Johnny Velazquest was musical. When he was barely old enough to sit up without toppling over like a top heavy tree, he would arrange pots, pans, toys, and anything else he could get his hands on across the kitchen floor and beat them with his hands to make music. By the time he graduated from diapers to pull-ups, he was using wooden spoons and singing at the top of his lungs; most of it was gibberish, but 'cute gibberish' per Mom. In first grade, she bought him a child sized acoustic guitar from Wal-Mart and hired a teenage boy from down the street to tutor him. That kid - Zeus the Guitar Lord (who now hosted a public access cable show with fives of viewers) - existed in the hazy mist on the very edge of Johnny's memory, but he remembered every single note, cord, and progression that he taught the way a man instinctively remembers the manners that were instilled in him when he was a child. His lessons formed the foundation of Johnny's musical knowledge and everything he had learned since was built firmly upon it.

During fourth grade, he was taking lessons for three different instruments - guitar, drums, and cowbell. Yes, he had someone teach him how to play the cowbell, and no, it's not as easy as it looks. Once a week, he went over to the Loud house and jammed with Luna; she wasn't a very good teacher, but she could critique his work well enough that she became a vital and indispensable part of the process. He was better at drumming - he joked that it was because he was black and therefore had rhythm - and rigged up a circus-style drum set with attached foot-pedals that he could wear on his back while playing guitar. It was cumbersome but after much pain and practice, he got it down enough that he could do both at the same time, but not if he had to play guitar very fast. It threw him off.

Like the annoying, copycat little brother he was, Lincoln followed suit and started playing music too, only he chose the cello. He said he did it because the cello rocks, dude, but Johnny suspected he was really trying to set himself apart from him while doing the exact same thing. It's like Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Both write the same kind of stuff, only Dean Koontz focuses more on normal suspense while SK is all about supernatural suspense. Gotta differentiate yourself somehow and Lincoln did that by going for the cello, since Johnny already had drums and guitar. Theoretically, he could have become a singer, that way they could actually start a band, but he picked a lame classical instrument instead. Whaddaya gonna do?

Once or twice a week, they practiced in the garage, Lincoln sawing his cello like his life depended on it and Johnny working the drums with his feet and picking his battered blue guitar. It was a castoff Luna gave him; it lay broken under her bed for months before she pulled it out and pawned it off on him rather than throw it away. The neck was broken completely off and it needed new strings. With a little duct tape and elbow grease, it was as good as new.

They covered rock songs, rap songs, and the occasional country ditty. One time they tried to play Hulk Hogan's original WWF theme song Real American, but Dad randomly popped out of a trash can in the corner, fixed them with a withering glare, and shook his head. Fine, God forbid they commit the sacrilege of paying tribute to a fifty year old piece of wrestling entrance music. It was Lincoln's idea, anyway; dude wouldn't admit it, but he liked wrestling. He used to sit on Dad's lap and watch old VHS tapes of WCW Monday Nitro and ECW on TNN when he was a kid. He'd bounce, clap his hands, and laugh when Dad pretended to pick him up for a chokeslam. Johnny hated wrestling. RVD was pretty cool, and Stone Cold, and The Rock, and Booker T, and DDP, and Sting, and Tazz, and Goldberg, and The Hurricane (stand back, there's a hurricane comin' through!), and The Big Boss Man, and Taker, and Samoa Joe, and Big Poppa Pump, and Cody Rhodes, and MJF, triple cage matches were neat, so were war games matches, bra and panties matches - but otherwise, wrestling sucked.

Completely.

Anyway, sometimes they'd head over to Luna's place for a big three person jam sesh. With the guitars, drums, cello, and Mr. Loud accompanying on kazoo, it sounded like the inside of a schizophrenic person's brain. It was fun, though, and that's all that mattered.

Around the end of May, Luna's friends started coming over and joining in. You had Tabby on bass, Sam on keyboard, and Mazzy on drums. Luna played guitar and sang; she wasn't the best at the latter since her voice cracking, but who cared, they were having a good time. They didn't play in tune anyway, everyone kind of did their own thing; it was what it was, and it was cool.

They started off with covers, just like Lincoln and Johnny had done. As an FU to Dad, they did a version of Real American that set the Loud house on fire. Right before they were done, though, Dad exploded through the front door and ran across the street, all 250 pounds of him. Instead of getting mad, though, he made them play it ten times in a row while he banged his head like an eighties metal group. They tried to stop three times but he forced them to keep going. Finally, he got woozy from all the head banging and passed out on the floor. Mr. and Mrs. Loud left him all night until he woke up and staggered home the next morning.

After a couple weeks of doing their own versions of Luna's favorite songs - basically everything by The Sex Pistols, The Clash and a bunch of other British punk stuff - they started writing their own songs, which amounted to a bunch of gibberish that sounded cool when shouted by a throaty, gutteral frontwoman with short brown hair and paper clip earrings. Lincoln and Johnny sat on their front porch one day and wrote a little about everything they saw happening in the neighborhood.

There's an old man sitting in a chair

There's a dog taking a crap over there

Dad's watching WCW again

Russo vs Booker T, guess who's gonna win

Mom's cleaning and telling us to help her out

Says if we don't stop she'll give us a reason to cry and pout

It was garbage but everyone thought it was hysterical; when Luna sang it, she couldn't keep a straight face and wound up laughing for two entire verses.

Everyone got along with each other and had a blast playing together, so it was only natural that they would form a band. It wasn't a consciousness decision - no one ever said alright, today we're officially a supergroup - it just kind of happened, the way one day bleeds into another. They were joking around one afternoon about giving themselves a name and landed on FUN because, hey, that's what it. Luna and Lincoln turned it into a backonym for FUNKY, UNDERRATED, and GNARLY. They gathered once a week, banged on their instruments, and then went on their merry way, no pressure, no stress - they weren't playing gigs for fame or profit, they just did it for the sheer thrill of music and camaraderie.

AKA the only reason anyone should do anything artistic.

They did play one show together at some guy's birthday. Luna and Sam knew him from school and he wanted cheap live music, which is why they got the gig in the first place. Since they were in the big times now, Luna hired a roadie named Chunkette. She was a big, burly British woman with a nose ring and tattoos. She looked like a bull crossed with a bear, and maybe Johnny was mistaken, but she kept batting her eyes at Lincoln like she thought he was cute.

Anyway, on a balmy afternoon in mid-July, Lincoln and Johnny grabbed their gear and trekked across the street, sweat trickling down the backs of their necks and the sun beating down on them like a bulb in an Easy Bake oven. The gang was getting set up in Luna's garage. Mazzy sat behind her drum kit and tapped her sticks on the symbols, Tabby tuned her bass, and Sam played a quick chord on her board (hey, that rhymed). Johnny didn't see Luna anywhere, but didn't think anything of it; this was her house after all, she could show up at the very last second.

"Hey, guys," Sam greeted.

"Aye, mate," Tabby said with a nod.

Mazzy pointed her drum stick at Johnny (that's how drummers say hello), then at Lincoln, pulling back a little so that the tip of the stick pointed up at the ceiling. That's how drummers greet non-drummers they like. They greet drummers that they don't like with a middle finger, and non drummers they don't like by plunging their stick into the other person's eye.

Probably.

Johnny didn't really know, he just made stuff up as he went along.

Lincoln dragged a chair over, sat, and opened the case he kept his cello in. He took it out, handling it with the reverence of an obsessive curator handling a rare and ancient artifact, and Johnny got his drum set up, connecting the foot pedals to the rig by way of plastic tubing. When he was done, it looked like one of those robot alien things from War of the Worlds. With his paper bag hat, super ultra utility belt, and half a Spider-Man mask (another passing fad that he'd probably jettison and forget about in two or three weeks), he looked K-E-W-L cool. How, oh how could he still be single?

He strapped the drums to his back and picked the guitar up. The front of it was covered in random stickers. The Chiquita banana logo, a sticker from a pack of socks got him, a scratch and sniff butt, a cat's face at the end of a rainbow, Bernie Sanders, GIANT METEOR 2020, and his personal favorite: MY CHILD IS AN HONOR ROLL STUDENT AT ROYAL COUNTY ELEMENTARY. He ripped a sick power chord; oh, yeah, that's the stuff.

"Hey, man, nice mask," Mazzy said.

"Yeah," Sam snickered, "it's really cool."

"Aye, mate, ye look mighty handsome in it, wot," Tabby added.

Johnny grinned smugly and Lincoln. "And you said it looked dumb."

Lincoln rolled his eyes and shook his head as if to say whatever. Lincoln was what they call a normie. He had no pizzaz. He was Patrick in that episode where he, Spongebob, Plankton, and Squidward make a band, wearing a basic ponytail and calling it cool. Johnny, meanwhile, was Spongebob - afo, platform shoes, rosey cheeks, glitter, goofy smile, and a lust for life and looking cool that made him the most fashionable guy in town.

"Where's the other half?" Mazzy asked.

"I'll wear it tomorrow on the other side."

Mazzy, Sam, and Tabby burst out laughing, Mazzy shaking her head, Sam bending over her keyboard, and Tabby slapping her guitar. See how much joy his fashion sense brought them. He arched his brow at Lincoln, and Lincoln's nostrils flared. "Dude, they're laughing at you, not with you. You're not cool. You're the least cool person I know. I'd rather a video of me marking out backstage at Raw go viral than to be seen with you dressed like that. You're embarrassing yourself and you're embarrassing me."

"Look how jealous he is," Johnny said and shook his head, "poor kid."

Before Lincoln could reply, Luna came in through the side door with a paper clutched in her hands. "Hey, guys!" she shouted. "Check it out!"

She stood in the middle of the floor, and everyone else gathered around.

"WKBBL is looking for local artists to record original songs," Luna said giddily, "and, check it, if it does well enough, they'll send it to their parent company and get it played on radio stations across the country." She looked up from the flyer with a crooked smile and a gleam in her eye. "You guys wanna record a hit?"

"Yeah!" everyone shouted in unison.

"Alright!" Luna cried. "FIrst order of business. Writing one."

They sat in a big circle in the middle of the floor, each with a piece of paper. Luna's idea was for everyone to write something then pick the best one. Lincoln and Johnny collaborated, coming up with silly lyrics that made them both giggle like schoolgirls. Mazzy tapped the end of her pencil against her chin the entire time before giving up ("Man, I ain't no writer.") Tabby banged her head to her own genius, and Sam cooked something of her own up that probably featured an extended keyboard solo. Luna, the best writer of the bunch, kept starting and stopping, the happy glow in her eyes fading and her teeth beginning to worry her bottom lip. Balled up pieces of paper littered the floor around her, and the color drained from her face, leaving it ashy and wan.

An hour later, everyone read their songs aloud. Johnny recited his and Lincoln's because he liked the attention. Sam, Mazzy, and Tabby laughed their butts off, Luna, however, just facepalmed. "Dude," she said with strained patience, "that was funny and all, but we gotta get serious here. We can't goof off, alright? This is the real deal, guys, get it together."

Next, Sam read her composition, and Johnny couldn't lie: It was the best freaking song he ever heard. It was deep, it was emotional, and it had one heck of a hook.

To everyone's shock, Luna hated it.

"Bro," she sighed, "t-that's not gonna work either. Look, it's good but...I dunno, it's missing something."

Tabby's was next. It was fast, it was furious, it sounded like something an old school punk band would thrust onto conservative society at their sneering, rebellious apex. Tabby's stuff was Luna's absolute favorite to play and sing, and Johnny was sure it'd be a shoo in.

It wasn't.

Luna opened her mouth, then closed it again, then opened, then closed. Next, she scrunched her lips from side to side, grimaced, ticked her head like a pendulum, and shifted uncomfortably. "I dunno," she said at length, "I like it, but I don't think it's hit material, man, not in 2020."

Wow, really? Luna was passing that song up?

Actually, she didn't. "I dunno, man," she worried, "we can try it out."

Five minutes later, everyone was in place, the door closed to cut down on outside noise. Lisa and Lana sat side by side at a bank of sophisticated looking recording equipment, both wearing headphones. Luna stood behind the mic and did a bunch of vocal exercises that made her sound like she was gurgling razor blades. She smacked her lips, wetted them with her tongue, and opened her mouth, only to snap it closed again and repeat the process. Everyone waited patiently, then kind of patiently, then not so patiently, and finally very impatiently. Sam shifted her weight from one foot to the other, Johnny tuned and returned his guitar, and Tabby slapped a rhythmic tempo on her bass. Mazzy cocked her head and listened, then started to play it on the drums. Lincoln picked it up on cello, and Johnny strummed his guitar.

Luna flippin' lost it. "GUYS!"

Red face and panting, lips pulled back from her teeth, she whipped her head back and forth, shooting everyone with a hostile glare that killed their budding song mid-beat. "This is no time for improv."

That knocked Johnny for a loop. "But you're the queen of improv," he said. "You told me that jam seshes are -"

"This is different," she snapped. "We gotta act professional now. We got one shot at making it and if we screw around, we're gonna lose it."

Lincoln and Johnny exchanged a confused glance. Were they really hearing this? Luna always said that music was about having fun and...something about unlocking the artist within and dreaming out loud. This was a complete 180 and Johnny thought it was some BS. "That's not what music is -"

Luna shot him daggers, and he fell back a step. If looks could kill, he'd be dead on the floor and chopped into finely diced, bite-sized pieces. "Okay, fine, whatever you want."

She glared at him for a moment, then cleared her throat. "Ready. Lise?"

"Affirmative."

"Alright," Luna said, "on four. One...two...three...four."

Everyone started to play.

Luna turned red again. "STOP!"

The band fell silent. Unshouldering her guitar, she walked over to Mazzy. "Your timing's a little off, can you please fix it?"

"But we barely -"

"Our...one...chance…" Luna hissed through her teeth.

Mazzy held her sticks vertical, pointed at the ceiling. Hey, man, sure whatever you say.

Next, Luna moved onto Sam. She looked the blonde up and down, and Sam flashed a sheepish smile. "How long have we been bros, Sam?" Luna asked.

Sam thought for a moment. "Uh...since kindergarten."

From what Luna had told Johnny, she and Sam had been best friends since they were six and did everything together. They even shared the same boyfriend in sixth grade rather than fight over him.

"And in all that time, I've never heard you play as trash as that."

Sam flinched and Tabby furrowed. "Harsh, mate."

"You didn't do much better," Luna said.

When she stood in front of Johnny, he swallowed, knowing already that some way, somehow his work wasn't good enough. "Okay...take the drum thing off and just play guitar, alright? You and Mazzy aren't skilled enough to play in tune, so you're stumbling over each other and ruining the take."

Okay, that was fair enough. She was trying to accomplish a more radio friendly sound and having two moderately skilled drummers playing slightly off time from each other would ruin a take. "Okay," he said. He shrugged out of the drum kit and sat it against the wall. "There."

Finally, she stood over Lincoln. "Your cello playing rocks, dude, but there's no place for it in this song. Sit this one out."

Lincoln blinked. "What? Are you serious? You're kicking me out?"

"No," Luna said, "you're still in the band, you're just out of the song."

"THAT'S THE SAME THING!"

Tabby cleared her throat. "I wrote it specifically so the cello could be in it, mate. It'll work if you give it a bloody chance."

Luna spun on her heels. "IT SOUNDS LIKE TRASH! DO YOU WANNA GET ON THE RADIO OR NOT?"

For a second, Tabby seemed to think, then her face darkened. She unplugged her guitar from the amp, walked over to the roll top door, and lifted it. "Where are you going?" Luna asked.

"I'm out, mate, this ain't what I signed up for."

Luna looked shocked, then recovered. "Fine, you're out of the band. Enjoy playing birthday parties for the rest of your life."

Waving her middle finger, Tabby left.

"Anyone else wanna go?" Luna asked the remains of her band.

No one spoke up.

"We don't need her anyway," Luna said. She grabbed a bass from the corner and shoved it at Lincoln. "You're back in the song."

"But I don't know how -"

Luna bared her teeth. "You better or you're fired."

"Lune," Sam said softly, "relax, it's not -"

"Yes it is," Luna said. "We have a shot at making it big and we need to take it. Now, everyone get in place."

Johnny almost pointed out that Luna couldn't fire anone since she wasn't the boss and the band wasn't hers, but he wanted to be on the radio, so he kept quiet.

"On four."

Four came, and everyone started to play. This time they made it almost to the lyrics before Luna called cut. "Linc, your bass is butt, bro, sorry."

"I told you, I'm not good at bass."

Luna sighed. "Well, you gotta be good. Sam, stop hitting the keys so hard. It's making a clunk noise."

Sam took a deep breath.

This process repeated five times. By the end of it, everyone was tense and on edge. Sam's eye twitched, Mazzy's hands shook, and Lincoln's teeth chattered like he was cold. Luna kept stopping mid song because Lincoln was screwing up, Sam was hitting sour notes, her voice didn't sound "good enough", the lyrics sucked - basically every excuse she could dredge up to bust everyone's balls, including her own.

After a while, Johnny realized something.

He wasn't having fun anymore.

"We gotta tighten up," Luna said, "if we want that -"

"If we want that shot," he finished. He was hot, tired, and his half mask was making his face itch, but it was stuck and wouldn't come off. Sweat soaked into his paper bag and his utility belt seemed to get heavier all the time. "Well, you know what? I don't. I do this to cut loose and have fun with my friends. I don't care about fame or getting on the radio. A very wise woman once told me that music was about unlocking the artist within and dreaming out loud, and I believed her. Now she's a fame hungry ego monster. Press F for respects."

He took his guitar off.

Luna started to respond, but everyone voiced their agreement. "Yeah, Lune, sorry," Sam said, "but this is totally bogus."

Mazzy stood up. "Yeah, I'm goin' home."

Grabbing his drum, Johnny followed Lincoln out the door. Luna stood in the middle of the garage, looking dumbstruck, and was still there when the door closed on her.

That evening, Johnny and Lincoln were sitting on their porch after dinner when Johnny got a text from Luna asking them to come over. They hemmed and hawed, since they had kind of a falling out with her, but finally got up and crossed the street. Mazzy, Sam, and Tabby were there too. "Did you guys get a text?" Tabby asked.

"Yeah," Sam said.

"Where's Luna?" Mazzy asked.

As if on cue, Luna came through the side door and walked to the middle of the garage without meeting anyone's eyes. "Thanks for coming, guys," she said.

"What's this about?" Johnny asked.

"I wanted to apologize," she said. "I got carried away and I forgot what music's all about. I acted like a butt and I'm sorry. It was totally uncool of me."

Everyone looked at each other, their faces varying shades of sympathy, then all moved in for a big harem style group hug with Luna at the center. All was forgiven and forgotten, and afterwards, they played Tabby's song the way it was meant to be played.

And you know what? It was a lot more fun than being on the radio.