Growing up in a small town in a house where Rock and Roll
was considered “the Devils’ music” and even the Bee Gees were considered
risqué, I was not exposed to a lot of choices when it came to music. There were
only 2 kinds of music according to my dad, County and Western. The rest was
garbage. I rebelled, of course, by listening to Michael Jackson, Cyndi Lauper,
The Beatles and even Tom Petty, but that’s about as far as I would push it.
Needless to say, this turned me into a person who shied away from anything
“heavy”.
Sure, I liked the old-school
rock and roll like AC/DC and Van Halen. They were super edgy from my narrow
point of view, taboo in my house growing up and something you only heard at a
friend’s house. So, as you can imagine, I had never been to a heavy metal show,
nor listened to the music. Even though I had never experienced it, I made a
decision early on that I just knew it wouldn’t be for me. It took until I was in my early 40’s for
everything to change.
When my new boyfriend told me he owned a Heavy Metal
record label called Ripple Music, I was less than enthused. The idea of
listening to this music was not appealing to me at all, but I really liked him
and thought I should at least give it a try. My opportunity to expand my
horizons came a couple of weeks later when he invited me to go listen to this
band he and his partner, Todd, were thinking of signing called Zed. My first reaction internally was “I can sit
through a few songs to spend time with this cool guy”, so with a lot of
trepidation, I went to see Zed.
We were
meeting my boyfriend’s partner, his wife and the band at the restaurant before
the show. Great, I thought, an even more intimate setting for me to be really
out of place in! My first impression of the guys in this band was that they
looked a bit scary, intimidating and I would have nothing to talk to them
about. I didn’t really know Todd or his
wife, Corinne, either. So, I sat quietly watching them interact. My boyfriend,
who I knew as John but they called Pope for some reason, introduced me and we
sat down to eat burgers together. What I
found in a very short amount of time is that my impression of these people and
the band in general could not have been more wrong. Todd and Corrine were warm and welcoming to
me, even though I felt it was obvious I felt completely out of place.
The guys from Zed were funny, smart, engaging and
interesting conversationalists. I found myself relaxing and feeling comfortable
in this world that, before that night, was so foreign to me. Once dinner was over it was time to watch
them perform and once again I thought, there is no way I will enjoy this, but I
really like these people so it will be cool to see them do their thing! Once again I was wrong. What I found was that
I enjoyed the show very much. It was
energetic, fun and before long I felt myself moving to the music.
After the
show, I was baffled and shocked at how this one night, this one band had
completely changed everything I believed about this music forever. If you had told me I would ever be in the front row
of a Heavy Metal show throwing devil horns before that night, I would have said
you had lost your mind but today that is where you can find me quite often and
I couldn’t be happier. I am forever
grateful to Zed for being the wonderful people and musicians they are, and I am so very happy to call them friends. I learned a
valuable lesson about staying open-minded that has translated to all kinds of
different and wonderful life experiences.
-Jodi
-Jodi
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