7 Chapter 7: NUTS: NOAH

The truth of the matter was nothing really did it for me since I'd discovered depression. My moods were more low than high, and I couldn't really remember the last time I'd felt truly happy. All I know was it was before all the shit went down with my ex-girlfriend.

Whenever I thought of Andrea, my chest instantly tightened. Just the memory of what I went through always made me feel like I couldn't breathe. Andrea was quite a bit older than me and when I first began dating her, I felt like the camel's nuts when I'd hooked a hot sophisticated woman. All that changed the minute she began to force our relationship and expected more.

Even after more than a decade in the charts, people still judged me for being young and impetuous at the beginning, but they had no real idea about how much the publicists and my management were behind all of that. I'd been on the road for most of the previous four years by the time I met Andrea, and I'd crammed in a lifestyle to rival the most seasoned of rockers.

Being in a band had given me a shitload of opportunities to have sex with beautiful girls and I'd be a liar if I said I hadn't taken advantage of that. If I'm honest I'd say in the early days our band were hellraisers and lived a true rock and roll lifestyle, but eventually it began to grow old - at least for me. My brothers said they thought I was overexposed to sex, if there was such a thing as that. The more I had, the more routine it felt, and the more women I did, the less connected I became with any of them.

Being more mature than most of the others, Andrea had kept my interest longer than most. Even with the age difference, my manager approved and thought she was good publicity for the band. In the beginning I had thought so too... then I learned she was only good to herself.

While on tour ten weeks into what I felt was a growing relationship, Andrea's heartbroken ex-boyfriend showed up one night and challenged her for just never coming back. Turned out she hadn't even told the dude he had passed his sell by date, and she'd certainly never mentioned him to me.

The callous way she treated the guy she'd abandoned, left me questioning whether I really knew her at all. Even when she tried to appease me by trying to argue her case, she couldn't hide the self-centered attitude she'd demonstrated toward someone she had at one time been in love with.

Seeing how manipulatively she'd behaved during that incident, turned me off of her in a heartbeat. Until then I'd been oblivious to her cunning personality, but when I saw how callously she'd dismissed a straight up guy who obviously loved her dearly, I was done and walked away.

No matter what I'd begun to feel for her, after witnessing that nasty scene between them, there was no way I had wanted to keep her around. Watching that poor dejected dude standing out in the rain looking utterly destroyed, with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets, ended anything feelings there may have been.

Unfortunately, two months later she bounced back into my life, three months pregnant with my child. Since then the contact between us was cordial at best, fractious at its worst, but we were forever tied together because of our now five-year old son. I guess I wasn't very mature when Rudi was born, but thanks to the shit she and the press put me through, I was now a much wiser person to the one she once knew.

No matter how much turmoil in my personal life affected me, I still had a job to do. One that, with the eyes of the world watching, I couldn't afford to mess up. Our fans stood by Fr8Load and me no matter what happened off-stage, but I was smart enough to know they gave us that grace because each and every time we walked out to perform in front of them, they could always count on a gig that would never be less than the professional outfit we were.

That night of the bust up when I walked out on stage, our fans were oblivious as to what had taken place in my dressing room between Andrea and me. Rule one of being in a band what happened in private had to be pushed to one side when we strode out on stage, because it was our job to give our fans a fabulous live performance by their favorite band to keep them coming back for more.

Once the gig was done, I smiled and grinned through the 'meet and greet', but the incident earlier in the day still weighed heavily on my mind. Eamon had obviously filled in Steve about it because I noted they both stayed close to me during the after party. It was the last night of the tour and the booze flowed like water. Somehow, I got through the constant offers of drink and women, and Eamon dragged me back to the hotel at the first opportunity we had, citing the long haul flight I had the following day as my excuse.

That part was true, and I dreaded the thought of it because I had a genuine fear of flying ever since I'd witnessed a light aircraft crashing into one of our fields near my family home as a child.

Steve knew the flight back to New York was playing on my mind and although I hated their intervention, I had gotten used to their support in keeping an eye on me during my times of stress.

Without the emotional crutch of alcohol some nights were rougher than others, and there were times I suffered from insomnia. It was one of those restless nights I endured the night before we flew back to the USA. I tried to look at it philosophically and thought because I was tired and mentally drained, I had more chance of falling asleep during the flight home.