I have no reason for sharing this. Just entered my head.
More than two decades ago, when I was a reporter at The Tennessean, everything Internet was new and fresh and funky. Come to think of it—I actually didn’t even understand what “surfing the Web” meant. I thought it was all about AOL chat rooms. Darting from room to room. That, in my (inane) brain was surfing.
So, one day, I decided to be an intentional asshole. Just to see what would happen.
I entered an AOL chatroom for the rock band Styx and started the rumor that Eric Singer, KISS drummer at the time, was joining the band. I wrote a phony Associated Press piece, filled with quotes from Singer, from Tommy Shaw, from Paul Stanley. I pretended to be a diehard Styx fan, terribly upset by the news. I pretended there were sightings of Singer at Styx rehearsals.
On and on and on.
And the Styx fans went bananas. They were happy. They were sad. They were engaged. Would it impact the band’s sound? Would they, perhaps, cover some KISS tunes?
Then, ultimately, someone with Styx denied that Singer was coming.
I was 22.
And stupid.
