And I wasn't alone thinking that way, either. Joey, Fred, and Wolfgang, they all felt that way too, and before long, we were, like, inseparable. So you can imagine how desperate we felt when school was over. Here we were, four marching band junkies with no way to a fix, let alone anything resembling a marketable skill. We used to spend Friday nights at the diner commiserating over the old days and how much we all missed those practice sessions out on the field. How much we loved music, particularly that kind of music. And how life just wasn't, y'know, the same anymore.
Then it hit us.
We didn't have to lose that magic. We could still be musicians.
It was all in the marketing.
Face it: what says traditional American music more than a marching band, in full regalia, out there playing the be-jezuz out of John Philip Sousa? But four guys in uniform... well, that might look a little silly unless we had a gimmick. And the gimmick was easy: we'd do our part for world peace by taking Sousa and setting it to techno dance beats.
Sure, the early concerts were something of a disaster. We didn't have the format down, and all the marching on stage did look a little stupid. So we hired a choreographer -- the same one who used to work for the Backstreet Boys, so we were able to get him real cheap, considering he didn't have any other work lined up -- got some flashy costumes, and hit the touring road again. In New York and LA, we were a bit of a bust -- but in Kansas? Nebraska? They loved us! Majorettes were throwing themselves at us for the chance to work in our group. Former cheerleaders threw their old pompoms onstage with their phone numbers attached. We were serious shock-n-awe!
Then Patriotism became the in-thing again, and the ride got really wild. Suddenly, folks in NY and LA were re-discovering Sousa -- and us! Our last album went platinum ten minutes after recording. Our dance remix of Stars and Stripes Forever is mandatory drill in the best clubs. MTV had us twice on Unplugged. And there's been serious discussions between our manager and the Republican National Convention -- seems you-know-who is a huge fan of our work.
So we're settling in for what we figure will be a pretty long haul. Homeland Security wants us to do a record for them, and I'm already thinking we could expand our skillset a bit, maybe do a heavy-metal version of God Bless America.
SOUSA ROCKS!!!
