I get asked from time to time why I have a clothes pin on my bass.





Ive had musicians ask me if it had something to do with intonation. Im not sure what a clothes pin would do for intonation but I have been asked several times. Its for my sister who died of cancer seven years ago at the age of 45. It started with the people at her work. After she was diagnosed they started giving her clothes pins. They would paint them and make things out of them. One person made a Noahs Arc complete with animals out of clothes pins. They did this as a show of support for her battle. Why clothes pins? Because in this day and age of dryers and fresh smelling dryer sheets my sister would still hang her clothes out on a clothes line. After she died I put a clothes pin on the headstock of my bass and have played with one there ever since. The clothes pin is in memory of my sister. I miss her dearly every day of my life!

Some years ago this guy named Darren started coming out to a lot of Steel shows. In time Darren became more than just a fan of the band he became a friend. No one in over three decades of playing in bands has ever supported a band that I have been in like Darren. He was a trucker and in time bought his own truck. He was at our CD release party and he bought a CD which we signed. He had the band logo and our picture from the back of the CD with the signatures put on his truck.





When the economy was first heading south and fuel price began to skyrocket Darren was in jeopardy of losing his truck. So, Steel did what Steel does in a situation like that. We got off our asses, called some friends in bands, rented a fire hall and had a benefit. I donated a Megatouch and had raffle tickets printed up and raffled it off. All the women of Steel made food and it was a pretty good day. I posted about it here at AB.





We did manage to buy Darren time but ultimately he lost his truck. It was sad but we did what we could for him. Sometimes in life no matter how hard you try you still lose.

After Darren lost his truck he went to work for another trucking company. He hurt his back and when the doctors were doing what doctors do to figure out what is wrong with you they found that Darren had cancer. This began a long battle with the disease. Darren kept us posted through every step of his battle. Through text, emails, phone calls and in person at gigs. Darren was constantly promoting the band, he never stopped. Eventually Darren could no long take the cold weather of PA. He moved to Florida with family. Darren stayed optimistic throughout his ordeal. I never heard him get down about it although Im sure at times he did. One day I got an email from Darren. He asked me and the rest of the guys in Steel if we would be Pallbearers at his funeral if he should die. I told him that I would be honored but would do so with great sadness in my heart.

Not long ago Darren came back to PA for a visit and treatment at Hershey Medical Center. He said he was going to try and make it out to see the band while he was up here if he felt up to it. Saturday January 21st we were playing this little bar called Double K Tavern. Darren came out to see the band that night. It was great to see him out at a gig again even if he did need a cane to get around. We dedicated the night to Darren. He was smiling the whole night and having a good time. For some reason the last song we do at every gig is Hollowed Be Thy Name by Iron Maiden. Im not sure why we do that, we just do and have been for many years. When we were doing the song people brought a chair up to my side of the stage and Darren sat there as we played Hollowed Be Thy Name. We have this head banging part that my guitarists, singer and I do in unison right after we come out of the lead guitar part. The crowd loves this and most nights will come up to the front of the stage and do it with us. After the head banging part I go into this little bass gallop thing. It just beefs it up a little. After the beefy bass part I went over to Darren and I pulled the clothes pin off my bass and handed it to him. In my mind I was thinking Come on God I think you owe me one. I talked to Darren a little after we played. I talked to him again as he was leaving. But, we were both getting teary eyed so I figured I better let him go before we both broke down crying like a couple of women. I put my hand on his shoulder and said We love you brother. He responded and I let him go and I went back to tearing down.

The morning of Sunday January 29th I was contact and told that Darren had died. Darren was 51 years old. It was a devastating blow to the whole band. That Sunday I had band practice with the other band I play with F5. I went to band practice with a heavy heart. I left my phone in the truck. After band practice I checked it and saw I had a message. It was Darrens wife. I called her back and we talked for a bit. Then she told me that Darren wanted Steel to be Pallbearers and asked if I would do it. Do I even need to tell you my reply?

Monday we (Steel) get an email from Darrens wife. In the subject line it says Darrens final request. It turned out that Darrens final request was to have Steel play Hollowed Be Thy Name at his funeral. I can sit here and name a hundred reasons why I did not want to do this. But, I could only name one reason why I would. That reason being because Darren asked us to. How do you say no to a friends final request? None of us wanted to do this. We were worried about so many things as you can imagine. But, I emailed Darrens wife back and said I would be honored to do so. I emailed the boys and told them that I didnt want to do this either but I really thought we should as it was the mans last request. Volume was one thing we were worried about. We knew there would be old people there and were going to belt out a Heavy Metal song? Really?!?! We had the heartbreak of losing our friend and now the added stress of playing at a funeral. All the guys said yes though. Mondays practice was canceled. No one had the heart or will to play.

Tuesday January 31st I got up and played my bass like I do every morning. I started working on an acoustic arrangement of Hollowed Be Thy Name. I thought that could solve all our problems. It took some time but I had a good version of it. During the high singing parts in the meat of the song I was just going to have our singer sing it an octave lower. I called my guitarist but with everyones schedule we just werent going to have the time to get it down. We were just going to have to do our best to keep it as quiet as possible. I also posted something on Facebook this day. I knew people were watching our page and waiting for the band to make a statement. I was trying to put something together before then but the words were not coming easy.

Wednesday I posted a slide show tribute to Darren and used the music from the one ballad I wrote. You can check it out if you would like:








Thursday evening was the night of the viewing. We were asked to be there at 5:30 but the viewing didnt start until 6 p.m. I pulled in early and my singer was already there. They said when he walked up to the coffin his knees buckled and he had to be held up. He has a big heart and like all of ours it was breaking. I walked up to the coffin and it was more than a man could take. There was a picture of the band with Darren in the coffin with him. Darren was wearing a Steel shirt which he was buried in. There were two easels set up with pictures. The one was family and the other one was almost completely Steel. Pictures of Darren with members and the whole band and just all things Steel. It was heart wrenching! It was all an incredible tribute to the band he loved that loved him back. The Pastor arrived some time later. This guy was not your typical pastor. He came up and talked to the band for a while. Then he got down to business and went over the sermon with us. Amazing Grace was our cue to get up and get our instruments and be ready to play when they finished singing. We didnt know how he would take us playing a Heavy Metal song but he said he was looking forward to it and seemed genuine. We werent sure how the funeral home owners were going to feel about it either. The Pastor told us to just tell them this is what the family wants. He reminded us that it was the family who was paying them. He told us to basically just take control of the situation and do it because its easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission. When we talked to the funeral home people about it they were excited. The one guy we were talking to said they never had a band and they were really looking forward to it. We told them where we thought it would be best to set up. They responded with We will have all that furniture moved out of that corner when you come in tomorrow. Everything was set for the next day. After the viewing we went out for dinner and drinks. Then I went home for a sleepless night.

Friday was the funeral. I pulled up early and was the first one there. I lit up a cigarette and was going to smoke it and then load my gear in. I brought my Mesa Boogie amp instead of my Sunn. Its smaller even though it still has two 15s in it. But, the amp is thicker in the mids. Im not real fond of the sound of it, but it would allow me to turn down lower and still be able to hear it. I was sitting there thinking and my drummer pulled up. He came up to my truck and we were talking. I turned to him and said Just play. dont worry about the volume just hit them like you always do. He said OK. I told him we would match his volume. We loaded our gear into the funeral home which has to be one of the strangest things I have ever done in my life. The previous night at the viewing my guitarist said he thought we should skip the head banging part we normally do. I said Take a knee. He said What?! I said take a knee, its for respect. I told our singer to do the same. We set up and had everything ready to go. The drummer brought a small drum kit instead of his massive one he normally uses. One mike, a small powered head, one monitor and one speaker on a stick was the PA. Its difficult to explain how we were feeling about this but it was extremely stressful on all of us. I told our singer to give people an out before we started. I wanted people to feel OK about walking out on us rather than having people who hate metal suffer through it.

We took our seats and the pastor began. It was not your ordinary funeral even aside from having a band. The Pastor laughed and joked around. At times he cried just depending on what it was he was talking about. He said God only gave you two tools to deal with this laughter and tears. Then they started singing Amazing Grace. I stood up and took my jacket off and put it on my chair. My drummer followed suit. I went up and pick up my bass, turned on my amp and was ready to play. It was surreal! I couldnt believe what we were about to do. When they finished singing the Pastor started speaking again. I didnt want to turn around but knew I had to. All our hearts were in our throats. The Pastor gave us the lead in and then turned it over to our singer. Our singer did like I said and gave people an out if they wanted to walk out. He talked briefly and then it was time to do the unthinkable. Our drummer gave us a four count with his sticks and we started. I have this ability and as a performing musician you may have it too. I can look out into a room and view it as one thing of nothingness. Thats how I was looking into this room. My fingers felt like they were made of lead and I was playing in wet cement. They just didnt want to go. I had sprayed my bass with Finger Ease when I first set up. There was nothing left of it by the time I started playing and my hands felt very tacky. After some time I did take a look around the room. Every where I looked someone was holding an Iphone and had it pointed at us shooting a video of it. Playing through the song we were all just dying inside. At one point I was physically shaking. It was all just too much. My mind was flooded with more than it could process. We came to the head banging part and we took a knee. There were many people there who have seen us do this song many times. When we took a knee rather than head banging they would know it was out of respect for Darren or at the very least know that we were doing it for Darren. Down on one knee I took a look over to see if my guitarists was down but I couldnt see through my singer. So I just bowed my head and was looking at the floor. For one brief moment staring at the floor it was serene. When it came time to stand up and go into the beefed up bass part I didnt want to get up. I just wanted to stay down on one knee and stare at the floor. Unfortunately I had to get up and look back out into the room. I put my foot on the monitor like I always do in this part and it flipped forward. It was a smaller monitor and didnt have as much meat to it. I caught it with my foot and brought it back down. As I was riffing I saw this guy with an Iphone right in front of me recording. I was looking at it thinking how odd this was. When we hit the ending I normally go into this two handing tapping thing. It has a lot of movement at first then I go into a bar chord double handing tapping, then riffing then just striking the E to the ending. My fingers just would not do the double handed tapping. I have done it hundreds of times but on this day they just wouldnt. I dont know why they just wouldnt. I went into the bar chord tapping and that wasnt working so well either. I just went into the ending riffing and then we ended. I didnt know what to expect but there was just silence when we finished. The Pastor said a few more words in closing and that part was over.

They say that music has healing power and I believe that is true. It seemed to help a lot of people that day. People where coming up to me thanking me with tears rolling down their cheeks. The word they used most often was Powerful. That was powerful. It seemed helpful to all those who didnt have to play it. For the band it was devastating! Darrens wife came up to me and gave me a hug and said Thank You. I replied That was hard. She looked at me with this confused look on her face and I knew she would never understand. I just held my hand up and said Its OK Honey. I knew at that moment that no one would ever understand how hard that was to do but the band who did it. I cant put into words how hard that was to do because there are no words in the English language to describe it. I walked up to my drummer who had tears rolling down his cheeks. He said This is going to make that song so hard to play. Some days later someone posted on facebook about it. He said I never thought I would see the day when a heavy metal song would have tears running down my face. I never thought I would see the day when I would be playing a song at a friends funeral. It was just so very hard!





After some time we loaded Darren into the Hurst onto the truck.





As we drove to the graveyard all I could keep saying to myself was That was hard that was just so hard We had the grave side service and at the end of it our singer sang Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd.

I play my bass EVERY day. At the very least I play it in the morning while Im watching the news and drinking my coffee. Saturday the day after the funeral the thought never even occurred to me to pull it out of its case. Sunday I thought about it but had lost all desire and will to play. Monday I thought for sure our singer would call off practice, but he didnt. I never like going to practice but I have never hated it more than this night. Practice that night was more like a business meeting than a band practice. Afterwards I thought to myself are we going to ignore the 800 pound gorilla in the room or acknowledge it. So, I figured I would open the door and see if anyone wanted to walk through it. As I went to put my bass away I leaned it back in my hand and pointed to the headstock and said look its naked. My drummer asked where my clothes pin was and I said I gave it to Darren while we were playing Hollowed Be Thy Name at Double K. My singer said Thats right you did. I played the funeral without it but I will be putting another one on before our next gig. There were several minutes of silence. Then someone else said something about it and we sat down and talked about it. Our drummer again stated how hard this song was going to be to play. I said Yes it is, but in time it will get easier we just need to get through it this weekend at this gig. I said Listen guys, you can try to explain it to people all you want. But, there are only four people in this world who are ever going to understand how hard that was and thats the four people who did it.

It was just so damn hard! It just hurt us so much to get up there and play it. There is no point in me trying to continue to explain it because I just cant put it into words.

Dave