Born Against - Pt. 1

How growing up in a nightclub and living in a hotel shaped me as a musician. Also, listen to my first recorded song...

In the late 80s and 90s, Denver's nightclub Rock Island was the epicenter of the goth scene. Tim Curry hung out there, Skinny Puppy played there, and a blend of outcasts and hipsters co-existed there. This was my playground.

As a baby, I was kept in a car seat in the coat check room while my parents ran the club — and blew rails of coke. As a toddler, I sported a Rock Island onesie on the dance floor. By my teenage years, I was bar-backing. The nightclub essentially raised me.

Growing up, most of my birthday parties were at Rock Island —leading to many empty invitations. The big metal cages for the nightly go-go dancers were adorned with streamers and balloons, but the sight made many moms' skin crawl as they watched their kids use the cages like jungle gyms. I distinctly remember my 7th birthday when Noah called his mom crying, asking to be picked up because the music scared him. My discomfort with bowling alley pizza parties and Girl Scouts sleepovers matched Noah’s discomfort with the sound of Joy Division. Even then, I was acutely aware of how different I was. I didn’t fit in. I had no interest in having a place at the kids’ table; I wanted to drink my Shirley Temples from highball glasses.

The punk club, party environment my parents dwelled in was fun on the outside but also clearly dysfunctional. I saw and did things no child should. My sense of “normal” was skewed. I felt safer in toxic environments than in conventional ones; I wasn’t afraid of being left unattended, and I didn’t get nervous in dark rooms full of strangers. But I wasn’t naive, either. My survival instincts were honed early, always alert even as a wobbly toddler.

My chaotic upbringing meant I was always dog-paddling upstream without anyone teaching me how to swim. However, one genuine point of gratitude I hold for my parents’ unconventional methods is the exposure to music—not nursery rhymes, but goth, industrial, punk, new wave, no wave—all the waves. I couldn’t truly identify with the drug-addled adults around me or my school friends, but I found solace in sound. I didn’t dress up as Disney princesses for Halloween; I dressed up as rockstars. At 6, I was impersonating Jim Morrison; at 8, David Bowie; at 12, Darby Crash. Falling in love with Iggy Pop escalated things further. These musical icons made me feel I had a place in the world. They spoke a language I understood, and in them, I found my gang, my like-minded individuals who "got" me.

At such a young age, I didn’t see a difference between these artists and myself. I wasn’t aware of their status, power, or gender. I didn’t even know if they were alive or dead. I was oblivious to how these differences would so greatly later affect my career’s trajectory.

my parents (in the back) with their Rock Island posse

My “home” environment was much like the club’s —a different version of the same thing. For the first half of my childhood, my dad lived in room 218 in a hotel down the street from Rock Island. Built in 1890, The Oxford is reminiscent of The Shining’s Overlook. I was like the Eloise of downtown Denver, without the 5-star luxury accommodations and the pet turtle. The hotel was full of ghosts as the club was full of misfits.

I met a lot of musicians and artists at The Oxford. It was the hotel of choice in the 90s for touring bands and eccentrics who preferred boutique digs over Hiltons. Everyone from Ralph Steadman to Eminem and Bonnie Raitt passed through the lobby, likely avoiding my little kid self, hanging upside down on the bell carts like monkey bars. Even more recently, Jack White made a music video in The Cruise Room, the hotel’s art deco cocktail bar. You wouldn’t imagine that Denver would be a place to provide much exposure to fame; however, this is where I became accustomed to and eventually bored by celebrity. I didn’t care about meeting rockstars, I wanted to be them. I wanted to be on tour, playing my songs in different cities every night, connecting with audiences. I wanted to be the one passing through town, not the one left behind. I wanted a way out of Denver and saw music as the ticket.

Long before hustling in Hollywood and throwing myself into touring, I knew I was a musician. I felt it in my bones before I played a note. Music was my natural language; I just had to learn how to speak it.

12 yr old me with…The Goo Goo Dolls?

Between the hotel and the nightclub, I spent my childhood alone in crowded places. I was simultaneously gawked at and ignored. I learned not just to entertain, but to console myself. I took full advantage of never being supervised. I played ding-dong-ditch at the expense of guests and ate dinners alone at the hotel restaurant. At ten, I convinced two of my classmates (shoutout to Sarah Dunn and Jade Scott) to start a “band” with me called Population 3. I wrote the lyrics and forced them to spend recess rehearsing different singing parts. Soon, we attracted the attention of a music teacher who, perhaps too eagerly, provided musical accompaniment. In our teacher’s makeshift recording studio, we recorded our debut single, appropriately titled Alone. After hearing the words to the song you’ll understand why parents weren’t thrilled by their children befriending me.

The compulsion to write songs became overwhelming. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. I filled notebooks with lyrics and dreamt of Population 3 performing on stages around the world. But, by the 7th grade, my bandmates lost interest and I felt quite literally smothered by our music teacher. It was time to go solo. The first step: learning how to write and play the music myself.

I started teaching myself how to play guitar on an acoustic Yamaha I “borrowed” from the school music room. After mastering a whopping three chords (G, A, D), I decided I was ready to start gigging. I played open mic nights around Denver and Boulder. I befriended old poets and singer-songwriters who drove me to different venues and let me smoke their clove cigarettes. I’d do my homework while waiting for my turn onstage. Though I loved playing guitar, I didn’t feel like being an acoustic singer/songwriter was my true calling. I wanted to be loud. I had little interest in The Indigo Girls and Ani DiFranco. But, I hadn’t been exposed to any female rockstars yet, I only knew of the men. I didn’t know women could do what I wanted to do, until a new bellhop was hired at the hotel and he gave me two CDs that changed my life.

To be continued…

c u next tuesday.

xx CARRÉ