Stick and Bubblegum, Grind It All Up
The balancing act of indie noise punk and family.
As I’ve noted here, things aren’t always as they seem from an outsider's perspective. For most of us, I think this is common sense. To assume we have all of the information about a person’s life and livelihood whom we don’t personally know is sophomoric. Sure, we can be curious. I am very curious about people. In this story, there is an undercurrent —a rumor. That I, Katie Serbian, forbade Gabe Serbian to play music, and that devastated him and led to his suicide.
Let’s find out about it, shall we?
When Gabe and I were first together and newly married, it felt like we were leather jacket-clad giants. I was playing with Dum Dum Girls in their prime, doing photoshoots for Rolling Stone and Bust magazine. Flying to Europe regularly to tour with acts like MGMT. We were featured on NPR and the BBC, and most days, our touring schedule was packed with radio interviews and press engagements. We played on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Gabe was drumming for Le Butcherettes and Retox. Both of us maintained a rigorous touring schedule. When we were back at our house in Silver Lake, we went to art shows, watched our friends’ bands play, and rode around on his Moto Guzzi.
It was an exciting time in our lives. We loved each other, we had very few responsibilities, and we were free to do almost anything we wanted. Spontaneous trips to Palm Springs when we had time. Joining each other on tour. It was lovely.
At this time, the highest paycheck I received from Dum Dum Girls was $13,000 for a year. This isn’t to say that Dum Dum Girls was doing anything wrong - but playing in a mid-level indie band is hard work, expensive, and wildly underpaid. Gabe Serbian, who, by my estimation, was the best drummer in the world, was compensated $100 per show for Le Butcherettes. It sounds criminal, but it is what the band could afford.
As we got older, and we wanted more than living in a house with a roommate to make ends meet (no shade to our roommate in LA; she was awesome), choices had to be made. I left the Dum Dum Girls and returned to the University of Texas at Austin to complete my master's degree. I started my project, Cheap Curls, to scratch the itch to play music. Gabe started a band called Wet Lungs, and we lived in Austin for about a year, playing shows, working, and finishing my schooling.
After I finished my degree program, we worked on our next collaboration: a baby. Sometime during SXSW in 2013, we made one! Gabe, who was initially hesitant about being a good father, had spent a lot of time in Austin with new friends who had young children. Our neighbor, who was also our landlord and close friend, had a brand-new baby that we fawned over and babysat on regular occasions. When we started our baby planning journey, he was thrilled. When I told him he was going to be a dad, he cried.
As my belly grew with our new addition, we moved back to San Diego to be closer to family and friends. Gabe began a long-distance recording project with the Italian band Zu. He started working on a record called Variations in the Key of the Afterlife with Luke Henshaw. The Locust played a reunion show that was massive at Fuck Yeah Fest in 2013. I worked on securing employment with my new degree.
Our baby girl arrived on Christmas Eve, changing everything in every possible way. This baby was equipped with all of the energy and power of the universe and wielded it in her tiny body the best way babies know how: crying. She didn’t sleep, she had trouble eating, and she would not be restrained in the trappings of car seats, strollers, or baby carriers. She was an all-powerful being, and we were just helpless mortals scurrying around trying to please her. As she grew and became mobile, she was unstoppable. Beautiful and bright, but extremely fast.
When the baby was very small, Gabe left for Italy for 6 weeks to tour with Zu and track a new record. I went through a terrible bout of postpartum depression and anxiety. I was alone with the baby so often for days or weeks at a time, and in those moments, I was filled with fear. I longed to sleep but was riddled with insomnia. Nevertheless, I had to go back to work when she was six weeks old. We still struggled to pay our rent, buy groceries, and diapers, and fill up the car with gas. As some time passed, Gabe worked on projects with various people and went on other tours. Intermittently, he worked in the prop department at the La Jolla Playhouse. The starting wage at that time? Somewhere in the vicinity of $10 an hour.
Gabe was trying everything to make an honest living as a drummer. He wanted to utilize the skills and talents he had to support his family. But, as we’ve covered here, rarely are artists like Gabe compensated at the level they deserve. His approach was a little haphazard, which is to be expected with a person who has relatively severe Attention Deficit Disorder. For example, one day at our kitchen table, he said to me, “What day is today?” I responded with the date. This man says to me he is leaving for Europe the next day for two weeks. To say that a calendar was not Gabe’s strong suit would be an understatement.
One afternoon, we were in our backyard at a little house we rented in San Diego. Our daughter was toddling around on one of those outdoor play mats that have a little sprinkler attachment. She was in her hazing phase. Gabe would leave, and on his return, she’d reject him. I am not sure if he would sometimes be gone for so long that she didn’t remember him, or if she was sly enough to express her distaste at his absences.
He’d just recorded vocals with one of his favorite drummers, Dave Lombardo. He is most famous for his role in the band Slayer. He was excited and nervous as calls, texts, and emails were coming in about the opportunities this band would have. We lay on the hammock I’d gotten him for Father’s Day that year. I asked him a simple question.
“When you are old and gray, and you look back on your life, will you regret not being with her?” I nodded in the direction of our little girl, in her swimsuit and sun hat, happily splashing away. We counted the days since our daughter was born and calculated that Gabe had missed 50% of her life. She was two years old.
My question struck him. We didn’t have much to show for his absences; we were still barely getting by, patching together childcare from family members in shifts to offset the cost of a paid nanny. Still, the nanny was $500 a week, and we operated almost solely on my income, which, at the time, was as an adjunct faculty member at a community college. We relied on hand-me-downs from friends with kids who were just older than our little girl (Thank you, Katie Empkey!). Sometimes, we use our credit cards to pay for everyday items like groceries or toilet paper. We often had to ask my parents for help financially. Neither Gabe nor I had health insurance. Our daughter, of course, was covered.
Gabe made a choice, and it wasn’t a choice between his family and music. It was a commitment to both, but with a more balanced approach. He told his hero, Dave Lombardo, that he couldn’t do it. He told his fans he was going to focus on being a dad.
For the next six years, Gabe continued to play music. The Locust started doing one-offs and small tours; he played a few times with OFF! He became quite skilled at writing electronic music. His last recording was The Locust remix of Danny Elfman’s track Cruel Compensation. The world still got its fix of Gabe Serbian. And in our daughter’s world, she had a dad. And not just any dad, Gabe Serbian. The dad who flew kites with her, ran around with her at the zoo, took her to playgrounds, read to her, had chocolate milk dates at Heartwork Coffee, enjoyed beach days, snow days on Palomar Mountain, and spent days drawing together. The dad who cried when she earned her yellow belt in Kung-Fu. He picked her up from school with bouquets. He bought her an unsanctioned and ungodly amount of pastries. They had a secret handshake that ended with the saying, “stick and bubblegum, grind it all up.”
I look back now and try to find the devastation. The anger that he had balanced his life, as adults often do when they have families. The sorrow at the security that his decision brought to our family. A lot of security. He secured a contract with the La Jolla Playhouse and began to earn a substantial living. We bought our first house. We were able to pay for preschool for our daughter. Sure, we had ups and downs, and it wasn’t always easy. He made that decision 6 years before he died. Not 6 days before he died. And yes, he wanted to play drums more often than he did. Every parent alive intends to do more than they can with young children. Sleep is high up on that list. But, I can’t imagine that at the end of that handshake with the cutest little girl in the world, inside the little home that we owned, with a bank account that didn’t overdraw every month, that he would think to himself: man, am I heartbroken.
