Become A Music Monster Overnight! [EN]: Chapter 174

Music Monster Overnight! 165

After that, they played a whopping eight songs.

After playing ‘Old Soldiers Never Die’ once more as an encore, they continued with seven songs, including ‘Brilliant Struggle.’

Besides ‘Old Soldiers Never Die,’ the other songs also showcased the uncles’ undiminished performance skills, which amazed me.

Well, ‘Old Soldiers Never Die’ was practically a combat power measuring tool from the start, so it was to be expected.

‘Seriously, have these guys been playing without me all this time? What on earth is going on?’

After unexpectedly playing nine songs without a break, they finally stopped, and only then did I have a reasonable question about the current situation.

So, after the last performance, I asked the uncles, who were sprawled all over the practice room, gasping for breath, and grinning with expressions of joy mixed with declarations of dying.

“What on earth has been going on?”

“Hehehe.”

Contrary to my expectation that their skills would have deteriorated, the reversal was so complete that the uncles looked at each other and chuckled again at my surprised face, then told me what had happened.

“It all started with a lie because everyone was sick of being at home.”

“A lie?”

From the start, it wasn’t ordinary.

“Ugh~ I’m too self-conscious now, it’s hard to even come out.”

“Why? Doesn’t your wife believe you? You’re good at lying, aren’t you?”

“Good at lying? She believed me at first. But my wife is a lawyer.”

“Ah! Come to think of it, your wife was at a major firm. Then that makes sense.”

“Well, nothing I can do. It’s not easy to believe that I went to practice when I reek of alcohol on the way back.”

“If only Youngchan wasn’t on hiatus.”

“Right. If he were active, they wouldn’t be able to doubt it, no matter how much we smelled of alcohol.”

Not long after I went on hiatus, the uncles often made time to get together.

It wasn’t so much out of a sudden surge of affection for each other, but to give credibility to the lies they told to get out of the house.

Unlike me, they didn’t have separate jobs with titles at a company, so the only excuse to leave the house was practice.

I wondered if they wanted to get out of the house that badly, but I soon understood when I considered the uncles’ personalities.

‘Well, they’re actually being quite patient.’

The uncles had been living the rocker life for decades. Even though their band activities were often disrupted, they still did, which shows how full of rock spirit they are.

Then they met me and unleashed that rock spirit to the world without reservation.

They had awakened as true rockers, destroying countless stages on a grand scale that most bands could only dream of.

So, confining those uncles to their homes under the names of the COVID era and a hiatus must have been incredibly frustrating.

So they tried to come out with such absurd excuses.

Anyway, the uncles, who had been meeting to relieve stress, changed their minds when their aunts, who had become suspicious, began to narrow their investigation.

“Now that it’s come to this, let’s actually play together. We’ve run out of things to talk about when we meet anyway, right?”

“……Hmm. Should we? But would it be meaningful to do it without Youngchan?”

“Let’s not be greedy and just do it moderately.”

“Yeah, I was getting tired of strumming alone too.”

“Let’s just use your main store as a practice room.”

“At my store?”

At Kim Il’s suggestion, the uncles initially wondered what he meant, but soon agreed.

Although Kesera Sera’s main store is small, the installed sound system is top-notch, and there are regulars in this scene, so they judged it would be good to enjoy the stage.

Of course, it was also good to have easy access to the alcohol they were starting to enjoy.

So, Jang Taeshik, the owner of Kesera Sera, accepted it without difficulty.

Although he was experiencing difficulties due to the COVID era, Kesera Sera had grown to an enormous level.

There were six locations in Seoul alone, including the main store, and the total number of Kesera Sera branches scattered throughout the country currently reached 26.

All of this was possible because the rock market had grown significantly compared to the past.

Among them, there were many people who didn’t even know the existence of the main store unless they were early regulars, so Jang Taeshik thought it was suitable for use as a practice room in many ways.

“Anyway, we started practicing with a light heart…….”

“It’s going unusually well.”

Was it because they had put down all the pressure and decided to play together? Their skills started to improve unusually.

“To be exact, it’s more like we started to understand the advice you gave us in the past, Youngchan.”

“No……. To be exact, we understood it, but we didn’t know how to do it.”

“And during this time, we started to find that method.”

“Thanks to that…… the amount of practice gradually increased.”

“Ugh. Even thinking about it again is crazy.”

Seeing the other uncles tremble as if agreeing with Moon Ilbeom, who was shuddering, I realized they had really done hellish training.

“Our bodies being broken? That’s related to this too.”

“Some days we play for 20 hours, where do we have time to exercise?”

“……I probably couldn’t do it again if you asked me to.”

An average of 15 hours.

That was the time the uncles spent at Kesera Sera.

Of course, the suspicious eyes of the aunts disappeared.

No, beyond simply disappearing, they each supported them. Since the uncles were old, they didn’t know how long they could continue their band activities, so they brought everything that was good for their bodies and fed them.

‘No matter what, it would be hard to gain weight with that amount of practice. I thought it was strange that they still gained weight. So that was the reason.’

Perhaps it was because of such devotion that they endured the hellish training that even young people would find difficult to endure.

I showered the uncles, who had given me such an amazing surprise gift, with praise, and the uncles smiled, saying it was worth the hard work.

Watching the uncles, I carefully gauged the situation and spoke.

“But I think it would be good to refine it a little more.”

“???”

“Right now, it’s a bit too raw, should I say? The skill itself has definitely increased, but from here……. Ah, it’s hard to say in words.”

Now that the uncles were at the level of masters and had half-opened the door to the upper-middle class, it was difficult to convey it in words.

It was an area of inspiration that could not be expressed in language, so there was only one way to convey this inspiration now.

“First, from the bass…….”

I grabbed the bass that Moon Ilbeom had put down closest to me and started playing it on the spot.

-Tung dang dang! Ttan ttan ttan!-

After playing the entire bass part of ‘Old Soldiers Never Die,’ I looked at Moon Ilbeom.

“……You’re really crazy.”

And Moon Ilbeom, true to his usual over-the-top self, said that to me with emotions such as joy and fear.

“Hehehe. I think it got through a bit.”

“……How can I not eat it when you’re shoving it into my mouth with my mouth open [referring to the directness of the musical instruction].”

I chuckled at Moon Ilbeom’s words. It’s something you can only do when your skills reach a certain level, and I didn’t know I’d be able to do it already.

After that, I conveyed this inspiration to Jang Taeshik and Kwak Dohun, followed by the guitar, and the uncles’ reactions were not much different from Moon Ilbeom’s earlier.

“You son of a bitch! You’re an unbelievably monstrous bastard!”

“……A, are you human?”

“I thought I was getting used to it, but you’re really crazy?”

“Ugh~ It’s scarier than most horror movies. Scary!”

At the uncles’ reactions, I couldn’t help but say something with a feeling of resentment.

“No……. Why are you all swearing so much?”

“Then…… how can I not swear when I see this unbelievable thing?”

“You crazy bastard!”

I ended up hearing more swear words than I needed to after saying something unnecessary, so I became resentful and pushed the uncles to their limits.

“Can’t you do this? I just showed you? Why can’t you do something so easy?”

“No, you should be able to do this at your level! Don’t just keep time like that…….”

“Frustrating. We might have to postpone our next album.”

I really pushed them as hard as I could.

There were moments when the uncles looked resentful, but each time they showed the final form of their performance, they endured their resentment and accepted it.

Of course, this nagging didn’t last long.

It was because it was becoming clear that the uncles’ skills were noticeably improving thanks to my prodding.

From some point on, they understood and were going the way they needed to go without me having to say anything.

“If we keep this up, we might really make something happen next year?”

I thought that by then, the uncles, who had opened the door to the upper-middle class in the realm of masters, would be able to establish themselves properly.

It was five years faster than I had expected, so my heart was pounding.

Perhaps if we continued like this, a band could be born that would handle music at a level that would make Painkiller [likely a reference to a very intense band or song] look like nothing.

In the process of helping the uncles grow, I was busy working with the inspiration I gained from them.

I had concepts and songs that I had created before meeting the uncles, but seeing the uncles who had changed like this, I thought that wouldn’t work.

The main song that was completed in this way was a hard rock style song called ‘TOP.’

‘TOP’ didn’t have any hidden meaning.

Rather, it was a song that blatantly announced that we were the best in this scene. You could say it was a song full of narcissism.

“But if we can play this song properly, no one will think we’re showing off.”

Narcissism means excessively believing that you are superior for some reason, such as your appearance or ability.

But if that’s a fact, the story changes.

Arrogance turns into confidence, and naturally, people can’t help but be enthusiastic about such an existence.

“And for this to be possible, we have to show a performance that we’ve never shown before.”

Not just a form that deceives the ears and eyes, but a performance that truly exceeds their imagination, coming from skills.

I brought this song to the uncles, and the uncles’ reactions were not much different from what I expected.

“You…… you want us to do this?”

“This is a song that could send us to hell if we mess up!”

“Are you sick or something?”

They had definitely improved a lot.

‘To think they would grasp this song as soon as they saw the sheet music!’

But thanks to that, I didn’t have to explain it, so I nodded, trying to hold back the laughter that was bursting out.

“Don’t worry too much. If you digest it well, people will cheer that it was the best music ever!”

“……E, easier said than done.”

Perhaps feeling more burdened by my words, the uncles’ faces turned pale.

Well, it wasn’t a reaction I couldn’t understand.

‘TOP’ was really a do-or-die, end-of-the-line type of song.

“There’s still plenty of time, so won’t it work out somehow?”

“……Sigh.”

Even though I spoke positively, thinking it was possible enough, the uncles didn’t stop sighing.

Of course, true to their rocker souls, the uncles soon shook off their worries.

“Damn it! There’s nothing we can’t do!”

“If it doesn’t work, we’ll just get some flak [criticism]!”

“Yeah, let’s try it!”

“Ugh~ I don’t know either. Okay, let’s go for it!”

“……Ugh. I’ll go take some stomach medicine first.”

Of course, it seemed like it would take some time for the faint-hearted Moon Ilbeom.