Between a rock and an office space

I Was Almost a Rock God and Will Happily Tell You at Every Opportunity

Don’t let my clean shaven looks and collared shirt fool you, this body was built to shred

When you have climbed the long way to the top, or at least a couple of rungs like I have, you need to tell everyone about it.

All the time.

Never miss a chance to remind the rest of these non-musicians that you are a superior being and should be treated with respect and complimentary oral sex. Here are some handy hacks to insert your rock god status into everyday real life situations.

A song plays on the radio that contains guitar and is pleasant to the ears.

‘Yeah, me and my band covered this back in the day. We changed the choruses and the verses to instrumental sections, and I fuckin shredded super melodic solos the whole way through.’ Demonstrate the most climactic section of your solo complete with stage dive and crowd surfing. Make sure Tim from accounts is present to catch you with his burly shoulders.

A song plays on the radio that contains guitar but is quite unpleasant. Usually because there is too much singing and not enough guitar solos.

‘I don’t know why they play these no hopers on the radio. Their riffs are piss weak, their hair is over-styled and their jeans aren’t Tommy Hilfinger enough. The only reason they got famous is cos the singer used to play drums in the band with Courtney Love’s ex husband.’ Spit on the ground and then pretend to place a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger.

A song plays on the radio that is very pleasant but contains no traces of guitars.

‘Everything these days is fucking electronic music.’ Physically stop your head from bobbing. Spit again. Rock gods love spitting. ‘Some nerd programs a computer controlled by monkeys and it produces this pile of steaming hot porridge.’ Rock gods hate porridge. ‘I played real music.’

No music is currently playing. This could occur in multiple settings. The morning meeting. During a minor cosmetic surgery you have flown to Thailand for. During your mother-in-law’s funeral.

‘Who wants to listen to some music?’ Place a boombox on the ground. The bigger the better. If needed get Tim to help you carry it in. ‘Let’s fuckin jam.’ Make sure you have your band’s biggest hit (the song that you managed to record with an actual vocalist) pre loaded. Perform a pirouette and press the play button on the boombox with your middle finger. Watch on as your colleague’s/surgical trainee’s/mourner’s jaws drop in collective amazement at your modal arpeggios.

You have a Tinder profile.

Make sure the fact you were in a band is on the homepage. Straight under your name is best. Or even make your band name your profile name. All the hotties are swiping right for Moist Nun Deluge.

You are on a first date.

I’ve heard weirdo’s say ask your date questions. What the hell do you need to know about them? They’re hot enough you want to bang them. That’s why you’re on the date. What you need to do is make sure they know you were almost a rock god. I like to arrive early to the restaurant and set up my Stratocaster and amp on the stage, and cue my backing track over the PA. If there is no stage, on top of the most central table will do. If there is no PA, call Tim and ask him to bring the boombox. When my date arrives, I improvise a solo over the national anthem of their country of origin. Normally a killer move, except for this one time I dated a Greek woman and I accidently played the extended version of the Greek national anthem, which is 158 verses. We missed entrees and mains, and she was understandably a bit hangry.

You are on a second date.

Um, are you ok? What’s a second date?

You are meeting your partner’s parents to ask for permission to marry their child.

Bro, WTF? Marriage is a sure-fire way to lose your almost rock god status. But if you insist on this insanity, you will need to impress them somehow. I suggest setting up a drum kit and bass guitar in their garage and encouraging them to jam with you. If your father-in-law-to-be insists on playing the triangle because he shredded on it in primary school, let him. If your mother-in-law-to-be insists on playing lead guitar and relegating you to bass, tell her the marriage is off and spit on their Persian rug on the way out. (If you are struggling to keep up with all the spitting, I suggest chewing tobacco to increase saliva production. Gives you a real rockabilly vibe too.)

You are organising your own funeral arrangements.

This is it, huh? Your last chance to prove to everyone you were almost a rock god and deserved to have legitimately been one. Hopefully you are older than 27 when this happens, and technology has improved enough for you to record yourself as a hologram. And not just the shredding, you should record all elements of the almost rock god lifestyle for your friends and family to witness. Record yourself sculling a bottle of whisky before you stumble out onto stage. Record yourself masturbating in the bathroom toilet after your band’s only groupie decides to hook up with the lead singer, again. Record yourself buying coke online through the dark web and then snorting lines as you watch YouTube videos of Keith Richards, wondering at what could have been. Finally, finish with a recording of the moment of your death, making sure you use plenty of reverb as you solo. Then simply fade the music as your image disappears.

Holy shit, they will say, as you watch on from above/below. What an almost rock god.

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