the stereo and turns on a playlist of music and a Sheryl Crow song comes on. And then, I look up and I see Allie, our guitar player in the passenger seat, lean over and go, “I love this song” and then high five Nicole. And then, I heard Lauren, our guitar player in the backseat, start singing along to it and then they all started singing along. 

 

My punk rock bandmates were having a moment about Sheryl Crow. [audience laughter] I mean, apparently, this song spoke to them when they were six years old when it came out. [audience laughter] Yeah. Also, I noticed that they were really into some serious multitasking. I watched Allie on her phone, like buying dresses and then using her phone's front facing camera as a mirror to apply lipstick and listening to Pearl Jam all at the same time, where I cannot even text and have a conversation at the same time, which they clearly noticed, because any time I was texting, they'd always go, “Shh, shh, shh, Patty's texting.” [audience laughter] 

 

For the whole entire six weeks, nobody ever touched a map. It's all GPS. We booked shows and confirmed shows through our phones and email. And also, our goal is to play as many shows as possible, which met some pretty unconventional places. We played a pizza pit in Boise, Idaho, and in some kid's garage in El Paso, and then the Fun Zone in Santa Barbara. [audience cheers] 

 

It was batting cages and mini golf. [audience laughter] Yeah, there. And also, the bands, it seems today, don't make a lot of money from royalties like we used to. It's mostly streaming and corporations will reach out to bands with a high follower count on their social media in exchange for free stuff and hotel accommodations. Back in the 1990s, that being connected to a corporation was not punk rock. It's not cool. Kurt Cobain wrote, “Corporate Magazines Suck” in Sharpie on his shirt on the cover of the Rolling Stone. Can you imagine like Smart Water presents Soundgarden or Oasis brought you by stamps.com. [audience laughter] 

 

So, when we got back to the West Coast, our first show on the West Coast was Seattle, which is my old hometown. It was good to be there and to play a live show again. Yeah. Being on the West Coast meant I'm almost home. I'd realized that I was really missing being at home. I missed my daughter. I missed the simplicity of our life together, our routine, our rhythm, bath books in bed. And that just a few days away from her was really hard for me. 

 

I couldn't find myself in another line for a bathroom at some club in Williamsburg, listening to two girls argue about the real meaning of the eggplant emoji. [audience laughter] So, just missed it, you know? So, we moved our stuff into this club. It was like a warehouse space and the band started coming in and the show started and we pushed our stuff up against the wall and I started to head out to go get a cup of coffee and take a walk. And this girl introduced herself and said that she was excited to come to the show and see me play, because she started playing drums when she saw me play. She was looking forward to the show. 

 

It meant a lot to me to hear that something I did inspired somebody else that it changed their life and gave her this direction, which she was explaining. So, I went out and I grabbed my coffee. When I came back in, it was time for us to play. So, I went back to my drums and I sat down at my drum kit. This is a view I've seen so many times. I thought about it, from the 70,000 kids at a festival in the English countryside to 10 kids at some club in LA pointing their phones at me. I can't stop playing music now, even though, I'm realizing I can't really support my family like this anymore. I missed my family, and it was a lot different for me now. But I couldn't stop playing, because this is still my voice, this is still the way I express myself. And to be visible is important. 

 

So, I thought about all the kids on tour. I thought about all the girls I'd seen on the past tour, and what was happening in our world today, and what these kids were doing and organizing and playing shows and creating art, and these girls were the women that are going to lead the way for girls like my daughter. So, I had this affection for them and their need to have Snapchat and flash mobs. They might use annoying phrases like self-care [audience laughter] and adulting, [audience laughter] but in the words of the great Sheryl Crow, “If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad.” Thanks.