BACK in secondary school, a good friend of mine (and still is) used to get the attention of the senior troublemakers. It did not help that my friend, despite his diminutive stature, had the confidence and swagger beyond his height, which gave him an air of entitlement that drew bullies in like ants to sugar.

Nevertheless, we hit it off when I moved into that particular secondary school in Form Four, all sixteen years old of me, coming from opposite ends of not only the character spectrum but also of the personal narratives of our lives up till then.

I was more “invisible” and an observer, traits that would be very productive for my creative life in the future. This is the nature of kindred spirits – you can have absolutely nothing in common with each other but yet find some common ground and camaraderie that bonds and with some chemistry that transcends the mundane.

To me, finding kindred spirits to collaborate mirrors this – I have never once auditioned any musician to be a collaborator or be part of my band. I, however, had auditioned to try my luck in the beginning, only to be perplexed by my experiences.

Case number one – in college, while signing up for some student club, a geeky-looking fellow came up to me and told me, in a friendly and courteous manner of course, that he heard that I sang. I said “Yes” (I was not lying, I did), all 18 years old and as green as my favourite kuih talam behind the ear.

I had never played in a band before, let alone set foot in a jamming studio as such. We exchanged home telephone numbers (this was 1995) and he told me he would ring me to inform me when his band’s practice was.

Lo and behold, the time came and he told me to practise some songs. It never occurred to me then that I should have asked him during our first encounter what music genre his band played.

I was too eager to join anyone. I was after all very much a loner teenager who loved music and had to discover things by myself unlike most musicians who had an older sibling who introduced (or corrupted, depending on who you ask) them to music that would ultimately shape who they would be in the future.

On the other hand, I had to be that older sibling. My brother is eight years younger than me and had already got hooked on Bob Dylan by the time he entered secondary school, perplexing his classmates, I would imagine.

I drove all the way to Ampang, to a jamming studio in one of the then-newly constructed shop lots next to Ampang Point for my fateful “audition” with my potential new band.

As I walked up the dimly lit stairwell and into the smoky studio entrance, I was greeted in the jamming studio by four scrawny bespectacled youths of my age looking back at me, including the said gentleman who had approached me. I, too, was scrawny and bespectacled, and, thus, perhaps they saw a kindred spirit in me.

My homework from our earlier telephone conversation? He asked me to practise two songs from Metallica’s Black Album – Enter Sandman and Unforgiven. Both were major hits of the early 1990s, but on the opposing end of those who favoured the more Gen X-leaning Nirvana.

But my heart was not really into this sort of heavy metal music. The heavier stuff intrigued me more.

I had been exposed to death metal music by way of Kelantanese legend Suffercation, courtesy of a junior schoolmate who used to skip his class and hung out in my class earlier in my secondary school stint. I still have no idea why this junior hung out with me as we had very little in common.

What blew me away once the four geeky lads started playing, was how tight they played and how polished their musicianship was. It did sound, to my still naive ears, like it was actually Metallica playing in that Ampang jamming studio in 1995.

But when my cue to sing James Hetfield’s part came, I butchered it. I just did not have the gruff and gust. Plus, I was still taken aback by the sight of four scrawny geeks who packed an absolute heavy metal punch with their musicianship.

I felt guilty that I had not pulled my weight in preparing for this moment and the band stopped playing halfway through their first song (Enter Sandman), and the lead guitarist lad who had invited me promptly showed me how to sing as they ploughed through the full song as I looked in awe.

I cannot recall what happened next or how cordial our exchanges were after that. There was no animosity. I think I just walked out and waved goodbye as they ploughed through their next song as it was obvious that I did not fit in.

I pretty much tanked my first ever audition, not that I tried not to, really. We forget that musicians, too, are diverse and not all share similar kindredness, work ethics, and philosophy. The cliche of the laid-back smoking hippy musician still haunts many of us and does little to encourage the public to understand us better beyond singing jukeboxes.

The lesson here is that in life, you are often given one chance at something and if you tank that one chance, move on to something else. Never dwell. Never feel entitled that life has something in store for you.

Everything happens for a reason, warts and all, and that reason sometimes only reveals itself in hindsight. Listen to your gut.

The union of kindred spirits happens best when one is naive and young. The folly of youth is a lesson for life – and is often unexpected.

You cannot seek kindred spirits; you tumble into them. Cherish hindsight for we do not know how long we have the luxury and privilege of self-reflection. – October 16, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.