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I was fifteen-years-old and in the midst of discovering myself (as all fifteen-year-olds do) when I started listening to classic rock for the first time. It was around this time I subscribed to the religion of rock and roll. I had never heard this type of music, and I certainly had never experienced such a dopamine-rush from listening to music before. As I fell deeper into the rabbit-hole, I found myself stuck in a sticky trap set for impressionable teenagers like me! The rockstars, seemingly harmless, had shed their mortal skins, and suddenly manifested themselves into gods, seducing me into becoming one of their disciples. I gave into it easily –– happily worshipping them and accepting everything they had to offer.
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“All good rock stars have a bewitching power that goes straight through the sternum and touches something quivering and central in the gut.”
JOHANNA HEDVA, ‘THEY’RE REALLY CLOSE TO MY BODY’: A HAGIOGRAPHY
OF NINE INCH NAILS AND THEIR RESIDENT MYSTIC ROBIN FINCK
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Johanna Hedva’s hagiography –– the writing of the lives of saints –– on Nine Inch Nails inspired me to wax poetic on my own rock deities. Their sex appeal undoubtedly turned my brain to mush, but it was their music that altered my brain chemistry –– I found myself in the lap of the gods. Rock and roll is addictive in nature, and it can be attributed to two sectors of the rockstar mythos: a) the rockstar’s idolization and b) rock scripture.
The Rockstar’s Idolization
Dan Graham’s 1984 film Rock My Religion discusses Patti Smith’s devotion to rock, and how the death of her idols in the 1960s led to her questioning rock as a religion. I would argue, however, that the death of the rockstar is quintessential to the religion and is an integral part of their canonization. It not only solidifies the mystique around the rockstar, but preserves them at the peak of their stardom, ultimately immortalizing them. Hedva supports this idea in their own writing by declaring that: “for hagiograph[ies] it’s better if your subject is dead, because it requires idealisation, a certain amount of romance and fantasy.” They go on to say that death allows for the reader and writer to spend time devoting such idols, allowing for their eternal life. In part, this way of thinking can be insensitive; though, in the rockstar mythos, romanticizing is necessary. There is a strangely sadistic satisfaction that comes from pondering on empty promises and wondering “what if?”
That’s not to say that rockstars must be dead to earn or maintain their godly status; if anything, they had to establish themselves while alive to gain such a title. Charismatic personalities assisted in these feats, and are often associated with frontmen of bands. Examining Robert Plant and Mick Jagger, respectively of Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones, for this case: Plant’s distinctive vocals in which he impressively wails and moans in a sensual manner merits his self-proclaimed title of “Golden God.” And Jagger’s showmanship is hypnotizing in his display of wild gesticulations and erratic dancing that accompany his brash vocals. They have both made their marks on rock history and continue to be held to well-deserved high regards in their seniority. Though this poses the question of whether humanizing the rockstar shatters the illusion of their holy status. Whereas in the case of the dead rockstar their youth is preserved by worshippers and media, aging rockstars seem more human. Unquestionably they continue to exist with an untouchability, but they no longer appear immortal. Despite this, fans continue to indulge them with offerings and study their scripture, sustaining the rockstar mythos. While their image is crafted by the rockstar themselves, the deification of a rockstar is put solely in the hands of their devotees.
Rock Scripture
Needless to say, the rock religion would not be able to exist without music. However, a vital part of the religion is community. I find that the connections made with others through mutual passions for music to be one of the most rewarding aspects of rock. Though, music has been impactful in bringing people together even outside of the rock religion.
Ufuoma Essi’s Is My Living in Vain (2022), exhibited at Gasworks in London, showcased a film reflecting on Black churches as a potential place for belonging and community organizing, in a cinema room resembling a church’s interior, with seating arrangements of pews. The work “explores the parallels between the church and the cinema as sites of worship and shared communal experience.” While discussing the parallels between a place of worship and a place to view the arts, it is interesting to consider the history of rock and roll. Christianity, in spite of having historical altercations with the genre, had massive influences on its creation. Rooting from blues and Black gospel music, artists such as Ray Charles, blended religious and secular music together by turning them into R&B hits. As rock and roll gained popularity, Christian denominations began to fearmonger by claiming, “‘This ‘rock and roll’ business’ of ‘wild, savage dancing to jungle drums and blaring disharmonies have caused riots and bloodshed,’” as quoted from a 1950s evangelical broadcaster. Claims as such were made from discriminatory and racist perspectives, as they recognized that rock stemmed from blues. Other Christian leaders claimed that rock and roll was “loud, brash, and harmful to the spirit” as they believed that music should be “harmonic and uplifting.”
This is an interesting angle to view this topic from because while rock music is loud and assertive, it can also be harmonic and uplifting. As the genre originated from gospel music, a communal practice of music, it continues to conform to similar values of community. In the act of coming together as a group that shares common interest –– in this case, music –– a space that is both celebratory and comforting is cultivated, leaving people wanting more.
In response to rock being “harmful to the spirit,” connections to the film A Spell To Draw Off Darkness by Ben Russell and Ben Rivers can be drawn and a conclusion of this being a false claim can be made. The third act of the film shows a black metal performance in Norway consisting of heavy guitars and heavier drum beats. Music in this sequence can be interpreted as a spell for protection from the darkness, as the film’s title implies. The primary character participates as the vocalist and he is guttural and primal in his screams. I interpreted this in one of two ways: screaming is his way of incanting a spell; or screaming is used to expel darkness already inside of him –– a form of self-exorcism. The film implies the magical capabilities of music, paralleling to Christian beliefs of worship as a way toward salvation –– and people have said that rock and roll saved their souls.
It is likely that themes of love, sex, freedom, and rebellion draws people into the religion of rock. Despite how untouchable rockstars may be, they sing of songs that the masses relate to, and suddenly the gods seem more accessible. The rock fandom’s appeal also comes from the potential of forming relationships with like-minded people. As I compiled my thoughts on rock as a religion, I began to reflect on my personal rock deities and fellow idolaters in my life that keep to ritualistic tradition.
Maria
I think my life changed when I became friends with Maria. And lucky me! I certainly didn’t think I’d be best friends with the cool girl with the green hair who sat in front of me in freshman year Spanish class. Having been friends with her for seven years now, I still think she’s the coolest. Maria is intelligent, kind, beautiful, passionate, and driven. We’re the same person and also complete polar opposites. She is the most interesting person I’ve met and I could spend hours picking apart her brain, though I still wouldn’t fully understand her. It’s all part of the charm of being friends with her. Yet despite this, one thing I do fully understand about her and our friendship is our shared love for music. The first time we were in a group project together, we did our presentation on Amy Winehouse. The day we found out we were at the same concert sitting only one section away from each other was when everything sparked and the flames only grew from there.
It was 2018 when Queen took the world again by storm after the success of their biopic film Bohemian Rhapsody. Being casual fans, we watched the film and our mere interest festered into an obsession. We scrounged online for every tiny detail and story about the band; watched interviews and live shows from decades before our time; listened to all their songs –– B-sides and deep-cuts and all; and exchanged photos of the band and of our respective favorite members. We were truly living out the best of our teenybopper lifestyles at the age of sixteen.
A new year starts, and our brains are still rotting with all things classic rock, but their royal majesties stay at the forefront of our minds. I continued to listen to their music and came to the conclusion that their first album is one of my favorites. It captures Queen’s sound perfectly, I decided, adding more fuel to my own pretentious flame that their early works are superior to their 1980s synth-pop-dad-rock sound (a hill I will continue to stand on to this day). I listened to “Son And Daughter,” lamely plucking and strumming away at my guitar in a desperate attempt to catch up to Brian May’s electrically vivacious and boisterous riffs and solos. May’s sound is erotic, heavy, gritty, and twisting. It all becomes amplified with Roger Taylor’s sloshy crashing on the drums and falsetto contributions; John Deacon’s steady, yet addictive, bum-bum-bumm on the bass; and the glittering enigma that was Freddie Mercury and his powerful voice and energy.
As I watched their performance from 1974, I yearned to experience their songs live. I wanted to be in a room with the rock gods that produce sounds from their magic tools that made me feel like my soul was ascending. I wanted to feel the music vibrate my entire core, light me on fire, and swallow me whole. Most importantly though, I wanted to experience it with someone who’d feel the exact same way. So when Brian May and Roger Taylor announced they were going on a world tour, Maria and I had to go. After a painstakingly arduously frustrating and gut-wrenching effort to get tickets, I scored us two seats. We were screaming and jumping and everything in the world seemed alright again. Doom and gloom of teenage angst be damned, we were going to see Queen!
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Maria recently asked me what day in our friendship I would choose to relive, and the first memory that came to mind was this concert. We stood outside of Madison Square Garden on the day of the show in leather, lace, gold, and glitter –– a spectacular display of our 17-year-old attempt at glamor in hopes of honoring and making Freddie Mercury proud. We decided that we were the best dressed out of everyone there when we saw most concert-goers dressed in jeans and a band tee. We simply wouldn’t allow that –– not when we spent hours on the phone the night before deciding on what we were going to wear.
The show was more marvelous than I could have expected. It was surreal seeing them only a few feet away from me and I burst into tears as soon as Brian May and Roger Taylor graced us with their presence. I was unconsolable and sobbed uncontrollably. It had hit me square in the chest that they were real and I was in the same room as them. Yet, their mystique didn’t shatter for me and I remained spellbound as crashing cymbals and bends of guitar solos pierced through my soul and kept me entranced. I was in the presence of gods.
My spiritual awakening occurred halfway through the show when Brian May did his solo performance of “Love Of My Life.” Sitting at the edge of the stage, May strummed away on his 12-string acoustic guitar. Words can’t even begin to describe the emotions I was feeling. As I look back on the video I recorded that night, I laugh at my 17-year-old self and think, Oh, this poor girl, but I do understand her. I felt this music so strongly that the only way for me to exert all the buzzing energy it evoked inside was through tears. And I felt validated when I looked over at Maria with blurry eyes to see that she was experiencing the music in the same way I was. This was the first and only time I’ve ever seen Maria cry.
Light pierced through the darkness like twinkling fireflies, per Brian May’s request, and as he continued to strum his guitar, Freddie Mercury appeared on the screen and his voice and our teenage wails permeated the room. We were completely heartbroken as we wept about Freddie’s passing, but I also remember feeling alive as everyone sang with him and later entertained his famous call-and-response bit.
Only a legend like Freddie Mercury can continue to command a room from beyond the grave.
There was something very endearing and purely teenager about how strongly we felt about music at that moment. It was a specific type of feeling that can’t be replicated again, and I am happy that it was Maria who got to witness my melodramatic cry-fest. Maria and I take a lot of pride in our adoration for music, but the Queen concert is one we hold to high acclaim –– one of our greatest hits.
The Rhapsody Tour
Madison Square Garden, New York. August 6, 2019.
Emma and Lucy
It might have been 53 years since The Beatles broke up, but Beatlemania is here to stay and my friends and I are proof of that. I met Emma and Lucy in London while studying on exchange, and they are two of the most wonderful people I’ve ever gotten to know. The three of us have become codependent, and I feel the separation anxiety creeping up on me as our time in London ticks away. How I’ll survive when we all fly back to our respective homes is something I try not to dwell on.
Emma and I became fast friends when we realized we shared a mutual taste in music. I invited her to sit in while I broadcast my radio show from my dorm room, and shortly after we went on a classic rock walking tour around London together. We invited Lucy along to come with us –– not because she also liked this genre of music, but because I thought she was cool. And despite blanching at the mere thought of getting to know new people, I desperately wanted to make friends in the big and lonely city. As we were all students on exchange, I’m sure they both felt the same way, but I doubt Lucy expected to be learning about classic rock and getting word-vomited on with random tidbits about bands that Emma and I had crammed into the crevices of our brains. Lucy first experienced this insanity when our guide kept mixing up bands and people’s names. The first time was passable as an honest mistake, but he continuously made them, ensuing side-eyes Emma and I threw at each other and our collective mumblings of corrections that we would never say to his face. At one point as we walked around the city, Lucy had jokingly said that she’d like to go on a classic rock tour led by the two of us. We all laughed, but looking back on it, it foreshadowed the rest of our story to come.
A few weeks pass, I’m still exploring London with Emma and Lucy, and we plan a trip to Liverpool: a Beatles’ fan’s pilgrimage. I had visited the previous summer with my parents, but I was excited to view the city with fresh eyes and with someone who appreciated The Beatles as much as I did. And so when Emma and I found out from Lucy that she had no knowledge of the Fab Four at all, we made it our personal mission to indoctrinate her into the magical and mysterious world of The Beatles. You have to know about them Lucy, we insisted, They literally have a song with your name in it!
She graciously entertained us and by the end of our short trip, she could tell John, Paul, George, and Ringo apart –– no matter how alike they looked in their moptops –– and deemed her favorite song to be an obscurer one about John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s marriage.
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I find that every year my love for The Beatles gets resparked. My earliest memory of hearing their music was “I Want To Hold Your Hand” in a grocery store when I was around 13-years-old, but I first properly began to listen to them when I was around 15. The Beatles are like the gateway drug for classic rock. As soon as I heard the famous opening chord to “A Hard Day’s Night,” I knew I was done for. Their catchy lyrics and fairly simple riffs were all tied up in a nice big rock-and-roll box and hand delivered to me by four men with boyish charms. I was never one for boy bands, but all of the sudden, the mania of that realm made sense to me. With The Beatles, I felt like a hysterical teenager on the brink of passing out in 1964.
At 20, I saw Paul McCartney live and that catalyzed last year’s obsession with The Beatles. I was blown away by the fact that I was watching an 80-year-old man who’s been making music since he was a teenager, sing his heart out for nearly two hours straight. Not once did he mess up or fall short on energy. It was truly magical, and even my mom, who only started listening to more of The Beatles because of my consistent control on the car’s speaker, turned to me with a big smile and said, “I understand why they call him a legend now.”
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My fixation on The Beatles this year was bound to happen, living only a train trip away from their birthplace. After my friends and I had a sampling of what Liverpool had to offer us last time, we hadn’t stopped talking about the trip since and were itching to go back. We booked a longer stay this time around, and we made Liverpool ours. Lucy, with her newly learned Beatles knowledge was able to keep up with Emma and I’s ramblings, and sing-along to their songs on all five nights we attended the iconic Cavern Club. With our daily appearances at the Club, security guards began to recognize us and we got to make some lovely memories with the two bands that we had specifically gone to see. Despite this, the moments that I’ll eternally treasure are the ones of us dancing the night away at the Cavern Club to the same five Beatles songs that we were getting sick of, but couldn’t get enough of at the same time –– how many more times could we possibly listen to “Yellow Submarine” in one night? Yet, every single time a band would play “Twist And Shout,” we would ignore our aching feet and tired bodies and feel the music. Or, when the opening doo-doo-dooo of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” would ring through the room, Emma and Lucy would reach for my hands, intertwine our fingers with the largest smile, and dance and shout the lyrics as loud as we could muster at 1AM every night without fail. I experienced so much pure joy and love that weekend and it was a beautifully comforting feeling to be swaddled in.
The decades of history and energy the brick walls have absorbed produces a type of magic that can only be felt inside the Cavern Club. And I like to think that the three of us are part of that history now too.
Cavern Club Girls
The Cavern Club, Liverpool. May 19, 2023.
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References
Hajdu, David. “How Christianity Created Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Public Books, December 31, 2018. https://www.publicbooks.org/how-christianity-created-rock-n-roll/.
Hedva, Johanna. “‘They’re Really Close To My Body’: A Hagiography of Nine Inch Nails and Their Resident Mystic Robin Finck.” The White Review, March 2020. https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/theyre-really-close-to-my-body/.
Jackson, Ashawnta. “The Conservative Christian War on Rock and Roll.” JSTOR Daily, February 8, 2021. https://daily.jstor.org/the-conservative-christian-war-on-rock-and-roll/.
Rock My Religion. Vimeo, 2015. https://vimeo.com/140869040.
Russell, Ben, Rivers, Ben. A Spell To Ward Off The Darkness. 2013, Must Käsi, Rouge International. MUBI, accessed June 11, 2023, https://mubi.com/films/a-spell-to-ward-off-the-darkness.
“Ufuoma Essi: Is My Living in Vain.” Gasworks, 2022. Gasworks. https://www.gasworks.org.uk/exhibitions/ufuoma-essi-is-my-living-in-vain/.