The Reboot of Patrick Lew Band. The Buildup As Told.
In the early 2010s, Bay Area native Patrick Lew Hayashi is a fanatical admirer of heavy metal music. Often listening to metal bands such as Metallica and Motley Crue on his iPod. By day, Patrick is a chocolatier at a tourist trap in San Francisco. And by night, he is the lead singer and occasional guitarist of a garage band with some toxic friends from college. Which their band name is a shortened and family-friendly abbreviation for Personal Grievances.
Internal struggles among Patrick and the rest of "the band" became quite apparent. Patrick experienced his own strifes with his bandmates, particularly their two by-the-book guitarists. Quite often during band practice at the rehearsal space Lennon Studios in San Francisco, Patrick fails to live up to the expectations of his bandmates as a guitar player. So they instead designate him as the lead singer for the band PG. However, Patrick still doesn't live up to his band's overly bossy and demanding note-for-note and by-the-book accuracies in their musical ideas and their original home recordings. Out of frustration, Patrick blows his fuse and sabotages the guitar player in his band's amplifier mid-way through a song during band practice - a fight breaks out between the two.
The next day, Patrick meets them PG pussies during a rehearsal session at Lennon Studios, but he finds out he's been replaced with his arch-rival from high school, the now (former) lead singer and rapper of another metal band named Alan. The band cites Patrick's inability to remain "by-the-book" traditionally in a musical sense in the band as the major reason for his dismissal. Middle fingers were wagged at the band on behalf of Patrick and he said FUCK YOU ALL to everyone and left the building.
One day while on his laptop browsing Facebook, he receives a friend request and private message/email from his old friend from college David, whom he used to play in a band with while going to City College of San Francisco. They began catching up and ultimately, their years of troubles while going their own way after community college led them to start a mega idea to form a brand spanking new METAL band. So they go to the local Guitar Center and start fucking around with gear. David was working as an usher at a local movie theater by day, and together they bought equipment and said to each other: "Man, fuck those toxic people from our past. We're metal, we're bad ass. And we Asian. Let's do this!" So they began jamming together at Patrick's mom's house. And they started a Facebook page and began using the Internet to put their music and idea out there for the masses. Well, not really. But it was a start of something awesome!
Then suddenly, Patrick's mother Winnie informs him that his long lost cousin Madeline is coming to the United States from Hong Kong to study at university as an International Student. So one evening, Patrick and his family meet their beloved cousin Madeline by BART at the airport. And Patrick hasn't seen his cousin Madeline in several years since his last family vacation to East Asia with his older brother Ricky and his parents. After a lot of catching up to do and cultural differences, Patrick and Madeline become very close.
One day, Patrick and David were playing some THRASH METAL in Patrick's bedroom upstairs. Madeline barges in the room and was impressed by what was gigging and rocking inside the room. Madeline boasts about her time living with family in Hong Kong playing bass guitar and DJ'ing at all-ages clubs. And how she used to play in an all-girl punk band out there. So from there, Madeline picks up the bass guitar, plugs it in the amp. The Power Trio begins jamming on some random rocking tunes. So Madeline joins the band as the bass player!
They would name their band The Steel Lions. Apparently, one of the local clubs in the Bay Area was going to book the band for a live performance. After months of practice, they felt they were ready. When the promoters ask Patrick on the telephone the name of his band, frantic and antsy, he sees two CDs of the hair metal bands Steelheart and White Lion laying on the CD rack next to the PlayStation 3 and Samsung flat screen TV. He tells the promoters and cats in the music industry, "Our band is called The Steel Lions!"
They do the show. They sell the band t-shirts. They sell their homemade CD-Rs of their music they've recorded in their home studio. They do it the D.I.Y way away from the mainstream and corporate sharks of the music industry. And they Asian! And they're going viral on social-media. That was just only the beginning.