SO I'M DATING A MUSICIAN Issue #18

By Venus Zine Staff
Published: November 21st, 2003 | 10:55am

Continued from the winter 2003–2004 issue of Venus ... More stories about the ups and downs of dating the guy or the girl in the band

Three Lessons In Rock-Star Dating

My first serious romance with a musician was marred from the start. Rocker #1 had a drug problem, which is not uncommon in rock star dating. We had been seeing each other for a while when one night I was told that he "never had romantic feelings for me." I began to argue, but then noticed a girl barely holding herself up nearby, watching intently. When he walked away toward her, I knew that I had just learned an important lesson in rock star dating, and in dating in general: you will not win when competing with drugs, or in this case, with a girl who will participate in his drug use.

Rocker #2, another wonderful guy, was not addicted — to drugs at least. While I was carrying on a monogamous relationship, he was carrying on with any other little girl who returned his smile. I believed the stories of weekends away visiting friends and nights out with the guys. I did not know that many times he was not really out of town; he was shacked up in an apartment across town with one of many faceless females. We dated for two years (it’s been a year since the break up), and the final count of girls he slept with while he was my "boyfriend" ends up being around 17. For a girl who has always practiced monogamy and been very careful, this information completely disgusted me and was extremely difficult to get over.

After many months of healing, I was ready to try again, which brings us to Rocker #3. He was different from #1 and #2 in that his band had been widely popular for several years. He was a bit older and pursued me rather than the other way around, so I thought it might be different. Until he mentioned that when he left for a month tour that he would be in "tour mode" which, he explained, meant going to bed with whomever, whenever. I took it in stride, thinking, "At least this one was honest from the beginning, rather than letting me find out terrible things a year later."

It takes egotism to be a performer, and as a performer myself, I know this to be true. But when a person comes offstage and uses that egotism to hurt others and benefit only him- or herself, my suggestion is to give up and move on. You need to protect yourself and not get wrapped up in him because nine times out of 10 he is not as wrapped up in you. Or he is, but maybe only for tonight. LEAH McMANIGLE

The Band Always Comes First

After high school, I thought I had escaped the curse of dating boys in bands. Several of my past relationships had been with guys in lousy local punk and indie outfits, and I had firmly determined that my next round of partners would be non-musically talented. The new men would like books, films, and chess.

I stuck to the plan for several years, dating a wide array of winners and losers — the journalist, the bike messenger, the unemployed artist kid — until my last boyfriend. He was tall, very foxy, and the drummer in a sort of well-known punk band. Unlike some of my earlier relationships, I liked him in spite of being a musician, not because he was a musician. This was maturity. This was love.

We dated for a year and a half. I saw him through the breakup of the sort of well-known punk band and his transition into playing drums for a local noise project. Though he didn’t take the new band very seriously at first, the project soon progressed, and my boy was on tour more often than not.

Which was fine. I enjoyed accompanying him to his shows in the small basements of college students and at all-ages venues. After a while, I decided that I couldn’t hang with the all-ages audiences anymore. They made me feel old. Cynical and old. At 24, I was past my prime. I spent more of my weekends at home or with friends and stopped accompanying the band on so many weekend trips. Sleeping on friends’ floors had lost its charm.

I was forced to seek out my own life, outside of my relationship, which I should have been doing all along. Dating the boy in the band taught me that I could be all right on my own. That I couldn’t just depend on a relationship to get me through the weekends or cold winter nights. Dating the boy in the band was like dating 10 boys at once; my boyfriend had five "boyfriends," and his relationship troubles and triumphs became ours.

In the spring of 2003, I got sick with a lingering cold — it stuck with me for months and months, and I couldn’t shake it. Through it all, my boyfriend was as supportive as he could be, but he wasn’t there. He was playing weekends away. He was writing a new record with the noise project. He was recording in New York with a famous producer. He was planning a three-month North American tour and having a lot of fun.

I was not having a lot of fun. I was sick and frustrated and tired of trying to conduct a relationship through phone wires and mounting resentment. In early summer, we met up and tried to hash out a solution. Not wanting things to completely devolve into unencumbered suckiness, we broke up, during which he took a call from a bandmate about his being late to practice.

He went on tour with his boyfriends. We phoned occasionally and now we’re good friends. And I’m staying away from boys with guitars and drumsticks for a while. JULIE GERSTEIN

Music Junkies Make Sacrifices

I have to step over a drum set every time I climb out of bed. My CD collection is now a CD jewel box collection, and yesterday I found a guitar pick in the shower. For the past five years, I’ve been shacked up with a guitar player who posts pictures of guitars from online catalogs on the computer’s desktop and hasn’t arisen before noon since high school.

My boyfriend is in two bands, pulls all-nighters in the studio, and teaches classical guitar on the weekends. This means that our Los Angeles apartment is not as much a home as a loading dock. No less than five guitars are scattered around me as I write, and an enormous P.A. case has set up permanent residence in the middle of our living room. The oft-used stuff floats in and out, and every morning the living room is different.

Now, my love is a guitarist, but he also fantasizes about being a drummer (hence the drum set bought from a "connection" at the Remo company). He also bought a set of tabla drums, which he mysteriously massaged with baby powder every night for a week before casting them into the same closet where he stores back issues of Guitar Player and an old Darth Vadar mask. I’ve learned to love clutter.

While we both agree that this is the time in our lives to work like dogs on our careers, it sucks not seeing him. He usually starts his day around the time I’m wrapping up my lunch meeting, and I’m entering my first R.E.M. cycle as he begins an all-night studio session. Sometimes I don’t know where he is until he calls to say he’s playing the Palms in Vegas or the Casbah in San Diego. And band number two is slated to tour for three months starting in March.

So what’s to love about living with a musician? Unless you’re a musician or music junkie, probably not much. For normal people, having a boyfriend who is able to sing "Paint It Black" backward will never make up for the erratic hours, casual cleanliness, and occasional absences. The rocknroll romance dies as the non-musician starts wondering when their significant other is going to "get a real job" or be able to "provide security."

The diehard music junkies, however fiscally successful the musician becomes, figure they’d rather grow old with a person who’s equipped for sing-a-longs and will serenade them to sleep than some professional toolbox who can set them up for life, but will never understand how a Motörhead song can make anyone cry.

So far for us, it’s worked. We have stupid-long conversations about progressive rock’s influence on post-hardcore and whether Justin Timberlake is a valid artist or just a puppet for the Neptunes. Most musicians’ favorite topic of conversation is (duh) music. If it’s not yours, living with (or even dating) a real musician may not work. And while I’ve dated a handful of rockers who fit the stereotype of musicians being terminal children, my current axe-wielder is a real-deal adult. From paying bills on time to picking up my grandma from the airport, he’s always there.

And most importantly, if we ever end up sharing a nursing-home room filled to capacity with amps and instruments, I have no doubt he’ll still be the coolest person in the joint. EMILI VESILIND

Tell-tale Signs Of an Egomaniac

At a party, I mentioned to the host, Tony, that I had just split with my bass player boyfriend, to which he responded that he had just split with his bass player girlfriend. What a coincidence! Then, gushing in the way I will when drinking wine, I confessed to putting one of his songs on a Christmas gift mix I’d made.

When his girlfriend showed up, Tony’s break-up revelation turned out to be a bit of a preemptive strike. He ushered her into his bedroom and ended it. Those waiting in line for the bathroom could hear her crying through the walls. Since I hadn’t seen her tears, I was almost flattered when I later learned the order of events.

We had just coupled when the blizzard hit, a great excuse for staying in bed and listening to thousands of records. Both insomniacs, we stayed up all night, during which he wrote and played songs about us. We were in a sudden honeymoon cocoon, the breaks between sex and songs indistinguishable. When I went home, I called a friend, giddy that the man who penned pop we adored had added me to his repertoire.

Our agreement was strictly the stuff of rebounds: no commitments, no publicity. Tony was unfazed when I called him by another name in bed, twice, but upset when I saw his new band perform and offered my opinion that they weren’t up to par.

Our imminent break-up became certain when he sliced his finger on the walk to my house. Stepping out on to the icy sidewalk, carrying beers, and wearing boots, he slipped and gashed his right hand. In the following weeks, as it healed too slowly, his suspicious eyes revealed who was to blame. My whims had tried to destroy the music — I was the anti-muse.

After we’d broken up, Tony sent explanation: he felt he needed to date someone to whom he felt "mentally superior." He also opposed my "passions" — he thought he’d do better with someone who "just had a nine-to-five" so her free time would be spent on him. He wanted a groupie, not a girlfriend. I was ashamed with myself.

I should have predicted from that first night what Tony would turn out to be. He’s a talented lead singer–songwriter–crazy complicated guitar player. Blessed with relatively rich parents, an unusually large penis, and eye-catching hair, he became fairly famous before he even got out of college and his career peaked before he turned 30. Now he lives a block from his university dorm, smoking pot and surviving off the money he makes from old songs which are used in movies and commercials and from writing hits for other lesser-known bands. Why was I surprised that his ego turned out to be his biggest organ?

We’re still friends. I phone him up when I can’t remember some lyrics; I let him buy me dinner. When he calls or writes me about his amorous feelings toward me (he has a girlfriend but holds nothing back), I try to remember to separate the man from the music and tell him that a great band does not equal a decent boyfriend. RUBY DES JARDINS

A Journey From Other Woman To Live-In Girlfriend

I have always ended up with bass players. At first it seemed like an odd coincidence, but after being with one for a year, it makes perfect sense. Those strong hands and skillful fingers, that brooding, mysterious low-frequency sex vibe that keeps me coming back for more.

I met my current bass player while bartending at a Chicago watering hole. It was a crowded Friday night and I could barely see through the smoky haze, but there he was across the room: a tall, skinny, pale rocker with a black mop looking entirely bored. Then one of my regulars came over and introduced me to some friends from Los Angeles, including that guy I had my eye on. They had just recorded with Steve Albini and were now on tour. I offered to show them the late night when my shift was over. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much going on, so everyone just crashed at my place. We all had such a great connection that they convinced me to go with them to their next show. They needed a photographer and I needed to get outta town, so I called in to work, hopped in a van with five strangers, and headed to Madison.

It wasn’t until that night that the black-haired green-eyed bass player opened up to me. It seemed that he had a nagging girlfriend back home who he was trying to get rid of. The following day I got on a bus back to Chicago, and they went on to Minneapolis. We kissed good-bye and I thought I’d never see him again, but we managed a long-distance thing — until I decided to move to Los Angeles to be with him.

On New Year’s Eve, I packed up my things, carried all I could take on a plane, put the rest in storage, and flew one-way to LAX. What the hell was I doing? I was in a city I had no desire to be in, I didn’t know what would come next, and my only acquaintances were a band I had met only four months prior. But it was romantic and exhilarating.

A year has gone by, and I’m still here in L.A. My boyfriend and I have been through more than most would be able to deal with. His ex, who played in his last band, thought they were still together when I came along and has been stalking us ever since. We’ve changed our numbers, moved and remained unlisted, but she hunted us down like a redneck does a coon. She even vandalized my car, but we caught her on video and have been dealing with the LAPD accordingly.

My advice to those contemplating life with a musician: As long as you don’t take things too seriously and embrace the drama, it’s mostly fun. Just don’t ever play in the same band together. ALEXIS OWEN

To read more tales of rock-star dating, pick up the winter 2003–2004 issue of Venus, on sale December 1, 2003.