Ghost In The Guitar - 1. Shock and Auditions

Fabian Hall was shocked. His primary inspiration for playing the guitar had just died.

‘Russell Anderson dead? It couldn’t be; he was too young to die.’

Fabian’s thought was far from the truth. If Google’s AI was to believed, Anderson was the 50th famous musician to die at the age of 27.

Fabian was the lead guitarist for a band called The Slacker Crew. They were a club band in and around Philadelphia that played hard rock and heavy metal music. Four of their repertoire were Stars and Slackers songs. Metallica, Scorpions, and AC/DC made up another chunk of the rest of their set list, and others filled it out.

Fabian wondered what would happen to S&S. The article said Nigel Smith wouldn’t speculate on the future of the band.

Three weeks later, he wondered no more. Rolling Stone magazine ran an article indicating the Stars and Slackers were beginning a search for a new lead guitarist. There was an email address included where interested parties could send an mp3 file of them playing one S&S song.

Guitar World magazine took it one step further, indicating the best ten would be asked to send two more songs. The final three would each be invited to a session in Morristown, NJ to play samples from all three S&S albums. This would happen during the Thanksgiving weekend, Friday through Sunday. One day would be dedicated for each of the finalists.

Fabian had two weeks to perfect his playing of ‘The Final Days,’ his favorite of all of S&S’s songs. He knew all twenty-eight to varying degrees and was hopeful he could make it to the finals. It wasn’t their most popular song, so he hoped choosing it might give him an advantage over the nearly one thousand other entries.

Eighteen days later, Morristown, NJ

“That email address wasn’t your brightest idea, Nigel.”

Ryan Doyle, keyboardist and lead singer for the Stars and Slackers was lamenting the nine hundred and ninety-four files they’d received by the deadline.

“Come on, Ryan. We blasted well over seven hundred of them before they got a quarter through.”

They had listened to less than half of each and every one in the entire set of 994 during that first phase of filtering.

Second guitarist Yves Mitchell took Ryan’s side, “Which means we still have over two hundred and fifty to listen to all the way through.”

“Two hundred and seventeen. And I’m sure well over half of them we’ll also reject by the time they’re halfway through as well. Did you guys think this was going to be easy?”

Bassist Alexander Pfeiffer thought so, “Yeah. I figured nearly all of them would suck.”

Nigel shook his head in false disbelief, “I always knew you were a moron, Alex.”

Alex flipped him the bird, “Fuck you, Nigel. I’m the only one of us with a college degree.”

Yves laughed, “I wouldn’t brag about an Associates degree in music from CCM if I were you.”

“Oh, go fuck yourselves, the bunch of ya.”

The rest of them laughed because they’d always been able to mock each other good-naturedly without getting angry.

Nigel was right, though. Another one hundred and thirty-four were bounced before they listened to the entire song over the next week.

That still left eighty-three for them to cull down to ten. It took nearly another three weeks before they finished that task.

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Fabian Hall and nine other guitarists received an email on Monday morning, October 5th, stating they should send in another two songs to a different email address. They were given two business weeks. The songs were due by five PM Eastern Daylight Time on Friday, October 16th.

Fabian was thrilled. This time, he used their most popular song, Graveyard, and another of his personal favorites, Hell’s Doorway. He played along while listening to the songs on his noise-cancelling headphones and sang along with Russell’s parts. Hell’s Doorway’s vocals were shared between Ryan and Russell. He felt he sounded quite a bit like Russell did.

Evidently, so would the members of S&S. In more ways than one.

Fabian didn’t want to wait until the last minute before sending his songs. So, on Wednesday, October 14th, he fired an email back to the second S&S email address the semifinalists given.

Nigel, Ryan, Yves, Alex,

Thanks for giving me the chance to try out for the group. I’m in a local band here outside of Philly and we play four of your songs in every set. I’m including Graveyard, because probably everyone else will. My second choice is Hell’s Doorway. I have been told I sound a lot like Russell did when I’m singing. I hope including the vocals doesn’t disqualify me.

Sincerely,

Fabian Hall

Morristown - Friday, October 16, 2026

The last of the semifinal entries was emailed and received just after noon. The guys in S&S had decided not to listen to any of the entries until they were all received. Twenty songs, at roughly four minutes each on average, there was plenty of time to go through them a couple times that day, if needed.

“So, first in, first listen?”

“Sounds good, Nigel.”

“Thanks Yves.”

The rest nodded their agreement.

They listened to the two songs by the first entry, and were moderately impressed. With the second it was easy enough to decide which one was better, number one. After that, it got increasingly more difficult with each additional entry.

By the end of the day Friday, they’d eliminated four entries. They agreed they’d all listen to the top six again by themselves over the weekend, rank them, and come back into the studio on Monday to try to come to a consensus.

Monday came and Nigel asked if everyone was able to rank them one to six. Ryan and Yves had a little difficulty ranking five and six. Fortunately, all four members voted those two entries fourth, fifth, or sixth. The two were cut and the list was down to four.

Ryan really liked the fact the entry received eighth included the player singing Russell’s parts. He voted that one first. The other three felt that was second best.

All four members rated two of the entries first or second. They agreed those two would make the cut. Yves pointed out a glaring error made by his fourth ranked entry he hadn’t noticed before. Neither did the rest. After another listen, they all agreed to drop that entry. They’d narrowed down the list to the final three.

The finalists, in their consensus order, were:

1. Donte Fitzpatrick from Aberdeen, Scotland, UK
2. Fabian Hall from Medford, NJ
3. Wallace Romero from Daly City, California

Early Monday night, October 19th, they emailed the three finalists informing them they made the final cut. The other seven received a complementarily worded rejection email.

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Fabian’s cell phone alerted at 8:07 PM that he had a new email. He opened Gmail and saw it came from the S&S email address. He immediately got worried.

‘If I got notified this quickly, I’ve probably been dropped. Damn it.’

He knew he had to open it, regardless of whether or not the news was bad. He nearly dropped his phone when the message appeared.

Dear Fabian,

Congratulations! You are one of the three finalists. Further instructions will follow, but because you are the closest finalist, we hope you can make it to Morristown, NJ on Friday, November 27th of this year. Please reply with a confirmation and a contact number.

Nigel, Ryan, Yves, and Alex

Fabian immediately replied that he’d be there on the 27th, and provided his phone number.

Fabian found it hard to sleep that night. He’d have to inform the rest of the Slacker Crew the next day that he might be leaving the band. Sundays and Mondays were nights off for the crew.

Next Up - Bad News for the Slacker Crew