The Band Chosen from a Hat

I've rewritten my other ILEN post to bring it a little up-to-date with my writing style and to have it read more like a book and less like a big explanation. It also expands on the actual making of the name and not the entire history of ILEN and its members.

The Birth of a Band
It was a very hot day, early in June of 2003. It wasn't even summer yet but already temperatures were high and the last days of school were finally behind them. Augustus and Harper, cousins and the best of friends, had finally gotten their dream of creating a band to become reality thanks to the gift of a drumset and total luck in actually finding friends who owned a guitar and bass. All four of them had just ended the seventh grade and all were trumpet-players in the Ken Bridges Middle School band. With a group of people as unique as them they were determined to mark their place on the popularity map by advertising as a "band of trumpet players" and no doubt wanted to perform a lasting impression at the very popular eighth grade talent show. As the two of them waited for their other two members to arrive they passed the time by taking an old red wagon, delicately putting Harper's electric keyboard and an amp in it, and dragging it to Augustus's house, which lucky for him, was just five houses up the street. Today was the day when they would meet officially for the first time and, even more exciting, decide on a band name.

They had just finished setting up Harper's keyboard in the basement and were going back outside when they saw an old white station wagon with horrible fake wood panels on the sides pull up to the house. Augustus and Harper ran outside to see who it was and saw the tall, thin image of Lesko Diamond, their bass player, getting out of the front seat as a man who looked just like him but with shorter hair get out of the driver's seat and come around to the passenger side where he helped Lesko take the large and awkward instrument case out of the back seat. This man, obviously Lesko's father, looked at Augustus and Harper and with a smile and the thickest Vetonian accent they had ever heard introduced himself and then, hugging his son, wished him a wonderful time at his friend's house.

Smiling, Lesko dragged his heavy case to the house where he was led to the basement that would soon enough become almost as familiar to him as his own bedroom.

"So you finally met my dad!" Lesko said, his face glowing with excitement and happiness.

"Yeah. He seems really nice. You look just like him, man!" replied Harper, trying to sound cool.

"Holy cow Lesko he has a really cool accent!" burst Augustus, "Are you all from Vetonia?"

"Nah, they moved to Tarra right before me and my brother were born. But yeah they're all from Electric Beach and my dad never lost his accent. He likes it too much!" Lesko replied, obviously very proud of his cool parents.

He set his stuff down on the dark green couch and they went back upstairs to wait for Eric, talking all the while about their brand new band and all the fun they hoped to have. After a few minutes sitting on the large stone wall in the front yard they saw three figures on bicycles. One had a guitar-shaped black gig bag on his shoulders and was in conversation with the other two who were on either side of him. They were carrying backpacks filled to the brim with sporting equipment; Augustus could see some baseball bats and a basketball sticking out of the taller one's bag. They recognized the smallest one with the gig bag as Eric and suspected that the other two were his brothers, on their way to the park.

"Hi Eric!" Lesko called out, "Catch a ride with them on the way to the park?"

"Yeah. They were nice enough to leave with me so that I wouldn't get lost," Eric replied, jokingly. "I found the house all right though. It's nice when they're on main streets. Less turning."

"Mom wants you back by 5:00," said the older boy, while the younger boy pedaled around in slow circles, too shy to talk to all these people he didn't yet know but still wanting to listen to their conversation.

"All right, thanks Neil," Eric said, as he waved his brothers off and they sped north toward the park. Turning to Augustus, Lesko, and Harper, he parked his bike in their yard and followed them into the house, electric guitar in tow. "You have amps and stuff for us, right? I couldn't take mine on my bike..."

"Yeah don't worry about it. I have everything we need," said Harper as they entered the large basement den. "My dad let me borrow some stuff until we can get our own."

They spent the next hour or so getting everything hooked up and organized to their liking. The whole time the four of them were talking away, a unique blend of personalities that worked in perfect harmony. A couple times some of Augustus's family would come in and chat with them and help them set everything up and finally everything was ready.

"Ok memorize how this all goes. Can you believe that one day it will take like 5 minutes to get this all set up?" said Augustus as they surveyed their layout one last time.

By now it was lunch time and it was very hot in the house. Augustus's dad was in the yard making hamburgers and hot dogs so they took a quick break and got a bite to eat. Feeling refreshed, they returned to their basement setup and began playing through some things for fun. It went much better than they had expected, thanks to their attention to musical detail and their ability to improvise extremely well together. As they played through some simple scales and melodies they discussed important things like the genre of their music. They weren't big into the screamer idea and decided to write about the most random things for a laugh. They would never use foul language or sing about girlfriends, as this was not only stupid but also cliche. They decided that they would experiment with some songs and see what worked the best in terms of lyricist/songwriter. With their ever-expanding knowledge of composition they would be able to write out their melodies until they were fully memorized, and as all four of them were trumpet-players and this was their big selling point, they also decided that they would experiment with adding trumpet to the mix in unique ways. They were really liking what they were hearing as they jammed together and knew that this band of trumpet-players would go very far indeed.

After they played for a while they took a break as the heat was sucking out all their energy and, more importantly, to come up with a name. After a long round of Write and Dispel in which they shouted out random names and ideas that were written down on a whiteboard and then crossed out, Harper had a great idea.

"Hey, why don't we come up with a catchy, 4-letter word for our band? That way we could each wear a T-shirt with a letter of the band on it as our main stage outfit!" Harper suddenly burst out, after they had come up with no less than fifty names that they didn't like.

"Oo, that's a great idea," they all said in unison. "Oh my gosh we can get 26 rocks from our garden and then put the letters of the alphabet on them!" interjected Augustus.

His sister Danielle, who had been listening in, piped up: "You can borrow my nail polish and paint the letters on them!"

They thought this was a great idea and then Lesko came up with the idea to throw the rocks at a bucket or something in the center of the room and then have all of them draw one and see what it said. This seemed to fit with their quirky nature better than anything they had ever come up with and excitedly hurried off to the backyard where they began digging up small, golf ball sized rocks and cleaned them off with the hose before painting a letter on them with old nail polish donated by Danielle, who happily told them that she was the band's first official groupie.

After the painted rocks were dry they went back into the basement with a metal bucket that Augustus had found next to the garden-in-progress. The bucket was placed in the center of the room and the four band members sat lazily on the couch, taking turns throwing the rocks at the bucket. Most bounced off or didn't even come close but 8 rocks actually did make it in and after the Z had been tossed unsuccessfully at the bucket they went to see what they had to choose from. They emptied the rocks out and came up with A, C, E, I, K, L, N, and P. Happy that they had vowels, they put them back in and each reached in and grabbed a rock. Augustus went first and drew an N. Lesko went next and drew an L. Harper went third drawing an I and Eric drew an E. They put the letters in order and ended up with E, I, L, and N. Now it was time to try and make it into a catchy word.

They all laughed because they noticed right away that it spelled NEIL. That was out of the question, because Neil was Eric's brother and they didn't think he'd be too happy with them if they named their band after him. They tried NILE but it just didn't have the ring they were looking for. LINE was lame and ENIL was just plain weird. They wanted a two syllable name and ENIL was the closest to something they were looking for but they didn't like it and kept trying. They weren't coming up with anything and they were about ready to give up when Harper spelled NILE again and picked up the N. He began to throw it in the air, thinking for a moment, but he wasn't paying attention and it slipped out of his fingers, landing at the end of the word. They quickly pushed it over and suddenly the name ILEN was staring back at them. They looked at it. They whispered the name to themselves. Slowly they raised their heads and looked at each other, their eyes wide. They began to cheer and smiles were on all of their faces. They had found their band name.

They immediately began writing their very first song, which they titled "The Band Chosen from a Hat." They had most of the lyrics down when it was time for everyone to leave and return home. It was a memorable and very productive Saturday and they couldn't wait to get back together and write and play even more things! They had no idea just what they were getting into, back as young 13-year-olds, but 8 years later the band is still as strong as ever and immensely popular not just in their home town but all over Kiillaana.