Athen is silently minding his own business, he walks the cold streets of Manehatten, realizing he should’ve packed a coat. Walking back to what home he has, he has his own apartment, while it’s nothing impressive, it’s home. He’s straight out of high school and trying to scrounge up enough bits to go anywhere.
He trots home and heads up to his apartment, on the second floor, he unlocks his door and flops onto his bed. Working two part-time jobs, he barely has enough bits to afford even the meager apartment. He takes a glace over at his drumset, his parents were nice and bought him a drumset when he couldn’t. Athen wished that everytime he saw the drumset he wouldn’t want to chase his silent fantasy of being in a famous band.
Picking up today’s newpaper, Athen finally finds his saving grace, an advertisement for helping ponies build bands. He glances at the article one more time, finally realizing it’s true, he picks up his phone, and gives the company a call.
“Sweetwater Manehatten branch, what the hell do you want, we’re getting tired.”
Cringing over the horrendous customer service, Athen replies,”That build a band ad... how do I apply?”
“How do ya think?” She replies,”Get a guitarist, vocalist, bassist, and drummer minimum and give us a call?” Adding under her breath,”Bucking colts, wasting our time.”
Athen got a bit downtrodden, he had a drummer, himself, but not any of the other things. “I’ll call back.” He says.
“You didn’t even have a bucking band? Son of a...” Her retort was broken by Athen hanging up.
“I’ll create a band, now that I can.” He states to himself.
He grabs a coat and heads out to the Manehatten streets to see what musicians he can find.
Later
Athen sighs dejectedly, he couldn’t find any musicians that wanted to join his band, not a bucking one. He hangs up his coat and flops onto his bed once again. He then perks up, remembering his friends from high school, he didn’t know if they played any instruments, but he’d have to hope.
He calls up his friends, one at a time, starting with Madame Hooves.
“Hello?” Athen says.
“Athen! Been a while, I just got back from a crazy party, the music was rockin’ and I almost wanted to strum along! What’s up?” Hooves had gotten held back a year in high school for ‘unruly behavior’, she didn’t seem to mind though.
“Yeah, do you happen to play any instruments?”
“Hell no! But I’ve been wanting to play guitar for as long as I could remember! Why do you ask?”
“The Sweetwater build a band, I need a band.”
“I’m sure I could learn guitar with some help. I’ll call you when I actually know how to play simple chords.”
Athen hangs up and thinks to himself, one down, the rest to go.
Athen decides to ask Proper next, Proper has no phone, and lived on the edge of town, so Athen hails a taxi. He arrives at Proper’s house, and knocked on the door a couple times.
“Come in,” he replied.
Or you could get up and open the bucking door yourself Athen thought, but he still opens the door. Proper never kept his door locked, for some unknown reason.
“Athen! It’s been a while,” Proper says. He had a long brown mane and a rather stark cream-colored coat. His cutie mark was an electric bass, he’s a skilled bass player.
“Hello, I’m in need of a bassist, I was wondering if I could ask you.”
“Why the outwardly cold demeanor? Is this about the build a band thing in the newspaper?”
“It is, the customer service sucked by the way, I’m trying to build a band. I need a guitarist, bassist, and vocalist, Hooves has already volunteered to try and learn guitar.”
“Hooves, now she’s an interesting character, I’ve never seen a pony get held back in high school, let alone not have a cutie mark yet. I sure hope she gets one soon.”
“Damn right, anyways, I was going to ask Chase for vocals, I know how much he likes writing and singing. Proper, are you in?”
“Why not, forming a band with my friends sounds great!”
Thanking him, Athen steps outside, again feeling the cold of the vicious Manehatten weather. “Thanks Proper, also, this time, could you lock your door?”
Proper nooded, and shut the door behind Athen, since he’s already out on the streets, he decides to trudge over to Chase’s house to ask him.
Athen knocks on Chase’s door, and he decides to answer. He had a short-cut mane in a messy style and a blue coat, his cutie mark was a pen writing on paper, he has a passion for writing.
“Come in!” Chase says, and shuts the door behind Athen,”Hey Athen, what brings you to my neck of the city? Need a book written, because you know I’m the best.”
“Actually, I was hoping I could use your songwriting talent and passion for singing to help in the band I’m creating as soon as Hooves figures out how to play a guitar.”
“The Sweetwater build a band, I’d be obliged to join, besides, I know our band would rocket into the stratosphere of stardom!”
“Great, now I just need to trudge home, and practice my drumming, I sure hope Hooves learns quick.”
Weeks pass, Athen is starting to think that Hooves would never learn to play guitar, when he gets a call.
“Hey Athen! Hooves here, guess what I got?”
“A modicum of common sense?” Athen snarks.
“No, a guitar! I learned to play and I also got something else to show ya. I’ll just wait for the weekend so I can visit your house to show you.”
Athen agrees that the visit is good. He hangs up the phone and waits for the weekend, which is actually tomorrow.
The next day
Athen hears a ferocious knock on his door, he nearly jumps out of his skin. He opens the door and sees Hooves standing there, the unicorn has a red electric guitar. Her coat is choclate brown and she has a short, curly mane. She wears a black dress to cover her blank flank.
“Athen! Why don’t you visit more! I could use a pegasus around sometimes.”
Athen shrugged, he honestly doesn’t know why he didn’t visit his friends more.
“Anyways, I’ve got news! I’ve got a guitar!”
“You don’t say, we went over this on the phone.”
“That’s not all,” Hooves then proceeds to use her magic to lift up her dress at the flank, Athen can see that she has a cutie mark now, it is an electric guitar in red, mimicking her own guitar. “I’m in the band! Sign us up, we’ve got a party!”
Athen goes to his drumset and bangs out a fast tune on it,”I had to release my excitement! Let’s call the crappy customer service lady, you can stay here for now Hooves, I’ll be right back.”
Athen heads off to call Sweetwater, but as he’s walking back, he hears Hooves say,”Man, do I have a crush on that stallion.”
Athen blushes and scurries back to his room. He calls up Sweetwater.
“Yes, this is Sweetwater Manehatten branch.”
“I have a band,” Athen says.
“Oh, it’s you, what the buck to do want this time.”
“I. Have. A. Band.” Athen says again.
“Wonderful, you realize you have to have a name, right?”
“I don’t know, call us the All-Rounders or something, that’s not important, just put us in the database.”
“Fine, I’ll bucking do that,” Athen hears a pen scribble on the other side of the line,”The All-Rounders, comprised of... who exactly?”
“I’ve got that, I’ll schedule your first gig, and you can leave me the hell alone.”
She hangs up, and Athen returns to the main room and sees Hooves absent-mindedly strumming some chords. He trots into the room and says,”Hooves,” startling her from her strumming,”we've got a band, The All-Rounders, our first gig is being scheduled. Also, that riff was cool, could you play that again?”
Hooves plays the riff again and Athen flies behind his drumset and starts playing it. Hooves mumbles put some lyrics,”If you walk away, walk away, you’ll walk away, walk away, I will follow.”
“That was pretty good, let’s get to Chase about the song writing. We do need songs after all.”
They head over to Chase’s house, and knock on his door.
“Why hello again Athen, and do you have a marefriend with you?”
“Dude, this is Hooves, you know her, you know that she’s a perfectly reasonable friend, on an unrelated note, she’s got her cutie mark.”
“Cool! What is it? Also, feel free to come in.”
Athen and Hooves step into Chase’s house and he shuts the door. Hooves telekinetically lifts up her dress to show her cutie mark to Chase,”It’s a guitar! I’m excited I got one.”
“Great! Do we have a band, also Athen, you know I was just pulling your wing.”
“I know,” Athen says,
“It’d be more convincing if your yellow face wasn’t beet red. It’s almost as rich as the red stripes in your brown mane and tail. Why do you have red and white stripes in your mane and tail again?”
“It’s a tribute to Velvet Remedy.”
“Right, from the odd book that was written by a local unicorn. Anyways, do we have a band?”
“We do! We also have a song, I’ll have Hooves here play the riff, I’ll provide some air drums.”
“This better be half as good as what I write,” Chases mumbles.
After the song ends, Athen turns to Chase and asks,”How was it?”
“Good, but it needs bass and vocals.”
“We’ve got a chorus, right Hooves?”
Hooves nods, and sings the chorus. Chase nods and says,”Nice, what’s the song called?”
“I Will Follow.”
Athen trudges over to Proper’s house and opens the door, he hears him playing bass.
“Alrighty, Proper, could you meet us at Chase’s house in an hour or two?”
“I’d be fine with that,” Proper replies. Athen proceeds to leave the house and go to Chase’s again. He walks in, and flops on the couch,”I hate Manehatten weather, it’s so cold.”
“I will say that it is the middle of winter, it’s supposed to be cold.”
Athen flips around,”Have you written anything else Chase?”
“One song, I think it’s brilliant, it’s called Fever.”
“Love the creativity of that name.”
“Your song is called ‘I Will Follow’, I’m allowed to have Fever as a song name.”
“It’s a really good song though,” Hooves chimes in.
“Do you have a drumset in here?” Athen asks.
“No, but I have a drum machine.”
Athen gets up and goes to the drum machine, he hits all the buttons to get a feel for the sounds. Then, he asks,”Riff please?”
Hooves starts playing the riff, and Athen kicks up the machine. Playing a simple beat the works, after the song is over, Chase providing vocals. Athen admits he does like the sound of it.
“I t9ld you I thought that song was great!” Chase says.
They talk for about an hour when there’s a knock on the door, Chase opens it, and Proper steps in. Realizing he needs an actually drumset, Athen turns towards Chase,”I need to get something, and it will likely take a good long while.”
Athen flies back to his house, amd picks up the snare, bass drum, hi-hat, and crash cymbal and carries them outside. He hails a taxi, amd when the pony pulling the taxi sees Athen’s load he turns to him and says.
“Ya think this cart has enough room ta hold that set?” He asks.
“Yes, I do, now bring me to the house with the address 65, at the corner of 7th street and 2nd avenue.”
“Ya got my word.”
Soon, Athen arrives at Chase’s house with his drumset, he carries it in, a couple pieces at a time, when he finally sits besides it and wipes his sweat off his brow.
“I Will Follow in, 3, 2, 1.”
They launched into I Will Follow, and nailed it, followed by Fever. After rejoicing for getting a couple songs done, they got a call, Athen answers the phone.
“Athen, what the hell do you want.”
“Stop giving me that bucking attitude! I was going to tell you that I scheduled your first gig, it’s tomorrow at 5:00 PM, sharp, don’t miss it.”
Athen hangs up the phone,”Hooves, Proper, Chase, tomorrow we’ve got a gig!”
Everypony rejoices and fall into silence, Hooves is the first to break it,”Chase, do you have any celebratory cider?”
“You do realize we’re under the drinking age right?” Athen says.
“I’m sure Rainbow Dash is too, but nopony cares! Let’s bucking do this!”
The All-Rounders chuckle, remembering the last time Rainbow Dash visited Manehatten, soon Hooves comes out with a bottle of cider and pours some for everypony. They were going to rock tomorrow, and they knew it.
*******
Next time: The All-Rounders play their first show, will it rock, or burn down in flames?
After finishing the drinks Hooves had provided, Athen’s feeling a little woozy. Perhaps I shouldn’t have drunk that. He thinks, as he trots back home. He managed to get his drum kit dismantled and returned to his place. He falls asleep and excitedly waits for tomorrow.
~~~~~~~
”If you walk away, walk away, I will walk away, walk away, I will follow,” Chase sings with the drumset. The audience is roaring, but it’s not a roar of approval, it’s a roar of disappointment. They throw anything not nailed down at the aspiring band.
“You bucking suck!” One yells.
“You can’t play for shit!” Another one complains.
“We’ll head into our next song,” Chase adds, narrowly dodging a nightstand. “Unicorns, sweet Celestia, where do they even find these things?” He adds, before continuing on his normal conversation,”Fever, so if you’d all be so kind as to stop throwing things that should be too heavy for anypony at me, I’d like to start.”
Athen wheels out an electric drumset to play Fever on, before a renegade wine bottle crashes into his crash cymbal and short-circuits it. This doesn’t bode well, they soon get booed off the stage. Athen meets up with The All-Rounders and tries to start an idle conversation with them.
“Actually, if it weren’t for you, I’m sure we would’ve slayed that crowd.” Hooves says.
“But, I thought you had a crush on me!” Athen says, half-heartedly.
“Crush? Where’d you hear that?” Hooves replies.
“Yeah, Athen, I hate to do this, but my songs are obviously too good to be hated on, I’m hearby firing you from The All-Rounders.” Chase says.
~~~~~~~
Athen jolts awake, he takes a look at his phone, 1:00 AM.
“Just bucking great,” he mumbles,”a nightmare on the day of the show we’re supposed to perform.” He sighs dejectedly, he’s obviously not getting back to bed, so he picks up Fallout: Equestria, he always reads this to calm his nerves, it’s a coping mechanism, albeit a weird one. Before Athen realizes, it’s 7:00 AM.
Taking another look at his phone, it is now clearly 7:00. He gets behind his drumset and plays a few things, at 12:00 PM, he heads over to Chase’s house to get everything set up. Bringing along his drumset, he knocks on Chase’s door.
Chase lets him in, and he sees Proper and Hooves too, he lays out his drumset on the floor, and assembles it to match with what he wants.
“Hey, Athen,” he hears Proper say.
“Wha...?” Athen replies, he’s a bit tired.
“You look like you went to Tartarus and back, what the hell happened.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Why?” Proper replies.
“I had a nightmare that we wouldn’t succeed at impressing anypony tonight at our gig.”
“Athen, you do know that’s just a nightmare right? It can’t hurt you, I for one think this band’s gonna be interstellar!” Hooves replies.
“Me too, after all, I’m writing the songs.” Chase says.
“Me three,” Proper replies.
“Thank you, this is upping my spirits, anyway with that being said, let’s get ready to practice, I wanna rock!” Athen shouts.
They practice both their songs, and after they’re done, Athen lounges on the couch and talks with The All-Rounders. Eventually, they have to go to their gig.
They arrive at the area around 5:00 and sees that a small crowd is gathering.
“Word of mouth does wonders,” Proper says.
“I think we’re starting soon,” Athen says, which is proven right by an announcer announcing The All-Rounder’s presence.
“Fillies and Gentlecolts, we have an aspiring variety act, believe it or not! Put your hooves together for The All-Rounders!”
They step out onto the stage, Athen gets behind his drumset, Hooves whips out her guitar, and Proper gets his bass. Chase steps up to the mic and coaxes the crowd into their first song.
“We’ve got a fun one here, we’ve only got two songs, we were given this on short notice, but here’s our first one. I Will Follow, ready, set, go!”
Hooves launches into her riff, and Athen plays on the drumset, Chase sings the lyrics, after the song ends, the audience gives a round of applause.
“Since we appear to have a captive audience, let’s start our next song, Fever!”
They play, and the audience roars in approval, Chase has to raise his voice to address the audience,”We’ve got a rather small audience today, 20 ponies at most, but I’m glad you enjoyed! That’s all we had, so we’ll see you again soon I hope!”
As they head backstage Hooves turns to Athen and says,”I’m so glad we haven’t released an album, they don’t know what it’s supposed to sound like, I bucked up plenty.”
“They seemed to like it though, we should plan another show soon,” Proper states.
Nodding in agreement, everypony returns home to start planning their next public appearance.
The next day
Athen calls Chase and asks if he’s come up with any ideas for the band’s next appearance.
“One, there’s a local open mic near the Natural History Museum, next week, two songs, we need two more songs for the performance.”
“That sounds great, we should probably convene at your house.”
Athen calls Hooves, and flies over to Proper’s house, it just had to snow today, making him have to fly, he opens the door, again seeing it isn’t locked. “Someday he’s gonna get robbed,” Athen mutters.
“Hello there!” Proper says.
“Chase wants a meeting at his house, I’ll be there in a little bit.”
Proper nods, and then he says,”I’ll be there,” then proceeds to leave the house.
Athen flies over to his house and dismantles his drumset, and hails a taxi, he requests to go to Chase’s house, and the taxicolt happily obliges.
He reassembles the drumset in Chase’s house and looks up.
“What took ya so long?” Hooves asks.
“You try carrying a drumset everywhere. Next meeting is a my house, I swear.”
“Nice, I’d love to go to your house,” Hooves says, in a suggestive tone.
“I’m just gonna quietly fly out of the room,” Athen says, and proceeds to do just that. Everypony laughs, and Athen comes in a few seconds later.
“What’s the game plan Chase?” Hooves asks.
“I plan to create two more songs,” Chase says simply.
“Neat, what’ll they be about?” Proper asks, leaning against a wall.
“The first one, you ever get sick and tired of ponies telling you to conform? How everypony says ‘We were born to follow’? Well, this first song is about how we weren’t born to follow. We’re The All-Rounders Celestia dammit, and we’re gonna do things our way!”
“Neat,” Hooves says unenthusiastically while absent-mindedly tossing one of Athen’s drumsticks into the air.
“You might like this one Hooves, it has a solo.”
“So did Fever, that solo was shit.”
“Ever heard Metallicolt?” Chase asks.
“Yeah, who hasn’t?”
“Well, we’re gonna do one of those solos, a solo harder than the verses by a fair margin.”
Hooves finally perks up,”That sounds awesome!”
As she gets her guitar, Athen takes a position behind his drumset. “I’m liking this song, what’s the lyric?”
“This one goes out to the colt who mines for miracles, this one goes out to the ponies in need...”
Hooves comes in,”Restart!’ She calls, Chase obliges.
They record ‘We Weren’t Born to Follow’ and there was happiness. They would use this for the concert in a week.
“What’s the second song?” Proper asks, setting down his bass with his telekinesis.
“Obviously, we’re an aspiring rock band, we have several dreams, we want to follow them. This song’s for those dreams, and don’t worry Hooves, it’s plenty cool on guitar. I call this one, Dream On.”
“What’s the guitar and bassline sound like, I’ll improvise.”
Chase passes out the tabs for Dream On and Hooves starts playing.
“Everytime, I look in the mirror, all these lines on my face get clearer...”
After that was done, the aspiring band realized they’d got the songs for next time. Hooves offers to pass out more hard cider, but everypony kindly declines, they didn’t wanna break the law twice in one week. They’d simply wait for their next appearance.
One week later
Gathering in front of the Natural History Museum, Chase steps up to the mic and taps it with his hoof, it makes a crazy screeching noise and he cringes a bit. He then proceeds to speak into the mic,”Hello everypony, we’re the All-Rounders, and we’ve got a small little show for you, two songs, no more or less.”
“Our first song is an inspirational one, We Weren’t Born to Follow, alright, three, two, one.”
Hooves launches into the riff and everypony plays along. They get a small assortment of applause in the crowd.
“Next, our last song for today, Dream On, it’s another inspirational one.”
They play the song, and after they’re done they get some applause, The All-Rounders step down from the stage and Athen turns toward the aspiring band.”That was pretty good, but I think we need to work on our stage presence, we’e awfully stiff up there, if you watch other bands like Metallicolt, Marilyn Manson, or Alice Cooper, they have a stage presence, they’e actively creating a show. We need to do something like that. Anyways, we’e at the Natural History Museum, so why don’ we enjoy it?”
They head through the museum, and when they get done, they go back to Chase’s house.
“I feel so cheated, Athen you get to fly while we have to wear our hooves out more, I hate you,” Hooves jokes.
“It doesn’t matter, we’re here.” Athen says.
They head back into the house and get a couple of drinks when Chase walks into the kitchen with his phone in his hooves. He turns toward The All-Rounders and says,”We’ve got two options, option one, we do a small time tour in Manehatten, we’ll get fans, but little money, or we get a manager and go on a Equestrian-wide tour.”
“What’s the name of the manager?” Proper asks.
“He only goes by ‘Uncle Pony’.”
“That’s so dumb, let’s go on the small-time tour.” Hooves says.
“Done, and done, let’s do this!” Chase says.
*******
Next time: The All-Rounders go on a Manehatten tour, however, some unexpected difficulties arise, stay tuned.
The All-Rounders are excited to be touring around Manehatten.
“We can see the Manehatten Bridge! Perhaps go to Bridleway, or maybe Central Park, ooh! Maybe Times Square!” Athen squeals excitedly.
“In fact, it does appear that our first show is at Central Park. We have to make sure we’re not too loud, Strawberry Fields and everything.” Proper states.
“Meet at my place, we need to come up with a few songs.” Athen says.
Later, they arrive at Athen’s place, Chase has a bit of paper, and Athen is eating a hayburger he got from a fast-food joint.
“All the places in Manehatten, and you chose a generic burger place... seriously Athen?” Chase asks.
“Yes, do you have a problem with that?”
“We have no problem at all, but I’m a bit excited to record a song.” Hooves states.
“By the way, when was the last time you went by ‘Madame Hooves’ Hooves?”
“Not since I was a filly, just because my parents are part of the upper class does not mean I get to be treated like I’m some stuffy aristocrat.”
Seeing she was sensitive abous this, Athen turns in his chair and starts talking with Chase.
“Got any songs?” Asthen asks nonchalantly.
“A couple, the first one’s based off the ‘21 gun salute’, simply called 21 Guns, Hooves, get us started.”
They play the song, then Chase gets out another song,”This one’s a bit of a funny one, it’s still good, I did write it, after all.”
Athen takes the sheet music out of his hooves,”Stray Cat Strut? Seriously?”
“Oh, but wait, you haven’t heard it yet, it’s quite jazzy.”
Athen perks up his ears,”Is there any swing in the song.”
“No swing, now tell me, you got this swing idea from somewhere, The Wasteland Wailers perhaps?”
Athen smiles and chuckles weakly,”I listen to them more than anypony should. Let’s get started shall we?”
They play the song, and it is pretty groovy, Athen likes it quite a bit.
“Those should be the songs we play at Central Park, if everything goes as it should.” Chase states.
“I’m so bucking excited! When’s the show?” Hooves says excitedly.
“Next week, we’ll be toward the center. Make sure that those ponies who play hoof-made drums on 4 plastic bins and a shopping cart don’t get in the way of our show.”
“Will do,” Proper says.
Next week
“Minor little crowd, you’ve got your hippies, people who need coffee to operate, that’s everywhere in Manehatten though.” Athen says while surveying the crowd for their Central Park performance.
“Let’s do this!” Hooves says, while Chase takes his place on the stage.
“Hello everypony! Today you are witnessing a little show spearheaded by us, The All-Rounders.”
“Stop wasting my time!” A heckler shouts.
“If we were wasting your time, why are you here? ” Chase snipes back.
“I wanted to see Strawberry Fields!”
Ignoring him, Chase states,”Anyways, without further ado, let’s get started with our first song, 21 Guns.”
Proper uses his magic to direct some sort of light source onto Hooves strumming the opening chords on her guitar, soon, Chase joins in. All this would be impressive, if the gig were at night, a spotlight doesn’t do much for a day gig. However, they finish the song without a hitch.
“Our last song for today is Stray Cat Strut, everypony relax and listen.”
Hooves starts up the intro, while Athen gets a devilish idea. He bucks the chair put from under him, caught wildly by Proper’s magic, and dropped to the side, before climbing up on his drumset to play the song. Proper mouths at him,”are you serious?” Before he starts to put on a show himself, using two hooves on the bass to play it. Hooves, not to be outdone, starts singing with Chase and playing the guitar at the same time.
The crowd blinks, and then launches into a thunderous applause, The All-Rounders don’t even have to finish the song to know they’ve got this, but they finish it anyways.
“Thank you, let’s hear it for Athen, who started this crazy thing in the first place! We’ll hopefully be touring Manehatten, so don’t miss us!” Chase states, as The All-Rounders depart. They head backstage, where they give each other high-fives and congratulate everypony on their performance out on stage.
“You totally rocked it out there, Athen!” Hooves states.
“Seriously, guys, don’t give me all the credit, I was just livening up the act.”
They talk for a while, before they decide to head back to their houses.
The next day
Everypony gathers in Athen’s house to write some new material, when Chase comes in with his phone, he’s looking at indoor music venues to see where The All-Rounders will play next.
“Let’s see here... Mercury Lounge has an open show for us at 7:00 tomorrow, wonderful!” He says,”Have we got any songs?”
“I hate to burst your bubble dude, but that’s supposed to be your job,” Hooves states.
“Right! Sorry, I’ve got nothing, I was too busy looking up indoor musical venues.”
“No ,atter, we’ll help you right?” Proper says.
“Yeah, we’ll help.” Athen adds.
“Although, I have a couple alright ideas, they haven’t come to fruition yet.” Chase says.
“What’s the plan?” Hooves asks.
“First song, a song about telling the world what we can take a stand too, not the world standing on us. Since everypony seemed to like We Weren’t Born to Follow so much, I’ve got a couple of similar songs.”
“Let’s attempt to improvise, this is not gonna sound good. Let’s get the lyrics down first, and possibly the guitar solo, to give us an idea of what we’e dealing with.” Athen says.
“Alright, if you say so.”
They write down the lyrics to their new song, Have a Nice Day, and the guitar solo. Athen starts by counting out the parts, “3, 2, 1!” Before slamming the high tom and snare simultaneously, Hooves starts a chord heavy guitar riff, and Chase sees his cue.
“Why, you wanna tell me how to live my life!...”
He sings, and they finish the song pretty handily.
Reclining back in a wooden seat, Proper says,”You know, if this gig doesn’t give us fame and fortune, we need a song to fall back on. A Boulevard for Broken Dreams perhaps?”
“With a couple tweaks, that would make a really cool track,” Chase says.
“This sounds great and all, but will there be any acoustic guitar?” Hooves says, while sitting in a chair backwards,”You gotta know how expensive those things are.”
“No, just electric, let’s play.”
“What music?” Hooves asks.
“I’ll write that down, I might need some assistance.”
Hooves graciously volunteers to help Chase, leaving Athen and Proper in the room together.
“Huh, I thought Kirn would be the only character who sat in a backwards chair,” Athen says.
“Who are they?”
“You wouldn’t know, I’m sure you’ve never played Dragon Quest 11 before.”
“I haven’t, so what should we talk about?”
Athen doesn’t really respond, because he doesn’t know what to talk about, until finally, he breaks the silence.”What do you do if somepony has a crush on you.”
“What feelings are we talking about here?”
“Kinda like, she likes you as a coltfriend, but she’s a really cool friend.”
“Hooves? Well, you could do worse, that’s for sure.”
“I know, it’s just strange.”
They don’t talk much after that, Athen just silently sits in his chair, while Proper does the same.
Finally, Hooves and Chase come out with some sheet music.
“Took you a really bucking long time,” Athen says.
“That shouldn’t matter, we’ve finished the song.” Hooves says, and then starts on the intro chords. The rest of the band joins in. After they’re finished, they decide to use these two songs for their next concert at the Mercury Lounge.
The next day
The All-Rounders arrive at the Mercury Lounge to play their songs. They step onto the stage, and Chse introduces the band like he had before.
“Welcome everypony, to our show here, we have a couple songs to play for you and then we’ll be on our way. First off, Have a Nice Day.”
After the song finishes, Chase introduces Boluevard of Broken Dreams, but as he says dreams, the lights flicker off. Athen spies Proper looking at Hooves.
“What in your right mind do you think you’re doing?” Athen asks.
“Just wait, Hooves needs to tune her guitar, and then we’ll be go. Just hold on.”
Hooves tunes her guitar, and plays a chord, followed by a slightly higher one, and another higher one. Before she starts playing the guitar so that it sounds like a keyboard. She starts singing Boulevard of Broken Dreams.
“Dear Celestia!” Athen says as the song starts,”She sounds so cool!”
“That’s the point, now shush!”
Athen, not listening anymore, hops behind his drumset and plays a roll on the crash cymbal, followed by another one at the end of the chorus. Followed by another one a little later.
As the second verse starts, Athen plays a fill to coax the band into playing with him, and it works. Then, they hit the guitar solo.
“I walk alone, a walk a—“
Hooves lauches into the guitar solo, after it’s finished. Athen goes silent, as Holves attempts to imitate a much higher voice. Athen loves all this, though still not entirely sure why this is happening.
When they finish the song, the get a stomping ovation,”That was our...” Chase stutters,”...improvisational cover of Boluevard of Broken Dreams. Enjoy Luna’s night everypony.”
The All-Rounders stop near the bar for a few drinks, when Athen checks his phone.
“The hippies really liked it for some reason, they’ve invited us to play at a hippie venue near Proper’s place.”
“We can keep our instruments in my house!” Proper says.
“Why not,” Athen says, shrugging.
They meet up at Proper’s house after the bar, and they start thinking up songs that might intrigue hippies.
“A song based on philosophies? Nah. A trippy indie rock song? Maybe not.” Athen mutters, while pacing around the room.
“I’ve got an idea,” Hooves says,”let’s go crazy on our instruments, I’ll record it, see if it sounds any good.”
Athen gets behind his drumset while Hooves overtunes her guitar so that it sounds like the bass to ‘Ace of Spades’, and Proper tunes his bass to match.
They start strumming out the most jarring riff Athen can think of, trying to match up with their frenzied guitar playing, Athen starts drumming out a series of beats and complicated fills, making the song sound worse. Proper had flipped on the distortion, so the house was practically filled with cacophony. Having no lyrics, Chase attempts to sing a lyric, although all he can think of is ‘What else can I say?’ and ‘I can feel the fire,’ this did not help the song. After 5 minutes of blistering, ear-destroying beats, they mellow out the song, kind of. After about 6 and a half minutes, they finish the song.
“What. The. Hell. Was. That.” Athen says.
“Who even bucking knows? Noise rock maybe?” Hooves says.
“Please help my ears, they’re dying inside.” Chase says.
“Needless to say, we’ll not be using that. How about we just stick with our normal songs?” Athen says.
“Minor problem,” Proper states,”we don’t have anything.”
“I’m sure we can write some songs today,” Hooves says, stealing a glimpse at Chase, who is still sprawled out on the floor.
“Just let my ears recover! My poor bucking ears!” Chase shouts.
“Alrighty Mr. Overreaction, what’s your bright idea,” Hooves retorts.
“Nothing right now, I’d rather settle for some sounds of silence.”
The room goes silent, then Athen says,”That’d make a great song title!”
Chase and Hooves realize this, and head to the back of the house to write this song, as well as three more. Eventually, they come back out, Athen is checking his wrist like it’s a watch, and Proper is trying to play Metallicolt on bass, opting to play songs that came before ‘...And Justice For All’.
“That took an incredibly long time,” Athen says.
“I know, but we have three songs, however, I’d like to just show you the note progression of the third one.”
“Hooves, you better not pull any tricky shit on me,” Athen says.
“Oh, I might, might not,” Hooves says with a sly smile on her face.
Athen overlooks that piece, as does the rest of the band, Athen does say it sounds pretty cool on drums.
“First song, Sounds of Silence, this is actually a rock cover with the lyrics to ‘Sound of Silence’ by Simon and Garfunkel.” Chase says.
They start up the song and play it. Everything runs smoothly.
“Secondly, You Give Love a Bad Name. Since everypony likes these types of hard rock songs so much, we’ll continue playing them.”
Again, The All-Rounders play the song and it goes on without a hitch.
“Man, because you took so long to write those songs, I need to go home and crash, I’m sure we can leave our instruments here, it’ll be fine.”
The All-Rounders head home and in the morning, Athen wakes up to his phone ringing madly. He glaces at a clock it says 7:00 AM.
Athen picks up the phone,”Hello, extremely irritated yellow pegasus here, what the hell do you want.”
“Athen, our instruments?”
“What about them?”
“They’re gone!”
“I told you you should’ve locked your bucking door, I’ll be there right away.”
Athen flies over to Proper’s house and opens the door,”When is our gig?”
“It’s at noon!” Proper says,”I hope we can make it.”
“Let’s go there without the instruments, perhaps the hippies will give us some.”
“That’s a really stupid idea.”
“Got any better ones? Let’s wait for Chase and Hooves to arrive so that we can tell them.”
Proper dejectedly agreed, at around 10:00 AM, Hooves and Chase come into the house.
“We’re here!” Chase says.
“Great, we have no instruments,” Athen says.
“We’ll just hope for the best,” Chase says as he sits down, Hooves sits down too.
Two hours later
The All-Rounders arrive in the joint at 11:30 and encounter someone. He’s wearing a tye-dye shirt and some green sunglasses.
“Where are your guy’s instruments?” He asks.
“Stolen,” Hooves says bluntly.
“Dude, that like totally blows, I’ll lend you some swag instruments.”
The All-Rounders recieve intstruments covered in odd indie stickers, they are very basic kits, they just don’t have anything else.
Proper glaces over at Athen and sees he has a bow and arrow,”What the hell do you have that for?” He asks.
“You’ll see, although I’m not incredibly athletic, I’ll try.”
Asking no more, the band prepares for their show.
When the time hits, Chase steps up to the mic,”Hello everypony! We are here today to perform a couple of songs for you.”
The crowd cheers.
“First up, we have Sounds of Silence, as made famous by Simon and Garfunkel, and reimagined by us.”
The spotlight settles on Hooves playing a few notes on her guitar, she starts out the lyrics. When the beat kicks in, the lyrics turn to Chase, and he sings the song. When that’s over, he announces the next song.
“Next song, is You Give Love a Bad Name, in 4, 3, 2...”
Athen whips out the bow and arrow and aims it towards the ceiling.
“Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame! Darlin’ you give love, a bad name.”
Athen releases the bow and arrow, it lands in the middle of the stage,”Told you I sucked at sports,” he says as he starts up the drum part.
After that, Hooves leaps towards Chase and wrenches the mic out of the stand. Chase steps back, surprised.
“I’d like to dedicate this one to a pegasus stallion, it’s called Lay Your Hands on Me!”
Athen blushes, but starts up the song. The set finishes with that, and Chase once again adresses the crowd.
“Hopefully you enjoyed! We might be back, we are The All-Rounders, good-bye everypony!”
Athen walks backstage, still blushing. Hooves comes up and playfully bumps him to the side a bit,”You did know who Lay Your Hands on Me was for right?”
Athen nods.
“Good, because I wasn’ about to explain it.”
On their way back to Proper’s house, The All-Rounders find a local pawn shop. “Hey!” Hooves says,”That’s my guitar!”
The band looks in the window and sure enough, their stuff is there.
“I knew everything would turn out alright!” Proper says.
They purchase the stuff with their new money, and walk back home.
“You know some fans have offered for us to couch-surf, right?” Proper says.
“Let’s do it!” Athen says.
*******
Next time, The All-Rounders decide to couch-surf, how bad of an idea can it be?
The All-Rounders were lounging in Proper’s now-locked house, simply talking amongst themselves.
“Who’re we crashin’ with first?” Hooves asks.
“I don’t know, Trista or something, but they have some parakeets that they say are free to pet.” Chase says.
“Parakeets are so cute!” Hooves squeals.
“Wonderful, but we need a couple more songs to play at out next venue,” Chase states.
“I also think that after this, we should release an album,” Athen chimes in.
“Great idea Athen, but we need to write songs right now,” Proper says.
“Yeah, one thing really want is a drum solo, I’m a good drummer, but I haven’t shown my skills. We have time for one more song, make it quick.”
“Alright, we’ll do that,” Chase and Hooves say, before trotting off with mischievous grins on their faces.
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Athen says.
“I don’t think you know what you’ve started,” Proper adds.
A few minutes later, Hooves and Chase come out with a new song.
“Wow, this song’s bassline is so cool!” Proper says. He then launches into a cool bassline.
“That bassline sounds eerily familar,” Athen says before overlooking the music,”so, we’re doing a cover of Another One Bites the Dust by Princess? What is there to gain from covering a famous song?”
“We’ve added a few things, such as a drum solo, Athen, turn the page.”
Athen turns the page,”This drum solo is literally identical to the normal beat. I can’t tell if this is a joke or an insult.”
“It just amuses us, let’s go!” Hooves says.
Proper starts by playing the funky bassline, Athen drums away on his simple four hi-hat beat, and Chase sings.
“Steve trots wearily down the street, brim pulled way down low...”
“Hold on,” Athen says,”what if Princess pulls a copyright on us?”
“Nah, they’re pretty chill, we should be good.” Chase says before restarting the song. They finish the song and Athen heads home.
“I haven’t had a good night’s sleep for a while, same place, same time tomorrow?” Athen asks.
“We’re good on that front.” Chase says.
Tonight, Athen is plagued by another nightmare that seems to imply that The All-Rounders will fail. However, Athen powers through it.
When he awakes, he flies over to Proper’s house and knocks on the door politely, it opens and Athen steps in. The band is there, and they show Athen some interesting songs.
“We felt sorry for giving you the crappy solo in Another One Bites the Dust, so we created a hard rock song that’s drum-centered,” says Chase. “It’s called ‘I am Electric’, I do feel sorry for Hooves though, she doesn’t really play a riveting guitar riff, it’s quite good, but it’s not fun.”
“Anything else?”
“No, just a song in the vain of some of our more popular songs, like We Weren’t Born to Follow, it’s called ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’.”
“Sounds great, we will put these on the album, right?” Athen asks.
“Of course!” Chase says,”Every song of ours will go on the album.”
“Sounds great, let’s play these then!”
The All-Rounders played through I Am Electric and Wanted Dead or Alive. Afterwards, Proper says,”Trista is ready to receive us. Let’s go!”
The All-Rounders walk into Trista’s house and Hooves immediately pets the parakeets.
“Hey! You don’t know where those have been!” Proper says.
“They’re so cute! I just gotta pet the parakeets!” Hooves squeals.
“Talk about a cuteness proximity,” Athen says.
“So,” Trista says while clapping her hooves together,”you’re here to crash, right?”
“Presumably,” Athen says.
“Let me just lead you to our guest room, I only have two beds, so I could roll out some floor mattresses, I mean, if that’s alright.”
“Do you wanna know a secret?” Athen asks,”Do you promise not to tell?”
“Dear Celestia, that song brings back so many memories, memories of my parents playing Beatles albums non-stop!”
“Anyways, my friends out there has a crush on me, I think at most you’d only be allowed to bring out on mattress.”
Trista brings out one mattress, and Hooves comes in. “Those parakeets, I had to! So, we’re staying in here?”
“That’s the plan,” Athen says,”would you go get Proper?”
Hooves leaves the room, and Athen drums on the nightstand for no reason. Playing various metal and hard rock songs in his head, Athen hopes those parakeets were alright to touch.
Hooves comes back in with Proper and Chase,”So we’re sleeping together? How cute!”
Everyone can see it, Chase mouths at Proper, and they prepare to get ready to get comfortable.
Hooves trots up to Athen and whispers,”This is incredibly weird, don’t do it again.”
Athen nods, and he prepares to get comfortable as well.
The next day, Proper thanks Trista for her hospitality as they prepare to retrive their stuff from the living room. They hop on a taxi and head straight to the stage they’re performing at.
“I feel kinda itchy,” Hooves says.
“Same here,” agrees Athen.
“I’m sure we’ll be fine! Besides, we’re at the stage, prepare to play our songs, and then we need to start recording an album.” Chase replies.
The All-Rounders walk up to the stage, and Athen sets up his drumset. The crowd stamps their hooves, and Chase wrestles the mic off the stand.
“Hello everypony! We’re here to perform 3 songs, starting with the first one, a cover of Another One Bites the Dust by Princess.”
With that, Proper starts dancing to the bassline while Chase trots around without a destination in mind. Incredibly bored, Athen decides to add his own fills and Hooves just stands there awkwardly and plays the guitar part.
After the song is finished, Chase says,”Next one is Wanted Dead or Alive, hope you all enjoy!”
Chase puts the microphone back into its place and Athen starts playing the bass drum intro, adding ride cymbal for good measure. Hooves starts playing the arpeggios, and the song goes on without incident.
“I hope you’re ready for this next one!” Says Chase before swaping into super scream mode,”I AM ELECTRIC!”
The crowd stomps their hooves and Chase wrenches the microphone off the stand again, he then kicks the stand into the crowd. Proper picks up his bass in his magical aura and holds it out in front of him. Athen plays a series of bass drum kicks and the song starts.
When the chorus comes Hooves tilts her guitar sideways and plays the chorus chords. Chase drops as low as he can to the ground to sing the song. When the solo starts, everypony goes into dead silence, and Hooves plays the first notes of the solo before everything resumes.
After the song is over, Chase shouts,”Do you want some more?” With the crowd roaring in approval to that staement, The All-Rounders head backstage.
“What song should we play for the encore?” Athen asks.
“We should play Lay Your Hands on Me, everypony remember that song well enough?” Hooves asks.
Everypony nods, and they head back up front.
“We’re playing Lay Your Hands on Me! Athen, take us away.”
Athen starts by playing the tom beats, and the song goes great.
“Thank you for listening everypony!” Chase shouts, and they head backstage.
Chase claps a hoof on Athen’s back,”Man, you did awesome with I Am Electric. Where’re we recording the album?”
“Wherever we can, I guess.”
One successful album recording later, and everypony is getting incredibly itchy.
“Why am I so bucking itchy?” Athen says.
“Me too, let’s just hope we can do just as well with our recording as usual.” Proper says.
“Anypony got an idea for a song or three?” Chase asks.
“I got one!” Proper says,”an electronic song that covers how you shouldn’t be in a rush to grow up. A little somber song that has an acoustic guitar riff and is juxtaposed by an upbeat electric snyth solo.”
The rest of the band blinks at him.
“Proper, you should write some bucking songs!” Hooves says.
“Anyone here know how to mix?” Proper asks.
Everypony shrugs.
“Well, I can overtune my drums, or use the electric set I have,” Athen says.
“I could find a good tuning that would sound electric enough, and we can create the acoustic effects by leaving my guitar unplugged.” Hooves says.
A few minutes of screwing around with the tuning pegs, and Hooves found a tuning that works.
“I wasn’t giving up, shall we start?”
The All-Rounders start, and Hooves plays the acoustic riff. When they hit the snyth solo, she plays a weird guitar lick that sounds fairly good, when they finish, everypony starts thinking of another song.
“I’d really like a drum solo,” Athen says.
“By Celestia, we’ll give you one, and not the one from Another One Bites the Dust either, an actually complex solo.” Chase says.
“Perhaps the song could talk about fighting your inner demons?” Hooves asks.
“That sounds great, let’s throw in a bit of a rock sound, and we should be good.”
With the new song,’Light the Fuse’ done, the band decides they’ll head to their next venue, which the will perform in a couple day.
The All-Rounders crash at another pony’s abode, this one they leave without feeling itchy, so they head onstage. Chase walks up to the mic, and Hooves takes a seat.
“Our first song is called Wake Me Up,” Chase says,”enjoy the electric sound.”
Hooves begins by playing her unplugged electric guitar, with other sorts of amplification, and Chase sings the song. When they hit the solo, Proper uses his magic to plug in Hooves’ guitar, and she plays the song.
After they’re finished, Chase turns to the crowd and says,”Next up is Light The Fuse!”
Hooves begins the song, and it continues on without incident, Athen nails the drum solo, and the band concludes the show.
“That’s all we have, but we’ll be back!” Chase says.
Backstage, the band talks about their performance.
“Man, I’m trying to block it out, but I’m still so itchy!” Athen says.
“Me too! I wonder what could’ve happened.” Hooves says.
The band decides to go on and record a few more songs for their next performance.
“Anypony got a few songs ideas?” Chase asks.
“I got one! It’s a trip-hop sort of thing.” Hooves says.
“So, like the songs off of Demon Days.” Athen says,
“I like those!” Hooves says.
“Never said I didn’t, what’s it going to be like?”
“I want to delve into the lore of Gorillaz as an animated band, so we’ll have a spirit named Del posses the drummer, and he’ll sing the song.”
“Sounds interesting,” says Proper.
“Anyone here know how to play harmonica?” Hooves says.
Chase raises his hoof,”I do.”
“Great, we’re going to need it.”
They record Clint Eastwood, called that as the harmonica parts Chase is playing sounds like a part of a Clint Eastwood movie, and they go on to the next one.
“I got a couple,” says Hooves with a mischievous grin.
“Oh boy,” Athen says.
The room goes dead silent for a while. Eventually, Hooves gets up to write the new songs.
When she comes back, she issues the same statement she said for Lay Your Hands on Me. Athen immediately knows what this is about, so he hopes like hell they aren’t too bad. First song is pretty boring on drums, but the second one is fairly fast. The All-Rounders quickly look over the music, and they agree they will play them at their show tonight.
The All-Rounders hit the venue and frantically start itching themselves again, the venue owner sees this, and hands the band a pair of clippers and bug killer.
“I heard you were crashing with your fans, you been crashing at Trista’s?” She asks.
The band nods.
“Those nasty bastards got the lice, their birds in particular.”
Athen shoots a glare at Hooves, they start to shave their head and kill the lice on their coat.
“This is going to be most unflattering,” Proper says.
“You gotta do what you gotta do.” Chase says.
The band walks up with their new hairstyles, that being none, and Chase steps up to the mic. After the laughter dies down, Chase says,”Yes, yes, we had to shave our head due to some touring issues, but we’re still singing. Our first song here is Ciint Eastwood.”
Athen starts off the crash cymbal beat, and the very repetitive drum part. Chase makes his voice go high to start, followed by immediately going low to sing the opening chorus. When the first first starts, they add some pizzaz. Athen freaks out behind his drum kit, while pressing the hi-hat pedal to keep the beat. Proper then lofts the microphone over to him. His eyes are closed and he starts singing the verse.
The crowd claps, and Chase receives the microphone back. When the second verse starts, Athen does not freak out at the beginning of the verse, but at the end, opening his eyes and returning to his usual fill-oriented drum style.
After the song finally ends, Chase speaks into the microphone again,”I was not expecting Athen to go along with the song that well. Anyways, I don’t know the next song, but Hooves does.”
Hooves steps up to the mic,”Dedicated to Athen, of course, No One Like You! As made famous by Scorpions.”
Hooves starts the song with the two chords, and Chase procedes to awkwardly skew his voice so that it matches the tone requested. Otherwise, there’s not much with this song, and they move onto the next one. Hooves takes apover the mic again.
“Our second-to-last song! Follow You Down!” Hooves then proceeds by murmuring something, who then agrees.
She starts the song, and Athen plays his fast beat. Proper starts there and strums with his hoof. At the end of the song, Hooves takes a third solo. Athen realizes that that was what Hooves was murmuring about. The song finishes without anything insanely special.
“Last song,” Chase shouts,”Dream On everypony! Keep on dreaming.”
They play Dream On. After the show, the band crowds backstage.
“Hey, Hooves,” Athen says.
“Yes?” She replies.
“Thanks.”
“Anyways,” Proper says,”we seem to be getting off the ground, want to travel Equestria and play there?”
“Yes! What about my high-school?” Hooves says.
“I wasn’t aware you were so concerned,” Chase says.
“Whatever, sounds like a great idea! Let’s bucking go!”
Next time, The All-Rounders will travel Equestria, what could possibly go wrong?
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.”
