Rock was only five months old when they entered the contest with the song Jeremy had written and that they’d set down in an NYU studio. Four guys: Kingston Wilcox, the drummer who’d dropped out of Juilliard and who Jeremy met at a gig in Brooklyn; Chris Azarian, a freshman from California, who played bass and sang backup; Dante Nilsson, an enormous Wisconsin-bred farm boy who’d taught himself a dozen instruments by the time he was twelve, and played keyboards, trumpet, harmonica, and, in a pinch, rhythm guitar; and Jeremy Cahill, lead guitar, lead vocals. They called the band Rock because their mission was to rock. Let Sam Smith and Nick Jonas get you laid, Rock was going to get you on your feet. Get you moving. Rock played get-drunk-and-dance music. Everybody loved it. They could have played two gigs every night, but Jeremy was choosey. Right after they announced the contest winners, City Winery called and said Steve Earle wanted them to open for him at his monthly show. Jeremy turned them down.

“It’s all tables and chairs and people sitting there eating,” he said to the guys. “It won’t work.”

“But it’s Steve Earle,” said Dante. “He can hook us up with a lot of people.”

“Not if we play a shit show. I’m telling you, you’re gonna get up on that little stage and look out at all those moms and dads eating their fucking crostini and sipping wine and you’re gonna lose your hard-on. Trust me. We gotta play where we can really play. Steve Earle is, like, seventy. He’s cool but he’s cruising. That’s not us. We gotta stick with the brand. Rock doesn’t do dinner theater.”

The record company had tied the announcement of the winners of the “Green Day on Campus” contest to the band’s world tour and Jeremy and all the guys from Rock got floor seats and backstage passes to the show at Madison Square Garden. In the green room, the band stood around waiting for Billie Joe, who they had been assured wanted to meet them. When he finally appeared, shorter than them all, with wild black hair and eyeliner and high-top sneakers, he was in a hurry to get on stage, but took a minute to shake everybody’s hand and congratulate them.

“Really fantastic playing,” Billie Joe said to Jeremy when he introduced himself as lead guitarist. “Great song, but I’ll tell you what put me over for you guys was that guitar intro. You write that?”

“Yeah,” said Jeremy. He’d written the whole song.