Death Punch'd Read online

  This will totally work! I thought. No question, he rocked the hardcore material, but what about “The Bleeding”? I knew that track had the potential to be our big breakout killer ballad. Matt cued it up and I held my breath. I wish I could describe the exact feeling I had when those first notes came floating out of Ivan’s mouth. Beyond instant relief, it was a “knowing” that we’d finally found the singer, and that the career I’d always wanted could now be reality. With every line of that first verse, I knew we had a motherfucker of a hit.

  I remember when all the games began,

  Remember every little lie,

  And every last good-bye.

  Promises you broke, words you choked on,

  And I never walked away. It’s still a mystery to me.

  Well I’m so empty.

  I’m better off without you,

  You’re better off without me.

  Well you’re so unclean!

  I’m better off without you,

  You’re better off without me.

  The lying! The bleeding! The screaming!

  Was tearing me apart!

  The hatred! Deceiving! The bleeding!

  It’s over!

  Pure raw feeling. It was evident he was writing from an emotional place that was visceral and real. And he sang it with enough conviction that I knew then “The Bleeding” was going to change our lives forever.

  I texted my girlfriend, Angel: “We found the guy. Remember the name . . . Ivan Moody. He’s fucking incredible.”

  When he finished, he turned around with a look like a little boy seeking approval. “Was it okay?”

  Okay . . . ? Hmmm . . . let me think . . . No! It was phenomenal. We all told him how awesome he was—that “The Bleeding” was a smash. His lyrics were authentic. This wasn’t a bunch of emo pain or grunge angst. This guy had lived it. The combination of Ivan’s voice and those lyrics was totally genuine—the real deal. I’d been waiting for this ever since I first arrived in Hollywood.

  To celebrate, we shared the whole pint of lemon vodka. This was going to be a brilliant collaboration. After years of playing in shit bands with no chance, or good bands that came close but fell short, I was finally home.

  That night, lying in bed, reliving the pure joy of hearing Ivan sing and feeling like we had a legitimate chance of “making it,” I recalled the hundreds of hours of banging on my first drum kit, a kid’s toy from Sears, pretending to be a rock star, dreaming that one day I’d be performing for thousands of screaming fans. Finally, deep down I knew it was only a matter of time.

  It was like the stars had finally aligned in our favor. We had an awesome band, an incredible lead singer, and the beginning of an album that was strong enough to get the attention of a record label. The long journey that had begun in the strip pits of southern Indiana was finally reaching a destination I long dreamed about, but one fraught with problems I’d never imagined.

  Everything, including success, comes with a price.

  CHAPTER 2

  IN EXORDIUM

  1973–79

  I share a birthday with Elvis, David Bowie, and Stephen Hawking: January 8. Apparently it’s a day that produces pop-culture phenomena, amazing musicians, and the occasional alien physicist. The year was 1973 and the U.S. was about to withdraw its last troops from Vietnam. Nixon had just declared, “I am not a crook.” A gallon of gasoline cost forty cents. And, most important, Jeremy Spencer Heyde made his first appearance to modest but enthusiastic applause.

  I was born in Oakland City, a small town in southern Indiana. Unlike my sister, who tortured Mom during nearly twelve hours of labor, I popped out just minutes after the doctor arrived. Dad dressed in green hospital scrubs, feared he was going to have to deliver me, but Dr. Peters made it just in time. That’s always been my way. Patience is not a virtue I’ve ever had or admired. Besides, I’d waited nine long months to make an appearance. Enough already.

  Oakland City was a General Baptist paradise, where husbands and wives sat across from each other at the dinner table—silent and bored to tears—just waiting for the other one to die. This is the kind of town where the KKK had regular meetings to plot the next cross burning. My dad, Gary, who at twenty-five was editor of the local newspaper, wrote a front-page editorial condemning an actual cross burning at Wirth Park, and two days later the Klan sent a threatening letter saying to expect a “fiery cross” in our front yard. He turned the letter over to the FBI. They found forty-seven sets of fingerprints. That meant that within forty-eight hours of the editorial’s appearance, the KKK had held a meeting and had written and passed around the letter to the brotherhood. The local police wanted to assign a cop to watch our house, but Dad turned them down because the cop was a member of the Klan. What better birthplace for a potential hell-raiser like me?

  My parents said I came into the world angry. As a toddler, if things didn’t go my way I would fling myself on the floor, kicking and screaming. I’ve always had a hair trigger emotionally, always struggled with anger issues, always been fired up about something. I must have been pissed about some past life imposing itself on present reality. My feeling not good enough can trigger some explosive behavior, and when it comes to a power struggle, I’m in it to the bloody end.

  My parents met at the University of Missouri in Columbia, when they were cast opposite each other in the summer musical, The Boyfriend. Dad always joked that after he “proposed” to my mom, Glory, onstage in front of four thousand people, he felt obligated to marry her. He was only twenty; she was twenty-six. He’d just finished his freshman year and she already had a master’s degree and was a graduate assistant in the vocal music department. I didn’t find out until I was a teenager that she’d been married briefly to a guy who was supposedly a musical genius.

  Gloria Francine Kissel grew up in a St. Louis suburb and was outgoing, with a bigger-than-life personality. Dad said the first time he met her, he knew instantly she was the one. He said she was effervescent and a natural comedienne: “Carol Channing’s eyes and Carol Burnett’s physicality.” Onstage, her theatricality made her a favorite with audiences. And in the classroom, students loved her.

  Her public persona was really fun-loving and manic. But at home it sometimes felt like she’d burned up a lot of energy being “on,” and it left her exhausted. She was a hard worker, so part of that was just being tired. (Looking back, I now recognize myself in her up-and-down emotions.) Some of it may have had to do with her father leaving when she was only four. It didn’t help that he moved five hundred miles away, remarried only days after the divorce was final, fathered eight kids, and had little time for her.

  All that contributed to her abandonment issues, her feeling not good enough—no doubt part of the reason she developed her please-like-me personality. Mom was a professor of vocal music for more than twenty years before becoming a professional actress. Now in her early seventies, she’s still acting in various Chicago theaters. She’s quirky and fun, and I love her to death.

  Gary Austin Heyde was from a small town in northwest Missouri. He was an odd mixture of masculine and feminine energy. In high school, like both his parents before him, he was an outstanding athlete, lettering three years in basketball (still in the MSHSAA record book for eighteen assists in one game) and four years in golf, which he hoped to play at the University of Missouri before getting involved in theater. When the two conflicted, he chose his major, Speech and Drama—becoming the youngest member ever inducted into the theater’s honor society. He’s one of those people who could do whatever struck his fancy, even if he had no previous training or experience. He taught high school art and English for a year. Then he became editor of a small weekly newspaper, winning awards in editorial writing and photography, before becoming the director of cultural affairs at Mom’s college. At twenty-three he founded a community theater, wrote a couple of full-scale musicals, and acted in and directed a multitude of plays and musicals. When I was four, he became a copywriter at a large advertising agency
in Evansville, began writing and producing jingles for radio and TV, and, within a year, became creative director—before opening his own music-production company and ad agency. At age forty-five he became a hit songwriter in Nashville, and then at fifty-two began an outstanding teaching career for the next decade. In his early sixties, as Austin Gary, he became a novelist and playwright.

  Mom and Dad were married for thirty-five years but went their separate ways in 2002.

  From day one, Dad and I deeply bonded, because when I was born, Mom had the flu and couldn’t be around me much for the first week. So he slept downstairs—with me lying on his chest. I got used to the beat of his heart . . . as he did mine. He’s always been my best friend, someone I could turn to, and I can’t imagine that ever changing.

  But seven years into their marriage, in May 1975, he decided he’d had enough of Oakland City, the General Baptist College where Mom taught, the pseudo-Christians who peopled it . . . and her. He left a note and took off with eight dollars in his pocket. I know now his leaving had nothing to do with my sister or me, but at the time, his sudden departure flipped me out so badly I stopped walking and started crawling again. When I tried to walk, I fell and cut a big gash above my right eye. I looked like I’d gone ten rounds with a phantom weight.

  Then, a few weeks later, while Mom was outdoors talking to a neighbor, my sister, Natalie, came downstairs only to discover Mom “missing.” She walked out onto the back screened-in porch, quickly scanned the backyard, but failed to see Mom standing in the neighbor’s yard, less than thirty yards away. A caretaker by nature, she quickly determined that Mom, too, had abandoned us and that she was now in charge. Though she was only three and a half years older than me, I looked up to my sister and believed anything she told me, a belief which—as you shall soon see—could lead to big trouble.

  I still remember exactly where we were and the expression on her face when she said, solemnly, “Jeremy . . . Mom’s gone. I’ll be taking care of us now.”

  That might seem funny or cute, but it was pretty heavy news to bust out on a two-and-a-half-year-old. Because I thought Natalie was an angel, I figured Mom’s “leaving” had to be because of me. (Obviously, she hadn’t left, but just thinking she had, if only for a few minutes, added to the psychological damage and the fear that loved ones could abandon me without warning.)

  Dad’s absence really took a toll on everyone. Many evenings, Mom sat out in the backyard with a glass of wine and talked to God, who apparently was not only the Creator of the universe but also—when needed—an understanding barkeep and therapist. Things got pretty twisted. After being gone three months, Dad returned. He said he’d missed us so much he cried every night, and his love for us was unbearable to live without. I was too young to understand much of it, but within twenty-four hours of his return, I was walking again.

  No matter my parents’ ever-changing dynamic, one thing was constant: MUSIC. There was always music in our home—lots of singing and dancing around the living room, crazy amounts of laughter and fun. However, many times I felt a little overwhelmed by how verbal both my parents and my sister were. Sometimes it was hard to get a word in edgewise. (I realize now the competition for self-expression was good training ground for being in a band with highly opinionated members.) For whatever it may have lacked in stability, the Heyde household was always creatively stimulating and entertaining.

  The downside of living in that theatrical atmosphere was being inundated with some music that made my asshole pucker—even at the age of three. I’m sorry, but Barbra Streisand records didn’t thrill me in the slightest bit (though I thought A Star Is Born was a solid feature film). Instead they damn near killed my soul jamming her every day . . . that and fucking musical soundtracks: A Chorus Line, Hair, Funny Girl, Dames at Sea, West Side Story . . . the list was endless.

  I never understood the fascination with that overacting, jazz-hands bullshit, singing and spinning around at the same time on the same cue. Everyone in my family loved musicals except me. Forced to endure them daily, it was an endless loop of musical hell. My ear holes were being bored out worse than the chicks who star in those fifty-guy anal cream-pie porn DVDs. Is it any wonder I later rebelled and started listening to metal? Try listening to the cast album from Oklahoma and tell me Slayer doesn’t sound like the soundtrack to heaven. “Oh, What a Beautiful [Fucking] Mornin’” and “The Surrey with the [Goddamn] Fringe on Top” helped mold me into the contrary, cynical bastard I soon became. With a steady diet of show tunes, it was imperative for me to venture out into my own musical territory.

  Speaking of venturing out, I once crossed the street—probably not even looking at whether or not cars were coming—just intent on getting there or getting away. At three years old, crossing the street, even in a small town, was a major accomplishment in itself—akin to Joan Wilder traveling all the way to Cartagena to save her sister in Romancing the Stone: risky, but necessary to life’s drama. (Have I mentioned that my whole family was brilliantly referential when it came to old movies, advertising slogans, and culture of a bygone era? To this day I have no interest in chicks who don’t like movies or get pop-culture references.)

  When I finally reached our neighbor’s yard, I suddenly realized why I’d become the Prince of Adventure . . . it was to take a royal dump. Without hesitating, I pulled down my pants and proceeded to lay a hot triple-coiler on the front lawn. Why, you ask? Why not!

  I might have made it safely back home undetected, had the neighbor not come outside and caught me in the act. Most people would be upset seeing a little kid pulling soft serve on their grass, but this guy was so awed by the ginormous rope of steaming excrement I’d deposited on his immaculately mown lawn, he didn’t utter a word of protest: he just stood there slack-jawed, which I interpreted to be a sign of admiration.

  At that very moment, Mom spotted me depositing the fecal lawn ornament, bolted out the door, and raced across the street. When she saw the monumental mound of manure, she was embarrassed but relieved that a car hadn’t maimed or killed me. After apologizing, she carried me back home and upstairs to clean me off. I’d made a little mess in the process of delivering my “gifty” to the neighbor, who could be seen through the bathroom window removing it with a big red snow shovel. He appeared to be muttering to himself.

  I never shat in anyone’s yard again. Although I can think of a few people I would’ve like to have “gifted”—and still do to this day. If nothing else, the story clearly illustrates I’ve always been full of it . . . yet generous.

  Just so you’ll get the total picture of what a charming little three-year-old I was—with my shaggy hair, dimpled cheeks, and big brown eyes—here’s an incident that became a family favorite, one that may have been an early indication of how I would become known as someone who could toss a verbal bombshell or two.

  Everyone believed my sister, Natalie, to be the perfect angel; little did they know she often played the role of evil conniver. One evening Pastor Barry, from the Lutheran church Mom attended in a neighboring town, came to our house to see if he could encourage Dad to start attending, too. Though I didn’t understand much of what they were discussing, I sat on the upstairs landing, listening.

  Natalie sat down beside me and whispered something in my ear. She told me to go downstairs and repeat exactly what she said. I didn’t think twice about doing it. After all, she was my older sister: a role model, someone I looked up to and trusted with my life.

  Armed with an important message, I promptly descended the stairs, walked right up to Pastor Barry—chatting away on our living room sofa—and tugged on his shirtsleeve. He looked down at me and smiled. You know the one . . . that holier-than-thou, mouth-full-of-Chiclets toothy grin.

  “Well, hi there, little guy,” he said. “How’re you this evening . . . uh . . . ?”

  “Jeremy,” prompted Mom.

  “Of course! How’re you this evening, Jeremy?” he repeated with a big ol’ Lutheran shit-eating smile.

  �
��I stuck my finger up Jesus’ butthole!” I emphatically announced.

  My parents gasped. The preacher was stunned. Surely, he hadn’t heard me correctly.

  “I’m sorry, honey . . . what did you say . . . ?”

  Before my parents could gag me, I repeated, “I stuck my finger up Jesus’ butthole!”

  Boy, oh, boy, was I proud of myself. Pleased I’d remembered to say the words exactly like my sister had instructed, pleased they’d elicited such an emotional response. However, no one else seemed thrilled with my recitation. I couldn’t comprehend why things suddenly got weird, but it felt like the barometric pressure shifted in the room.

  The minister was speechless: gob-smacked. (Or should I say God-smacked?) The Spawn of Satan had spoken, and, as far as Pastor Barry was concerned, I’d morphed from Christopher Robin into Damien, the demon child. This was the house of Beelzebub, but obviously the good pastor wasn’t prepared to perform an immediate exorcism. Instead he leapt to his feet and muttered something incomprehensible as he headed for the door. We watched as he sped away in his faded blue Ford Falcon with the I’m-a-Lutheran-and-unworthy-of-something-better rust spots.

  Natalie sat on the stairs, looking on and giggling like Linda Blair in The Exorcist after she killed Father Merrin. She was really proud of herself . . . enjoying one of her finest moments. Looking back, I give her kudos. That was pretty kick-ass and creative for a seven-year-old kid.

  I don’t remember going back to Our Savior Lutheran Church, though I’m sure Mom persisted in trying to save my soul a little while longer. She’d long ago given up on Dad’s.

  I could cajole you with more of my early-childhood tales, but let me skip ahead to how I ran the gamut of emotion the summer I was six—and how it all pointed the way to my rock ’n’ roll destiny. By then we’d moved from Oakland City to another redneck haven, Boonville, Indiana, sixteen miles east of Evansville. The only way our artistic family was going to fit into this burg was for Dad to buy an extended-cab pickup truck sporting a Confederate flag in the rear window—and that was less likely to happen than us winning the Powerball.