Standing in the wings, I could hear the crowd getting louder and louder and some drunken leather lung yelling out, “C’mon, Drops, get out here!” Then above the noise they began singing, “You’re a dropout . . .”—¬the chorus to one of our staple tunes, “The Dropout Song.”

The scene was the Paradise Rock Club in Boston and it was the fall of 1992. The Knockout Drops were playing behind our very first EP, The Burning Bush Chronicles, and on the bill with us was my brother’s band, The Bogmen, who were about to be signed by Arista Records and were already huge in Boston.

They’d circulated our cassette to all of their fans and started a brushfire of anticipation for this Paradise show, as well as a few others we had scheduled in the area. There were no Web sites back then so if you were an unsigned band (in our case from NYC), you never knew if your stuff was catching on until you got to a place. Needless to say, we were all excited to play the show—¬all but me, that is.

I had a scorching sore throat that had reduced my voice to a whisper and my heroic intake of cocktails and cocaine wasn’t helping matters. My brother Bill, lead singer of The Bogmen, came over to me and, seeing my look of helpless desperation, offered a solution. “Here,” he said, “drink some of this Thai stick tea. It’ll dilate your larynx and you’ll be singing like a birdie, trust me.” There were potent stems of marijuana floating in this cup so I was a tad reluctant. I generally didn’t smoke weed before I went on because it made me a little spacey, and I liked to chat up the crowd in between songs; a blow-¬and-¬booze combo was my preferred gasoline (the PB & J of all long-¬distance revelers) but this seemed harmless enough. It was tea, for chrissakes.

He put a little honey in it so it tasted pretty good, and I quickly downed a cup. I grabbed another and started warming up my voice a bit, and before long, I was singing “Fat Bottomed Girls” just like Freddie Mercury and leading everyone backstage through choruses of it, every so often going for refills of the tea. True to my brother’s word the potion had worked. I don’t think I had sounded this good . . ever! I figured the more of it I drank, the better my voice, right? I also thought that because it was tea, it wouldn’t really get me that high since it was diluted with water, which shows you that I’m no Bill Nye, the Science Guy. In fact, the stuff goes right into your bloodstream with about three times the THC level—¬so not only does it get you stoned faster, it’s far more potent—¬information that would have been useful at the time.

As I was milling about, I felt an ominous transformation occur¬ring. I was morphing in my head from a Jaggeresque cock-¬of-¬the-¬walk to a cowering little kindergartener. What the hell was happening? I had gotten paranoid from strong weed before so I knew that feeling, but this? This was something different. It was as if my brain had re¬leased panzer divisions of self-¬doubt and fear into my system and the tanks of inner hysteria relentlessly kept coming. I wanted my mommy. Goddamn it, I wanted my mommy RIGHT NOW!

Then the stage manager came running over to me, visibly upset. He was a red-¬faced, red-¬haired, pure Boston Irish heat-¬miser-¬looking guy named Patrick, and in his wicked New England accent he barked, “The band is on, where the hell have you been?” I couldn’t talk at all at this point ’cause I was tripping hard. I thought any answer I gave would sound like I was speaking in tongues—¬and in my head, I was. After a few seconds he realized he wasn’t gonna get a reply and had to cajole me into moving: “We got six hundred screaming kids out there; get your ass onstage!”

I gingerly walked out to an eruption of applause, as the band launched into “The Dropout Song.” I could feel my rib cage being vibrated by its thunderous beat and swirling, distorted guitar line. I stood behind the center mic with a lone spotlight on me—¬lathered in beads of flop sweat, eyes darting back and forth—¬a statue of fear. They kept playing and I did nothing. I couldn’t remember the words to my own song so I started spitting some low-¬volume gibberish into the mic.

The room was rattling with everyone jumping up and down in unison. Finally Phil, my bass player, came over and yelled above the music, “What the hell is wrong with you?” None of those guys were privy to my little backstage tea experiment. I squinted back at him and uttered a line that will forever go down in Knockout Drops history. “I dunno, man. . I feel like everyone is staring at me.” I’ll never forget the laugh that came out of him when he said, “They are! You’re onstage or haven’t you noticed that? Now start singing, asshole; we can discuss your nervous breakdown later.”

Side stage, there was a guy named Smitty hanging out and dancing. He’d popped me up with some key hits earlier in the evening, so I ran over there and shook him down. You know Smitty. He’s the guy with the brown hair, nervous smile, and shifty eyes with perpetual sweat gathering over his upper lip. He seems normal to you upon first glance but then you look again and realize that he’s jacked out of his mind. There’s a Smitty at every show.

He lovingly packed my beak full of blow, and I took a huge pull out of the bottle of Jameson’s that was on top of one of the big speakers—¬ahhhhhhhhh, warm, fuzzy, and familiar . . MOTHER’S MILK! Cocaine was always a maintenance drug for me, but booze was the great love of my life. Everything’s gonna be all right. There’s nothing Jameson’s can’t get me through, I thought.

I was right. It went on to be one of the greatest shows we ever did. There would be many more nights to come, on bigger stages and in front of more people, where Jameson’s would derail me, but this time it had my back. I thought it always would. I was wrong. Well, it did for a bit and then it didn’t. You’ll be hearing about all that in just a little while.

Have you ever been to Bellevue? You really should go. It’s lovely this time of year. Between 1998 and 2000, I was there three times—¬so I’ll be taking you there three times. I call these “The Wonder Years” ’cause I’m still wondering, “What the fuck happened?” Don’t worry, I’m not here to hijack you for some “shock and awe” journey of what it’s like to be a down-and-dirty drunk. We’ve all heard that twice-¬told yarn, and I’m as tired of it as you are. It just so happens that I was a down-and-dirty drunk, but don’t be confused. This is not a cautionary tale of woe or eventual triumph, but rather it’s a story about the tireless pursuit of a dream and a desperate quest for faith. In other words, it’s about growing up.