Today we're going to kick things off with a quick test. Let's call it a diet-pop quiz. For 100 points, name me an overweight rock star?
It's a question I've been asking folks all week, and the answer was typically blurted out faster than a bat out of hell. You guessed it, Meatloaf.
When I asked friends and family to name a second heavyweight rocker though, practically everyone gazed off into space with a blank look on their face.
If you dig a little deeper, there are certainly other rock idols that battle the bulge, but they are scarce. Randy Bachman of The Guess Who and B.T.O. fame is my all-time personal favourite, and more recently Jack Black and Kyle Gass from Tenacious D have brought new meaning to the term heavy metal. The reality, however, is when it comes to the music industry, unless you're singing opera, rap or blues, if you're overweight you can pretty much guarantee you'll be relegated to novelty act status. Rock fans want their stars underweight and overpaid.
It's a fact that has been haunting me for years.
It may appear on the surface that I'm living my dream, and don't get me wrong, writing about people and their cars and attending car shows for a living is absolutely awesome. I love my job. That being said, long before Nickelback ever cheapened the phrase, a fire has burned deep inside me.
I want to be a rock star.
Let me give you a bit of background, and I'm sure more than a few of you can relate. By the age of 10, I was a card-carrying member of the Kiss Army, sporting a pair of platform boots and a black leather (OK, it was vinyl) jacket. By age 15, I was fully immersed in the local punk rock scene. My money went to records and T-shirts. It almost killed my poor mother. As if the earring and the Mohawk haircut weren't enough, I was hanging out in dark basements thrashing to the devil's music. Rock 'n' roll had filled my soul.
Back then, I used to carry around a tattered notebook filled with my poems and songs. Sometimes people would ask me to see it and I'd proudly reveal my work. The reaction was varied. Many nice folks referred to me as creative. Most, however, simply called me weird. Things were moving along nicely, and by age 18 I was jamming with a band, writing my own songs and seemingly on my way to becoming a jukebox hero.
It was right around this time that I started to gain weight at a rapid rate. It was also right around this time that I realized nobody took me seriously.
Perhaps I'm overly sensitive, but for me it was as if there was some sort of strange unwritten rule that fractured my musical development.
I could see it in their eyes. "Dude, you're way too fat to be doing that." It doused my rock star flame like a tidal wave.
Perhaps blaming my weight on my stymied musical development is a cop-out. Maybe I should have taken a more active interest in my life, but the reality is I'm more of a go-with-the-flow kind of guy and gave the people what they wanted. My skills as a football player, and later as a security guard, were much more sought-after than my ability to write or sing. One day I woke up, I was 24 years old, I was a corrections officer, and I was trapped in the basement of Headingley Jail.
Although I looked the part, deep inside I was still that creative -- or, as some liked to call it, weird -- kid. But suddenly I was six feet tall, 275 pounds, prematurely bald, and officially out of the rock star race.
I'm 40 now, and it only took me 14 years to realize jail wasn't the place for me. In the last two years I have been writing songs and poems again. That burning desire to get my words and music out there is more of a flicker now, but I'm still giving it a shot.
Spring is here and it's time to round up The Gearheads for a few shows. I'm feeling good about myself, and can't help but wonder if the weight I've lost will have any impact on my singing.
Perhaps I should be careful what I wish for. What if this time around someone emerges from the crowd and tells me our songs suck and my voice is trashed.
With all due respect to Al Waxman, that would be way better.
Maybe what The Gearheads really need is a young buffed rocker covered in tattoos to lip sync along to my songs. We could call him Willy Vanilli.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Free Press automotive writer Paul "Willy" Williamson has a lofty goal for 2008 -- to lose 50 pounds. This is one of a series of occasional updates on his personal fitness mission. He began the year weighing 279. He's now down to 232. For a full update on Paul Williamson's weight-loss journey, check out the Free Willy blog at www.winnipegfreepress.com
"One night last year, after playing a gig at The Pyramid, a dude walked up to me and said I reminded him of Al Waxman. It struck me as odd. I just finished pouring out my soul on stage, and all this guy can think of is how much I look like the King of Kensington."
-- Paul "Willy" Williamson
The Gearheads
PREVIOUS
