Tyler's story was the first Gabe heard when he'd started out. It was a bullshitted fable that the world soaked up like a thirst craving, dying to know more and never tiring of hearing the story on repeat.

Raised by two adultering parents, Tyler quickly learnt the meaning of rebellion as a form of lashing out at his unsteady family life. Tyler's mother had been a prostitute when she met his father and the pair had married quickly, and most likely illegally, and had Tyler. Still young themselves, Tyler's mother was mentally unstable and harboured numerous addictions.

Her condition tore a hole in the marriage and Tyler's father responded by having an affair. His mother reteliated with the same treatment. Resentment grew between them which they took out on Tyler's rebellious attitude and vice-versa. By the time he was fourteen, Tyler had four criminal records, numerous hospital admittances from street injuries and was arrested for drink-driving more times than you could count on one hand.

Somehow amongst the chaos of his own homelife, Tyler found music beneath the darkness and it became his form of light. Camped out at school one night where he refused to go home, Tyler had found an old guitar in the rundown music room and began to experimentally pluck at the strings and create simply melodies.

From there, his life started to turn around. His home was still a disaster with his parents hating one another and not understanding him, but Tyler learnt to sing through the pain. His voice developed quietly in the corners of his cramped childhood bedroom and the music teacher at the local high school was willing to throw the guitar away for nothing.

Music was not something Tyler shared with anyone for a long time. He didn't consider himself good at it necessarily, barely adequate, but it was something that distracted him and became his own addiction.

That changed at fifteen when a classmate of Tyler's had recorded a video of him playing a Nirvana cover and uploaded it to YouTube. Two months later, he was being shipped off to California on the promise of a college music scholarship. Of course, The Seventh Affliction kicked off before they even reached the college stage.

Like Tyler, Nate was born and raised in the slums where tragedy was an inevitable expectation. His father had been a drunkard who shot his mother accidentally one night, but it still ended her life in a bloody mess of shattered teeth and torn skin. Legal action was never pursued as Nate's older sister, Cara, could barely afford to keep groceries on the table at her nine-to-five waitressing job.

Befoe derailing his life, Nate's father had played in a band in high school and still kept his old '87 Stingray in the basement. Nate, only eight years old at the time, had found it one day when his father was passed out drunk and picked it up.

The first time his father found out about Nate using the guitar was only a few months later. He beat Nate within an inch of his life, however Cara was able to fend him off. Seeing what Nate was capable of, Cara encouraged her brother to keep pursuing the intrument and would distract their father so Nate could get late-night practices in after dinner and homework.

The family lived outside of Los Angeles and Nate attended a rundown high school out in the suburbs. Making ends meet was hard but Cara managed to keep the family going on her terrible job at the local diner. She dropped out of high school at seventeen to work instead and sacrificed a lot of her future to help Nate's.

One night, Nate had been playing softly in the basement while Cara watched on. She'd informed him of a performing arts school that was advertised on the radio earlier and encouraged Nate to give it a try. At that point, Nate wasn't serious about music and attempted to talk his sister out of it but she wouldn't hear it.

The debate went on for another year. Living expenses were hard enough without the cost of further travel on public transport everyday to get to the city and actually pay the school fees. But Cara refused to give up and by fifteen, Nate was enrolled in the school after passing the entrance audition.

It was the hardest thing they'd ever had to do since Nate's mother had died. His father was usually too drunk to comprehend where his children were during the day and Cara managed to keep it under wraps while still helping Nate find time to practice and do his homework. His life had finally been looking up for once.

A devastating horror occurred only two years after Nate secured a spot at the prestigious arts school. Set for an upcoming showcase, Cara had been on her way to watch her brother's performance at the school when a drunk driver ended her life on the sidewalk as she came out of the diner.

The accident had left Nate traumatised, which he worked into his music. He pushed himself head-on into his studies as a way to honour his sister for everything she'd sacrificed for him. He'd never even gotten to say thankyou or goodbye.

Nate moved out his father's house and never looked back. Getting a job at a record store in the city, he worked to pave his way through school and afford accomodation. The school offered a program for student accomodation which is how he met the other bandmates when they came over from out of state. From that moment onwards, history was in the making.

Gabe suspected Nate still chanelled his grief into his music, but with all the drugs he took and drinks he consumed, you would never know that his rough exterior was just a shell to the numbness underneath.

Tyler and Nate's story were publicised by the press only six months after their debut single. Young and at first reluctant, the teen rockstars didn't understand the necessity behind forming an image they could use to sell albums. They were both hesitant to reveal their pasts but Mark convinced them that tragedy resulted in sympathy which resulted in donations and sales.

It was awful, but it became their brands. The world loved the story of the teen boys from broken homes with their 'rags to riches' social ascension. They were the kings of the new rock scene and Mark sculpted their pasts into their future with expert precision.

Tyler and Nate became a pair due to the similarity in childhood horrors. Though Gabe would never know to what extent the boys discussed their childhoods, he had a feeling that the two would have confided in each other before turning to more extreme methods of coping. Austin, however, was an entirely different story.

He didn't have tragedy and loss in his past, but he did have failure. Cold, hard and twisted failure that he was made to feel ashamed of.

Unlike the other guitarists in the band, Austin had loving parents and three younger sisters. There were approximately five professional biographies written on The Seventh Affliciton that outlined Austin's past as being the failure to live up to his parent's expectations.

Austin's parents owned a rather large law firm in central Chicago that he was destined to take over. A justice empire, it was needless to say that Austin's parents felt betrayed when he made the decision to pursue music rather than take over the family business.

The firm had a net worth of over seventeen-million dollars, a right Austin was immediately written out of when he chose to fly interstate to California rather than stay and continue on his family's legacy.

Mark adored the story. Turning it into a scandal, it headlined in the media for weeks when the band first formed, right after Tyler and Nate's stories were released. 'The Golden Boy Falls From Grace to the Ghettos' was the official release title and the world drank it up the same way they did the first two band members'.

Despite the high level of publicity he was receiving, Austin never changed at heart. He was still the gentle and delightful young man he'd always been, even with his rockstar image behind him. Out of all the members of the band, Austin was the most caring and didn't partake in the illicit activities nearly as often as the other members did.

Still, that left Harley. And Gabe couldn't pinpoint a single highlight from the drummer's story because it was non-existent.

In the official biographies, real quotes and emotional stories and retellings were included for each of the boys. For Harley, it was different. There was no comments from the man himself and the story was purely factual rather than emotive.

The biographer had recounted his childhood with accuracy, though there was no emotion. It included his birthday, star sign, move to California, but the rest of the story was cut off. Rumour had it that Harley refused to induldge in the nitty-gritty details of his life growing up. Most of what was out there was fictitious or simply a twist on the drummer's words.

The biographies had been mandatory when the roadies first started out. Mark wanted them to be equipped with the knowledge that was already published in the media as to not reveal any further private details without consent. Admittedly, Gabe skimmed through it, only stopping to know the facts. Whatever else he knew had come through the grape vine.

After all, he didn't actually care about the band's backstory. He only cared about getting his paycheck and doing his job without any more mental torture than he had to deal with already.

When the stage was set up, the crew had a four hour break before the show began. Usually the roadies napped during this time or went out to paint the town red. Gabe was planning on lighting up a cigarette and pissing off for a few hours, but things didn't swing that way for him.

"Gabe!" Mark called from across the stage. "Wait up. We need to do a quick sound check."

"You're joking." Gabe deadpanned with a piercing glare. "We just did a sound check an hour ago."

Why did he always get pulled away from his break times for meaningless bullshit?

Mark shook his head. "That was only to test the speakers up in the left wing of the stadium. We have some special guests coming tonight. Besides, this is your first night as drum technician. You need to be prepared."

Gabe stared at the band manager, not buying into any of his bullshit. It was more than a common fact that Mark gave fuck-all about the technicalities of the roadies' jobs. Something else was going on.

"I could run that job in my sleep." Gabe said. "What's this really about?"

"Business, kid." Mark grinned, steering Gabe in the direction of the mixing pit. "It's just business."

Gabe didn't buy it for a second, but at Mark's urging, he made his way down into the stadium pit and towards the set-up. A single spotlight was set up on stage, focused entirely on the drum kit that sat on it's rise at the back of the stage.

***

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