Chapter 1: Part 2
Terry Corso
Terry Corso is a man full of nuance and complexities. He has, at times, opted to cover his boyish visage with a long, thick beard – other times, he prefers to sport a sharp, clean shaven look. Often enough his shirts are sleeveless but, perplexingly, just as often he feels inclined to swaddle his glorious guns in a stifling polycotton blend.
For all these reasons and many more, Terry has served as the unofficial spokesperson for the group Alien Ant Farm since their inception, taking the lead during press junkets, spearheading the band’s song writing process and even christening the group with their unorthodox, albeit inarguably genius, name.
“It was just my daydream about our planet being seeded by entities from other dimensions.”
Above all things, Terry is a humble rock ‘n’ roller – a man who both lives to rock and rocks to live.
Terry knows he is blessed and throws horns of gratitude every night before bed. His wife Stacy has walked in on him doing so multiple times but says nothing – she slowly backs out of the room, smiling sweetly as her devoted husband headbangs through his many, many thanks to the almighty and the universe. As he is so immensely blessed, this is a rather time consuming process – 20 minutes on average – but Stacy doesn’t mind. Or, at the very least, she doesn’t complain about it to his face.
Though he is no braggart, Terry is strong in his convictions… and he is not afraid to fight.
In 2016, Terry plead guilty to punching a fan in the face after what he, at the time, believed to be a cup filled with urine was thrown at him on stage during a gig in Chester, England. This assumption, it would turn out, was false, but was not as unfounded as one may imagine.
A mere two days prior, an overzealous and shockingly dehydrated fan did, in fact, pelt the guitarist with a good old fashioned cup o’ piss. Terry, being the consummate professional he is, ignored the foul odour of the nutritionally deficient waste matter and just kept rocking. He thought,
“No use crying over spilled piss.”
While Terry managed to keep his cool, the rest of the band was outraged – Dryden in particular had some choice words for the naughty fanboy.
“IS THAT FUCKIN’ PISS, MY DUDE?! DID YOUR MOTHER RAISE YOU IN A FUCKIN BARN, BRO?! Fuck this, we’re DONE!”
Dryden stormed off stage, followed by the rest of the band. When Terry finished up the song’s epic guitar solo, he bid the crowd adieu with a knowing tip of his baseball cap before heading out of audience view. Terry was pleased with his handling of the matter. He thought to himself,
“Keepin’ it classy as always, Corso. Don’t let ‘em see you sweat.”
Backstage, tensions brewed over the vagrant act of disrespect. Tim Peugh, the group’s new, significantly younger bassist, was furious on Terry’s behalf.
“Yo man, you smell like piss, bro! PISS! That shit is so not jokes, bro! You shoulda smacked that fucker right in the face! That’s what I woulda done!”
As an experienced, wisened musician, Terry simply shook his head and chuckled.
“Oh, Timmy boy. You’ve got a lot to learn about life on the road, my friend. Shit happens… or in this case, piss happens. And violence is just not the answer. Trust me when I say that.”
Timmy’s ego flared.
“Terry, dude, you can’t let these fans disrespect you like that. I mean, if you wanna get pissed on night after night then that’s on you, bro. I ain’t gonna kinkshame or whatever. But I’m sayin’, if you wanna come off stage dry at the end of the night… shit, you gotta do somethin’, bro. These English fucks all know each other – it’s a small country, dude. Shit gets around.”
Timmy stormed off to the greenroom and proceeded to get blackout drunk, as he did most nights. As was his right – he was, as stated on the tattoo that arched across his upper back, “Young, Dumb And Ready 2 C*m”. He would have the marking removed in 2019 after the birth of his first son.
A war raged in Terry’s mind – what if Timmy was right? Did he really want to be pelted with human waste night after night? And what if the genre of bodily materials escalated? Did he want to risk sporting a literal “shit eating grin” on stage in front of thousands of nu-metalheads? What was he, some kind of joke?!
“NO!”
He yelled aloud to no one in particular.
“Timmy’s right – even the classiest of gentlemen must engage in the occasional fisticuffs. I will not be disrespected. Not tomorrow… definitely not on October 28, 2016… NEVER AGAIN!”
The wrathful pocket of his mind had won and on October 28, 2016 in Chester, Terry couldn’t help but put it on full display. After having a foreign liquid thrown at him, Terry jumped into the crowd and punched one Richard Newton square in the face – but only once. Terry would later be charged with one count of assault and be ordered by UK courts to compensate his victim 100 pounds for damages (with a 20 pound “victim surcharge”, which is clearly code for “UK Court White Wig Fund”) and a 12-month conditional discharge which would allow him to enter the UK again in the future.
Post-pissgate, Terry made a point of laying low. All he wanted to do was focus up, make sweet love to his devoted wife and keep rocking. So when he received a call from Dryden asking him to “save Michael Jackson before it’s too late”, he was over the drama before it even began – this was a very loaded request, after all, and he didn’t know if he’d have the bandwidth to engage with such a thing. How he let Dryden convince him to meet at a coffee shop in person to discuss the situation, Terry will never know. This brings us to:
A quiet coffee shop with overstuffed furniture, a disturbing array of decorative analogue clocks and unsightly purple walls – it is clear an aesthetically stunted Gen X-er owns this place. Terry and Dryden sit across from one another, sipping their soup bowl-sized lattes in silence. Finally, Terry breaks the thick, blackened ice.
“I thought Smooth was a one-off, man.”
Dryden rolls his eyes.
“That is false, Terry. You know that’s a falsehood.”
“What do you mean, falsehood? That’s the truth. I know it deep down in my soul. It was supposed to be a one-off. Just to get our foot in the door, to plant our flag in the sand. We’re not a fuckin… I dunno… jukebox, man.”
Dryden leans in towards Terry with a smartass look on his face.
“What about Everything She Wants, dude.”
“Huh?”
“2020. That Wham! cover we did. You know, AAF Kills Covid? We got all the boys to do cameos on zoom for the vid? It was your idea, dawg!”
Terry lets out an exasperated sigh.
“Covid was covid, dude. It’s all a blur. I wasn’t thinking straight. You and I both know I would never, ever suggest we sell out like that under regular circumstances. I mean, Wham! dude? I musta been on clowning pills or something.”
“But the fans loved it, dude! They were fuckin’ obsessed, bro! They were suffering and we gave them the musical meds they needed for relief! Covers are fun, Terry. Isn’t that what this is all about? The whole rock ‘n’ roll thang? Like, when did we get so self serious, you know.”
Terry reckons with this query in silence. Dryden continues.
“And like, remember when we turned down that collab with Big Willy’s kid back before the pandemic? And Barker took it?”
Terry clenches his fist, unable to contain his frustration.
“Fuckin’ Barker, man. That rat fink sellout piece of shit.”
“I mean, you’re not wrong, dude. But, like, think about all the people we could have helped with that kind of exposure, you know? All the underground acts we love we could have brought to the world. Like, that protégé you’re working with… what’s his name…”
“Beez Neez.”
“Yeah, exactly! Like, you gave him that dope ass name, but you could have also given him, like, a platform to express himself. Share his wicked little rhymes with the world.”
“The general public’s not ready for his specific fusion of dark carnival reggae-rap-rock. We both know that.”
“Sure, but if we were domming the airwaves in 2020, they might be ready by now.”
Terry crosses his arms and loses himself in thought – Dryden certainly had a point.
“You really think we should do this, Dry?”
“Yes, I do. I really, really do.”
“Do you think people will think… you know… that it’s like, cultural appropriation or whatever?”
“Bro, I barely know what that means. Period. On God. No cap. And, like, not to speak for the dead, but I really think Michael would want us to do this. May he rest in peace.”
Dryden motions the holy trinity, then points a finger to the sky. Again his better judgement, Terry is warming up to this whole thing.
“Have you talked to the other guys?”
“Yeah, we’ve been texting. Not gonna lie, they’re in this for the payday. But you… Terry, my brother… I knew that money wouldn’t make a single diff to you. You don’t just rock to live, you live to rock. Which is why I wanted to talk this out, mano a mano. It’s just a couple tracks – big radio hits and wedding jams – then we’ll have enough dough to produce our next album ourselves, our way. You feel me?”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
An excited smile washes over Dryden’s face.
“Does that mean you’re in?”
“I hate to say this but… tell the suits I’m in.”
Dryden fist pumps, ecstatic.
“Hell yeah, brother! Hell to the ye-ah!”
“But when we’re done, we need to finally record our opus, yeah? I’ve been working out tracks for Residential Infestation for the last five years, man. I can’t wait much longer.”
“Yes dude, 100% agreed. Oh man, this is gonna RIP! You are not gonna regret this!”
Little did the boys know that they would, in time, absolutely regret this.