Rockin’ On!

by Dashie04

Chapter Five: On The Road Again

Author's Note:

April Fools'! Wait--

Welcome to the April Necromancy event! This was pitched on QnS, the idea being we take an old story and update it with our improved writing skill. Now, I saw this one had potential, and I have first-hand experience of being in a band now! So, I picked this one.

I thought it'd be funny to drop a decent chapter here without editing the last ones at all.

“Ugh, could you keep it down out there?”

A bleary Athen blinks sleep from his eyes and walks out to his bandmates having a riveting chat at a fire.

“It is the middle of the night, calm down.”

The two ponies, one, a guitar slung over her back, and the other lounging nonchalantly by a fire.

“What? We’re writing songs!” Chase calls, probably far too loud. Athen winces.

“Look, I’m still tired from last show. I haven’t gotten a lick of sleep, because you two keep blabbering. Is it really that hard to write a song?”

“Well, it’s hard writing a song you two won’t hate. We have a draft for a song but nopony really does much. What’s the point then, it’s got a strong lyric…”

Hooves nods as Chase goes off as if to emphasize the point. “Yep! Wrote it myself!”

“But even Mr. Mango Star wannabe can’t play a drum part that boring.”

“Hey, his beats were really good actually—“

Chase waves Athen off. “Right now we’re discussing something a little more complex. We’ve been discussing it for a few days, it’s a rocker. Type of song that’ll get the crowd headbanging.”

With a telltale sparkle in her eye, Hooves gives a flirtatious wink. “Oh, and the drum part is super cool.”

Athen rolls his eyes. “Fine, talk about it tomorrow or whatever, we’ll be in Fillydelphia then. I need some sleep because you don’t want a sleepy drummer.”

“But there’s still so much to talk about!”

More eye rolling. “Chase, I will write a song just to prove you wrong. Now shut up.”

Chase sighs. “Well, Hooves, we’ll pick this up again tomorrow, I want to see Athen try and pen something.”

The two ponies stand up and retreat back into the tent to get some rest. Athen sits, ironically probably not getting much sleep at all. After all he had a song to pen. By the light of a fire, he starts silently coming up with ideas before he slips into eventual unconsciousness.

---

“Ha! Did the exact thing he chided us for doing!”

Athen jolts awake, the tortured melody of his half-formed idea churning around in his head. He groggily shakes his head side to side as Chase comes to sit by the sparking embers that died in the night.

“So what do you have?” Chase laughs. “Little harder than you think right?”

Athen, still exceptionally tired, blinked and started mumbling lyrics with a slight melody.

“No mother dreams her daughter will grow up to be a junkie
No mother dreams her daughter will grow up to sleep alone…”

Athen continues muttering the lyrics. The moment he finished a verse Chase stares at him.

“So… uh, any particular reason this song’s from the perspective of a mare? Why don’t the lyrics rhyme? What do they mean?”

Athen tries his best to answer all of Chase’s questions.

“I don’t know… felt more relatable that way. I felt the lyrics needed to tell a story more than be any good.” Athen clarifies.

“What even is the instrumental you have in mind for this?”

“Power chords and straightforward beats, that’d work…”

“You know we can’t use this right?”

Athen mutters something incomprehensible and starts taking the tent down. The other two come out, Proper yawning and Hooves with a spring in her step.

“Everypony get ready!” she calls. “Let’s get this done!”

“We have a tent to take down…” Athen mutters. Slowly but surely, he takes it down and stuffs it in a carrying bag for later.

“So why did we buy a tent again?” Athen asks.

Hooves chuckles, “Well, you saw what happened last time… hotels are too pricey for us…”

“So that’s what you were doing back in Seaddle.”

“Yeah… also taking pictures of the Sun Needle.”

“What for?”

“I think it’d make a great album cover.” Hooves shrugs it off as if it’s obvious.

Athen rolls his eyes, and stifles a yawn while the band gets moving again.

“So you said we’re heading to?”

“Fillydelphia.”

Chase butts in, “Oh! Speaking of which, I think I’ve got a good idea for a sort of chorus for that song! The one with the cool drum part?”

The two start on a tangent, meanwhile, Athen and Proper silently move forward.

“The two ponies back there mentioned something about a song?” Proper asks, mustache twitching.

“Oh yeah! I wrote one, it’s a little awkward though…” Athen says, scratching the back of his head. “Though if you want to know what it is…”

Athen repeats the chorus lines to Proper, then continues with everything else he wrote.

“Interesting, interesting.” Proper rubs a hoof on the bottom of his chin. “It’s not bad you know, could use a little work but I think you should keep writing.”

Athen nods. “I will.”

Finally finishing their little discussion, Chase and Hooves skip up to Athen and Chase. Hooves looks directly at Athen, and with a smile on her face, begins talking.

“This one’s a real rocker.” She shakes the guitar strapped to her back. “Lots of crunch and bite. Really that’s everywhere. But, but, but, the lines!”

“Our love is like water, beaten down and abused for being strange
“Our love is no other, than me alone, hey, hey, hey!”

She shakes her head at what Athen can assume is roughly the tempo of the song.

“What does that even mean?”

“Dunno. Just sounded cool.”

“Is that it?”

“Essentially yes.”

“This sucks.”

“Ponies will love it, trust me.”

“If you insist.” Athen looks forward at the city skyline approaching in the distance, slowly coming closer with every step.

Looking at his back, Athen sighs. He forgot his drum kit. He should probably buy one of those cheap portable ones.

Athen is busy staring at the approaching skyline when Chase waves a hoof in front of his face. Shaking his head— removing himself from the semi-stupor— he notices Chase move in front of him.

“Now, we just need another song… and our show is in what, a day?” he laughs. “Anyways, Athen! It goes like this…”

Chase starts swinging his legs with no rhyme or reason, but Athen thinks he can tell from his… beatboxing? It was more like sharp inhales with the noise of water crashing down interspersed. There was no bass drum, and Chase was whipping his head which made things a little tough to hear.

“…I’ll figure it out myself, thanks.”

Chase shrugged and skipped to the back with Hooves again. At a steady pace, they continued heading to the city.

---

Fillydelphia is quite the sight. Buildings line the streets, market stalls replaced with markets, cobblestone paths expanding into larger roads. Athen takes it all in, his muse taking notes with a broken pen. He still can’t think of any songs, having absolutely no ideas. He wants to create something the band would like, but that seems so impossible to do.

“Alright!” Chase exclaims, rushing to the front of the group. “We’re going to split up, meet up by 7.”

As if on cue, every band member immediately walks down a different winding street. Athen meanwhile, sits in silence, the eye in the hurricane of activity around him.

“Well,” Athen mutters. “What else will you do.”

He stood up, flutters his wings, picking a random direction, and tries to find a quick place to rest and think. Carrying on through crowded cobblestone streets, his saving grace eventually comes in the form of a coffee shop, a Sunbucks off the corner of 6th.

The door swings open with a smooth swish, and Athen steps in.

The mood is more subdued than the hurricane outside. Ponies sit and read papers. One pony seems to sit on a couch, eating a bagel and drinking a black coffee. Another seems to be doing schoolwork with their sibling to kill a weekend. One sits in a stylish, gothic getup, taking pictures of their drinks and their outfit.

And in the corner sits a jet black pony Athen doesn’t expect to see.

He rushes up, the pony strumming away on her guitar.

“Hooves,” Athen says, breaking her concentration. Her guitar playing immediately stops. “What are you doing here?”

She takes a second, but eventually responds. “I was just… practicing a song I came up with.”

“Will we be using it?”

“It’s not interesting, heavy, or anything of the sort… I don’t know why we would.”

Hooves starts strumming away, a simple chord progression. Despite nothing changing, the store seemed to adopt a state of silence.

“Sittin’ in the mornin’ sun
Be sittin’ till the evening come
Watching the ships roll in
And I watch them roll away again…”

Hooves stops the song as quick as she starts it. “We can’t use it. Besides, I only have 2 verses written at the moment.”

“Why can’t we?”

“Slow, introspective… it’s not what ponies want from us.”

“Have you tried? I think it sounds great,” Athen responds.

Hooves mutters something under her breath, then continues strumming chords. She continues on with the song, and Athen listens intently.

“Look,” he says. “We need all the songs we can get, throw it in and we’ll see what happens.”

Hooves sighs. “Fine, I’ll finish it. For you, Athen.”

Athen leaves her to her own devices. He takes a seat in a far corner, trying to think of anything for his own composition. He taps his foot, thinks about any melodies, riffs, or anything. The best he comes up with is a four-to-the-floor drum beat, finding the way it sounds really cool. However, nothing else manifests itself. He finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into his mind, trying to pull out anything.

The more he claws, the more he bleeds. His mind a void devoid of any concrete thoughts. As the dark cloud looms over his head, he takes a long sigh.

“I should head outside…”

Standing up with the theatrics of a Glam Rock artist, he strolls out into the cobblestone alleys.

He starts off in a random direction, kicking stones and scraping his hooves on the sides of buildings.

Eventually he comes to a complete stop, not knowing where the heck he is. The paths split, one to the right, and one to the left.

Looking up from his constant staring at the ground, he notices that the streets are marked. This is not unusual, but what is is the advertisement posted on a triangular map board. Shortly glancing the map proper, Athen goes left and gives it no mind.

But somehow, he took a look behind him, and he notices the ad. It’s for a chocolate company he’s never heard of, likely because he was on the other side of Equestria.

“Limber Chocolates: who’s your lover?”

Athen rolls his eyes. Another boring ad, not really any inspiration there, but he continues trudging, repeating it in his mind for something to come out.

This road, too, crawls to an eventual stop. Once again looking up, Athen notices a pretty big hotel, marked with the words “Western Place” in fancy font. He starts laughing. Nothing was coming. Ponies didn’t care enough—

And then, something clicked.

Athen realizes that it would be a great place to take your lover, the monotonous phrase continually repeating in his head.

”Take me away to a Western Place
Who’s your lover?”

Athen mutters the words under his breath. Now all he has to do is create a story. That shouldn’t be too difficult, he can probably come up with something half-decent by the time he gets back. It won’t solve the issue of instrumentation, but that can be figured out later.

Spark ignited, Athen hums various melodies in his head as he heads back.

---

The band reunites at the stated time in the stated place. Well, most of the band arrives. Chase is a little late.

“Okay,” he states. “Athen, they have a drumset there, but don’t count on it for future gigs. Everypony else, you’re fine. Ee just need to think of what songs we’re playing.”

Chases hops down from his completely fictional soapbox, and starts addressing the band proper.

“We have one song. All Over You. I was thinking maybe covers… unless anypony at all has anything.”

Athen and Hooves raised their hooves in concert.

“Athen?” Chase and Hooves ask in unison. Hooves then adds, “It’s not the first one is it?”

“No, no. It’s called Who’s Your Lover.”

Athen sings the melody of the song, a fairly static melody with an almost dreamlike quality. He stomps out the four-on-the-floor pattern as he sings, and the other ponies watch in interest.

“It’s pretty good, but what’s it supposed to sound like?” Hooves asked.

Athen stops straight away and starts thinking intently, head to the sky. After a moment, he stares back at the band with a frenzied look in his eye.

“Noise.”

“Pardon?”

“Noise. Make it as loud as you can, drown it in reverb. Stack so many effects you’re staring at your hooves. I want it to sound urgent, dreamy. I don’t know how, but I want to get lost in the instrumentation.”

“Are you saying that because the melody’s not super interesting?” Hooves fires back.

“No. Well. Maybe. But! I think it’s a good idea.” Athen responds, blushing a little.

To his surprise, Hooves laughs. “Yeah, sure. I can do that. For you Athen,” she rubs the top of his head with her hoof and walks off giggling.

“What?” Athen asks.

“You might be… a little dense,” Proper adds, watching the entire scene from behind everypony.

Athen turns around. “What’s that supposed to mean—“

Proper breaks his stoic face for a smile, and follows Hooves. Chase doesn’t even add anything.

Breaking into a sprint down the clustered cobblestone, Athen shouts, “Guys, what do you mean?”

---

He never figures out what they mean. They just go to the venue and start preparing.

The venue is a little crowded. Not a lot crowded, a little. About half the seats are filled, and a few more ponies are shuffling in. Athen pulls back the curtain and looks at his dinky drumset, it isn’t anything too special, but he does in fact not have a kit, so that’s that. While Athen is staring, Chase tosses him some sticks. “Here you go Athen, don’t break ‘em”.

And he needs some of those too.

“What even is this setlist,” Proper mutters. His eyes glance the setlist, a piece of paper taped to the ground, a few songs on it.

The setlist is complete and utter tonal whiplash, due to a comparative disconnect of songs, the loud and rocky All Over You, and the mellow Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay, which Hooves assured everypony was a working title.

“They’re expecting us out there,” Athen mutters.

“Yeah, and you’re gonna kill it!” Hooves proclaims with a small little bounce. “Shit, I should probably tune…” she adds with a light giggle.

Proper is busy running through scales on his bass, calm and collected. The stereotypical bassist to a T.

Meanwhile, Chase and Athen pace.

They don’t have much to do, so Athen frequently bumps into the earth pony in the rather small backstage area.

“When are we starting, please, I can’t handle it,” Chase says, unusually unstable.

“Well! I’m tuned! Let’s go!”

Chase pushes the curtains aside, Athen starts moving his kit, and Chase clears his throat.

“We’re the All-Rounders…” Microphone screech. “…We’re here to rock the house down!”

Athen momentarily looks up at the ceiling in confusion, wondering if that was the quote. But, it was soon overtaken by a much more pressing issue.

“We’ve got a few songs for you, some by us, some written by Monarch. It’s a melting pot of music and I hope you’ll enjoy. Our first song is a little ditty I wrote in concert with Hooves over there, on guitar.”

There isn’t a spotlight, but Hooves waves as if there was. Athen held back a laugh.

“And me! Chase, on vocals! It should get your blood pumping, All Over You!”

Athen was prepared to start, but he soon realizes that he’s only ever actually heard the riff, and the melodies. He knew the structure but had never heard it with all instruments. He could make do. Proper is likely in the same situation. Speaking of which…

Proper stares at his bass, not wanting to give anything away.

The song immediately kicks off with a blistering riff. It is a riff meant for motivation, the sound of caffeine coursing through veins. With a crack of the snare, Athen joins in, pounding on his ride cymbal with similar vigor.

The riff soon gives way to a meander, a little sidetrack on the road to victory. Athen attempts to catch up, but could really only awkwardly shift over to half-time. He’d figure that out next time that came around.

The guitar becomes more thoughtful, light melodicism destroying the wall of noise. Chase begins to sing, again, thoughtfully. He isn’t saying much, and Athen can barely tell what he is saying, but it compliments the meandering with a similarly unsure melody. However, one “hey, hey hey!” kicks everything right back into high gear.

After a quick sidetrack, the climb continues. The wall of noise rebuilding, but with even more force than the first time around. Chase sings as loud as he could over the opening riff, while Athen throws in some toms to make the climb sound like a patter.

But once again, the song gets tired, and has to slow down. Athen expects this, and is able to lock into a minimalistic rhythm, one that continues to meander.

After one more victory climb, finally, the band reachescthe top. The next time the song drops into half time, the wall of sound is reinforced, Hooves’ guitar chiming in with a stilted breakdown. Chase drops out, keeping the crowd entertained with his antics, while the band performs a rock solid jam. With every ascent comes a descent; however, and the energy is soon lost, leaving room for another quick verse, and chorus.

The song ends on the riff, the sound echoing out into the venue.

The ponies stomp. Athen is thankful for that because it means he didn’t screw up. Now, there are more songs to play before they got to Hooves’. Primarily Monarch covers, but All Over You successfully won the crowd over. Athen lets out a sign of relief, he can rest easy for the remainder of the gig.

Until of course, they got to Hooves’ song.

She steps up, strumming her guitar, outfitted with a rather clean sound. She plays a few open chords, and starts to play more and more.

In an instant, the entire mood changes. It’s more contemplative, more melancholic, and mellower than all their songs up to that point. Hooves begins playing a bouncy, offbeat guitar part and starts a little speech.

“This one was finished up a little more recently, it currently has the working title of ‘Sittin’ On the Dock of the Bay’. I hope you enjoy.”

Chase falls back while Hooves steps up to the mic, she immediately starts the verse, a lightly melodic lyric of loss and longing.

Athen contemplates what to do for a moment. It was not a song that demanded a kit part. Then, an idea strikes him. In a flash of inspiration, he bounces upright. My wings!

Turns out, wings fill the spot of brushes quite nicely. Athen slides his wings across the snare, mimicking the guitar riff.

His light brushing makes the song even mellower than originally intended, but Hooves gets into the listless lyrics just fine.

This pattern continues into the bridge, the song almost idyllic like a lazy river on a clear day. The bridge opens up a little more, so Athen picks up his drum sticks and starts playing a straightforward Rock beat. The lyrics reinforce the general listless feeling of the song, as if establishing why this song exists in the first place. But soon, the bridge is over, and the song cools out again.

“That was… all I wrote,” Hooves admits with a giggle. She doesn’t stop playing through, and instead vocalizes a rough approximation of a melody, no lyrics to back it up, but a good melody nonetheless. The song eventually comes to a natural close after that, the band awkwardly stopping one at a time as Chase steps back up.

“That’s all we had folks! We’ll catch you next time, if there is one…”

The crowd stomps to signal their approval, and the band goes backstage.

“Do you think they’ll want an encore?” Athen asks. In response, Chase and Hooves look at each other with dramatic fervor and groan in concert.

“I sure hope not, we don’t have anything!”

“What about my song?” Athen asks.

In response, Chase and Hooves look at him. Proper scores the scene with a flurry of minor scales in the background.

“How does it even go?”

“Well…” Athen vocalizes a riff he had stuck in his head. It’s simple, but with a light sense of urgency to it.

“Something like that, chords everywhere else, the drum part’s simple 4-on-the-floor stuff. We figured out the other songs, we can do this one,” Athen mentioned.

“Well, you better figure it out…” Hooves adds, hint of panic in her voice. “It sounds like they in fact want more.”

The crowd cheers became ever clearer to Athen and Chase, who silently recognize their situation. “Well, let’s go, I suppose!” Athen says, his voice trembling weakly under his upbeat façade.

Athen quickly flips over the setlist and jots down the lyrics on the back. He hands it to Chase with a feisty ferocity that almost pushes him back.

“Here use this.”

Chase looks at the paper in his hooves, dumbfounded.

The band stomps onstage for one final song.

“Well, it seems you want more, so here it is! This was quickly written today by our drummer. No idea what to expect but it’s something alright.

Chase holds of the paper and waves it a bit. Athen clicks his sticks to count Hooves off, who immediately begins with an asymmetrical chord progression, a wall of sound, power chords filling the room.

Thrown off by the awkward chord progression, Athen takes a minute to count in, the 4-on-the-floor beat the entire song was based around.

Chase begins singing, the song slightly out of his range, strain evident. It works, longing breaking through the noise to attempt to tame it. Hoove responds with long, open, ringing chords, that seem to pulse with the kick drum. The crunch isn’t dreamy in the slightest, but it is entrancing.

As the chorus opens up, Athen starts playing rapid notes on his hi-hat, the guitar and bass playing as loud as they possibly can. Chase belts out the words “Who’s your lover?” at the top of his lungs, the crowd eating up every moment of it.

After the chorus, everypony cuts out, Athen wondering if it was intentional. It wasn’t quite synced, but he knew he wrote more lyrics. He continues powering through, playing a break and a fill as if to signal that there’s more.

The second verse carries much of the same energy, a pummeling wall of noise, with Chase trying his best to call through it. After another quick verse and chorus, the song pushes through, breaking into a bridge. Athen starts riding his drumkit’s toms as Chase— slightly confused— sings the lyrics Athen jotted down.

“Stallion or mare today, huh— take me away to a Western place, take me away to a Western place!”

Hooves punctuates the line with an ounce of dissonance, clashing chords piercing through the relative calm of the bridge.

Chase repeats the lines, before moving into an impromptu recreation of the second verse. Athen cuts that as soon as he can by tossing in a break. The stop’s a little jerky, but luckily it doesn’t drag on for too long.

The audience stomps, and Athen wipes his brow. Despite only being about 3 minutes, the song felt like an eternity, time ticking by as slow as the wall of distortion fades out.

After a quick bow, the band hurries backstage. A collective noise rings out, everypony releasing the breath they were holding.

“So…” Athen pants, “how was it?”

“Better than I expected,” Chase mutters. “Could probably use a little practice, also what’s ‘stallion or mare today’?”

“I thought it worked?”

“Are you gay or something?”

Athen blushes. “Look, it fit with the meter. I wrote this in like an hour. What do you want?”

“That’s fair…” Chase says. “All Over You really doesn’t make much sense either.”

The two ponies silently reach an agreement. Neither asks any more questions, as they are both too tired to do so.

“So where’s our next gig?” Hooves asks, somehow not tired at all.

“Give me a second,” Chase says, laying down. “I need it.”