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The Watch that Ends the Night
By Allie O’Day

Candy Roberts isn’t happy.

The frontwoman for The Night Watch is pacing back and forth behind the control console at High Plains City’s Bottlesmash Studio, listening as the new song her band is recording plays over the loudspeakers. The fingers of her right hand drum impatiently on her left bicep. The tiger stripe pattern on the tight, short dress he’s wearing adds to the effect of a feline pacing impatiently in a cage.

“All right, stop, stop!” she says. The sound engineer kills the playback. All eyes turn to her, but hers turn elsewhere. “Angie?” she says, glancing over at The Night Watch’s guitarist.

Angela DeFranco—whom everyone calls “Angel”—has been Roberts’ musical partner since they launched the band five years ago. While the song credits are generously shared among all four band members, it’s an open secret that Roberts and DeFranco do the lion’s share of the writing.

They’re a study in contrasts, Roberts and DeFranco. The Night Watch’s lead singer has the sort of looks that wouldn’t be out of place on a fashion runway—or in the pages of Playboy, truth be told. DeFranco, with her short shock of black hair and tattoos festooning her arms and chest (and probably several other locations as well) wouldn’t look out of place in a biker bar. But after spending a few days with them, I’d have to say it’s a toss-up as to which of them is the tougher cookie.

The guitarist shrugs her slender shoulders. “The middle eight could be better,” she says.

“The middle eight is crap,” Roberts says. She and DeFranco stare at each other a moment, then they burst out laughing.

“All right, it’s crap,” DeFranco agrees with a smile. “So whaddya wanna do about it?”

“Forget we ever wrote the damn thing,” Roberts says with a roll of her dark brown eyes.

She takes a deep breath and stretches her arms above her head. The movement unintentionally shows off her curvaceous but trim body to everyone in the studio, who do their best to professionally ignore the goddess in their midst. She waves her hand dismissively.

“Let’s leave it until tomorrow. Come at it fresh.”

“Thank God,” Tori Walker mutters as she pushes herself up from the couch where she’d been slouching. “I said we should do that three hours ago.”

Roberts studiously ignores her bassist. Walker’s restrained demeanor on stage creates the impression that she’s the band’s anchor. In actual fact, she’s something of a hothead. But she and Roberts have been friends since childhood, and Roberts is used to her bassist’s moods.

“See you tomorrow,” Roberts says to her as Walker leaves. “Nine AM,” she adds. That’s six hours away. Walker mumbles something which her band leader takes as agreement.

“Rita,” Roberts says, nudging the remaining figure who had been reclining on the couch. “Hey, Rita!”

“Huh?” the diminutive drummer says as her eyes blink open. “What?”

“Go home,” Roberts says. “Get a few hours’ sleep. We’ll take another crack at this thing tomorrow.”

“Sounds good, boss!” Rita “Whirlwind” Lopez says with a tired smile. The drummer seems indefatigably cheerful, even when she’s exhausted after twenty straight hours in the studio. DeFranco follows her out the door.

After the sound crew departs as well, that leaves The Night Watch’s manager, Bill McIntyre, as the last man standing. A persistent rumor says the tall, handsome manager—I’ve done my level best not to drool over his piercing turquoise eyes and short, curling black hair myself—has more than just a business relationship with the lead singer of his sole client. They both deny it, in jaded, bemused tones that underline how bored they are by the question.

“You need a ride home?” McIntyre asks.

Roberts casts the briefest of glances in my direction. A decidedly unglamorous snort of laughter escapes from her mouth—or, more accurately, her slightly-upturned nose.

“I’ll be with my Boswell,” Roberts says with a nod of her head of elaborately-coiffed auburn hair in my direction. I do my best not to be surprised by the reference. In the brief time I’ve spent with Roberts, I’ve learned not to underestimate the woman.

A few minutes later I’m sitting in the back of a chauffeured Tesla heading west along Telegraph Road. Heading to the good side of town. Heading home.

“So what drives a girl from High Plains Heights to become the reigning Queen of Rock?” I ask her.

There’s a long silence. I glance over at her, wondering if she’s fallen asleep. She hasn’t; she’s staring out the car’s window, lost in thought. I consider asking the question again, but instead I decide to wait.

“Honestly?” she finally says in a tired voice. “I was bored.”

* * *

I mull over that answer the next day. Roberts, the only child of a wealthy entrepreneur and an ambitious attorney, could have chosen any path she wanted in life. In each grade she shot to the top of the honor roll; an academic career seemed the obvious choice for the over-achiever. She excelled at science and math and considered a career in research or engineering.

But academic achievement alone, I gathered from her tired declaration on that late-night ride to her home, would never have satisfied Candy Roberts. She loved to sing, ever since childhood. She started her first band in junior high. She met McIntyre in her first year of college and shared her long-nurtured dream of rock stardom with him. He connected her to DeFranco and Lopez; she brought Walker along, and The Night Watch was formed.

Daringly, in a music landscape dominated by pop divas and rap artists, this new band elected to forge a path in the largely moribund genre of rock.

“I always loved rock music,” Roberts explains. “At its best, it’s just so raw and vital. Don’t get me wrong, I respect rap. It has long historical roots in American culture, and beyond that all the way back to Africa. But it’s not my thing. And Mariah and Beyoncé and the rest of them are great, but it’s a crowded field, you know? Rock was practically wide-open. Most of the bands that are still active are past retirement age! It was ripe for a shake-up.”

The Night Watch shook up not only rock ‘n’ roll, but the music industry. Their first album, Open Season, took off like a rocket: four top-ten singles, quadruple platinum in the U.S. alone, and videos earning millions of views on YouTube. A sold-out world tour followed. Their sophomore effort, Arena, showed their initial success was no fluke. Last year they put out their third hit album, Harem, to similar levels of success—proving they have staying power.

As much as anything else, the band’s struggle with that new song in the studio demonstrates the hard work and struggle behind their success. They’re not content with mediocrity. “Good enough” never is.

As a result, it isn’t until two days later that Roberts is in a better mood. She and DeFranco eventually worked out a different approach for the song’s troublesome middle eight. McIntyre has suggested it could serve as the third or fourth single off the next album, tentatively titled Game Theory. DeFranco agreed; Roberts was non-committal.

Over lunch, away from her band and handlers, I ask about her reticence.

“It’s solid now,” Roberts agrees, speaking of the new song, titled ‘Mesmerized’. “Could be a single. Not the lead, but…”

Her voice drifts off. She glances out the restaurant window. The same faraway look she wore two nights back returns to her beautiful face. Once again, I try using the age-old interviewer’s trick of patiently waiting for my subject to speak rather than prompting her. It usually works. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in a similar fashion people abhor extended silence in a conversation. They’ll instinctively speak, saying anything to fill the void.

Roberts doesn’t. She returns her attention to her salad. She glances at me, a smile on her lips.

“I’m a frustrating interview subject,” she says.

“So I was warned,” I reply.

She nods. “I don’t like revealing too much of myself. I prefer to hold something back.”

I think, but don’t say, that she holds a lot back. The Night Watch maintains active accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, not to mention several other social media platforms, as well as their own busy web site. Roberts herself, however, has no social media presence. Her private life remains a mystery, for the most part. Every now and then some rumor will arise linking her with the latest Hollywood hunk. She inevitably refuses to either confirm or deny it; the speculation keeps her name at the peak of the zeitgeist for several days before fading away. Then another rumor comes along and the cycle repeats.

“Are there big differences between the public Candy and the private Candace?” I ask.

She smiles and laughs briefly, a sight and sound that causes many hearts to flutter the world over. “Yeah, I think there is! Not in terms of my opinions—but in terms of personality, yes,” she says, then shrugs. “I guess I like having a… secret identity.”

The admission provides me with an entry point to ask about one of the most unusual elements of her fandom.

“Desperate Measures”, the first single from Open Season, was tearing up the charts, its provocative video getting millions of views on YouTube and announcing the band’s lead singer as a new star and a sex symbol to be reckoned with. And in another corner of the internet, Candy Roberts inspired a surprising form of tribute.

The Adventures of Duster, a series of story collections and novels published anonymously through Smashwords, cast Roberts and her bandmates as superheroes, battling crime in their hometown and beyond. Fan fiction featuring celebrities, of course, isn’t unusual; but seeing it gain a following almost as large as the real-life subject it’s based on certainly is. These days, each new story featuring Duster and her team of costumed crime-fighters earns almost as many downloads as the hits received by each new Night Watch video.

To this day, no one has identified the anonymous author behind the stories. Most of them are standard comic-book fare—well-written and exciting, granted, but par for the course, or perhaps more accurately, for the genre. But some of the stories took the sexually provocative sub-text of The Night Watch’s music and made it, well, text. More than a few of those stories stray boldly into the territory of BDSM hinted at in songs like “Crowd Pleaser” and ”Capture My Heart”.

“I studiously avoid them,” Roberts says when asked about the popular stories based upon her and her bandmates. “I mean, legally, I have to. If I wrote a song inspired by that stuff, things would get complicated real fast.”

I point out that the stories are available for free, that they’re not copyrighted.

“Doesn’t matter,” Roberts says with a shrug. “Trust me, I have a team of lawyers advising me on this.”

I try a different tack. Does Roberts like the idea that people see her as a superhero? Even one who takes her share of lumps?

“I try to take it as a compliment,” the singer says. “Being viewed as a hero, I mean. Maybe it reflects some of our political songs, like ‘Power Supply’ and ‘Sinking Feeling’. Or the charity work,” she says enthusiastically, returning to one of her favorite topics: the campaigning and fund-raising the band does for sexual assault centers around the country, and to raise awareness of climate change.

The band’s stance on the latter topic earned them the ire of President Kardashian and America’s swelling ranks of conservative voters with their bright red “Make America Hot Again” ball caps.

“If she persists in her short-sighted environmental policies, she’ll certainly make that slogan a success,” Roberts says.

As far as the fans of the Night Watch are concerned, the current President (along with equally-strident Vice President Hilton) certainly seems to provide ample supervillain-like opposition for their musical heroes. Does Roberts think, but for a twist of fate, she might have been a superhero instead of a superstar?

The question provokes a laugh. “I’d need pretty formidable superpowers before I’d put on a leotard and go out to fight crooks!” she says, smiling broadly, obviously amused by the idea. “An eight-octave vocal range don’t exactly count,” she observes in a frank tone. “Not much good in a fight.” She gives her auburn locks a decorous shake. “Who knows, maybe there’s a parallel universe where I am a superhero.” Her smile vanishes. It’s rather like watching the sun disappear behind a cloud. “And maybe there’s another universe where I’m a fictional construct, just like this ‘Duster’ character that’s based on me,” she adds.

The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s dark brown eyes stare at me provocatively. In my time with her, albeit brief, I’ve come to recognize the keen intelligence behind those lovely eyes. I do my best not to squirm beneath her penetrating gaze.

“That’s not a thought that’s conducive to getting a good night’s sleep, now is it?” she says.

My shoulders slump; I didn’t realize I’d tensed up until that moment. If in some parallel universe Candy Roberts is a superheroine, I’d wager she’s a formidable one.

I was walking my dog, listening to U2’s “New Year’s Day” as I am wont to do at this time of year, when I suddenly had a vision of Duster belting out the song, backed by her female teammates—now bandmates. Thus the idea for an image was born. And from that, a story of sorts—an ersatz web/magazine article—to explain it.

I had fun drawing on elements of both Duster’s stories and rock ‘n’ roll history to flesh out this vision of Candy and The Night Watch. It was also fun creating alternative versions of each character. And I’d had many of these digital elements (props and clothing) sitting on my hard drive for ages, waiting to be used. It was satisfying to finally see them come to light.

And to give props where they're due, I'm not the first artist to envision Candy/Duster as a lead singer. So below, some thumbnail links to other depictions of Duster as a musician.

Mature Content

Mature Content

Description

The Watch that Ends the Night
By Allie O’Day

Candy Roberts isn’t happy.

The frontwoman for The Night Watch is pacing back and forth behind the control console at High Plains City’s Bottlesmash Studio, listening as the new song her band is recording plays over the loudspeakers. The fingers of her right hand drum impatiently on her left bicep. The tiger stripe pattern on the tight, short dress he’s wearing adds to the effect of a feline pacing impatiently in a cage.

“All right, stop, stop!” she says. The sound engineer kills the playback. All eyes turn to her, but hers turn elsewhere. “Angie?” she says, glancing over at The Night Watch’s guitarist.

Angela DeFranco—whom everyone calls “Angel”—has been Roberts’ musical partner since they launched the band five years ago. While the song credits are generously shared among all four band members, it’s an open secret that Roberts and DeFranco do the lion’s share of the writing.

They’re a study in contrasts, Roberts and DeFranco. The Night Watch’s lead singer has the sort of looks that wouldn’t be out of place on a fashion runway—or in the pages of Playboy, truth be told. DeFranco, with her short shock of black hair and tattoos festooning her arms and chest (and probably several other locations as well) wouldn’t look out of place in a biker bar. But after spending a few days with them, I’d have to say it’s a toss-up as to which of them is the tougher cookie.

The guitarist shrugs her slender shoulders. “The middle eight could be better,” she says.

“The middle eight is crap,” Roberts says. She and DeFranco stare at each other a moment, then they burst out laughing.

“All right, it’s crap,” DeFranco agrees with a smile. “So whaddya wanna do about it?”

“Forget we ever wrote the damn thing,” Roberts says with a roll of her dark brown eyes.

She takes a deep breath and stretches her arms above her head. The movement unintentionally shows off her curvaceous but trim body to everyone in the studio, who do their best to professionally ignore the goddess in their midst. She waves her hand dismissively.

“Let’s leave it until tomorrow. Come at it fresh.”

“Thank God,” Tori Walker mutters as she pushes herself up from the couch where she’d been slouching. “I said we should do that three hours ago.”

Roberts studiously ignores her bassist. Walker’s restrained demeanor on stage creates the impression that she’s the band’s anchor. In actual fact, she’s something of a hothead. But she and Roberts have been friends since childhood, and Roberts is used to her bassist’s moods.

“See you tomorrow,” Roberts says to her as Walker leaves. “Nine AM,” she adds. That’s six hours away. Walker mumbles something which her band leader takes as agreement.

“Rita,” Roberts says, nudging the remaining figure who had been reclining on the couch. “Hey, Rita!”

“Huh?” the diminutive drummer says as her eyes blink open. “What?”

“Go home,” Roberts says. “Get a few hours’ sleep. We’ll take another crack at this thing tomorrow.”

“Sounds good, boss!” Rita “Whirlwind” Lopez says with a tired smile. The drummer seems indefatigably cheerful, even when she’s exhausted after twenty straight hours in the studio. DeFranco follows her out the door.

After the sound crew departs as well, that leaves The Night Watch’s manager, Bill McIntyre, as the last man standing. A persistent rumor says the tall, handsome manager—I’ve done my level best not to drool over his piercing turquoise eyes and short, curling black hair myself—has more than just a business relationship with the lead singer of his sole client. They both deny it, in jaded, bemused tones that underline how bored they are by the question.

“You need a ride home?” McIntyre asks.

Roberts casts the briefest of glances in my direction. A decidedly unglamorous snort of laughter escapes from her mouth—or, more accurately, her slightly-upturned nose.

“I’ll be with my Boswell,” Roberts says with a nod of her head of elaborately-coiffed auburn hair in my direction. I do my best not to be surprised by the reference. In the brief time I’ve spent with Roberts, I’ve learned not to underestimate the woman.

A few minutes later I’m sitting in the back of a chauffeured Tesla heading west along Telegraph Road. Heading to the good side of town. Heading home.

“So what drives a girl from High Plains Heights to become the reigning Queen of Rock?” I ask her.

There’s a long silence. I glance over at her, wondering if she’s fallen asleep. She hasn’t; she’s staring out the car’s window, lost in thought. I consider asking the question again, but instead I decide to wait.

“Honestly?” she finally says in a tired voice. “I was bored.”

* * *

I mull over that answer the next day. Roberts, the only child of a wealthy entrepreneur and an ambitious attorney, could have chosen any path she wanted in life. In each grade she shot to the top of the honor roll; an academic career seemed the obvious choice for the over-achiever. She excelled at science and math and considered a career in research or engineering.

But academic achievement alone, I gathered from her tired declaration on that late-night ride to her home, would never have satisfied Candy Roberts. She loved to sing, ever since childhood. She started her first band in junior high. She met McIntyre in her first year of college and shared her long-nurtured dream of rock stardom with him. He connected her to DeFranco and Lopez; she brought Walker along, and The Night Watch was formed.

Daringly, in a music landscape dominated by pop divas and rap artists, this new band elected to forge a path in the largely moribund genre of rock.

“I always loved rock music,” Roberts explains. “At its best, it’s just so raw and vital. Don’t get me wrong, I respect rap. It has long historical roots in American culture, and beyond that all the way back to Africa. But it’s not my thing. And Mariah and Beyoncé and the rest of them are great, but it’s a crowded field, you know? Rock was practically wide-open. Most of the bands that are still active are past retirement age! It was ripe for a shake-up.”

The Night Watch shook up not only rock ‘n’ roll, but the music industry. Their first album, Open Season, took off like a rocket: four top-ten singles, quadruple platinum in the U.S. alone, and videos earning millions of views on YouTube. A sold-out world tour followed. Their sophomore effort, Arena, showed their initial success was no fluke. Last year they put out their third hit album, Harem, to similar levels of success—proving they have staying power.

As much as anything else, the band’s struggle with that new song in the studio demonstrates the hard work and struggle behind their success. They’re not content with mediocrity. “Good enough” never is.

As a result, it isn’t until two days later that Roberts is in a better mood. She and DeFranco eventually worked out a different approach for the song’s troublesome middle eight. McIntyre has suggested it could serve as the third or fourth single off the next album, tentatively titled Game Theory. DeFranco agreed; Roberts was non-committal.

Over lunch, away from her band and handlers, I ask about her reticence.

“It’s solid now,” Roberts agrees, speaking of the new song, titled ‘Mesmerized’. “Could be a single. Not the lead, but…”

Her voice drifts off. She glances out the restaurant window. The same faraway look she wore two nights back returns to her beautiful face. Once again, I try using the age-old interviewer’s trick of patiently waiting for my subject to speak rather than prompting her. It usually works. Nature abhors a vacuum, and in a similar fashion people abhor extended silence in a conversation. They’ll instinctively speak, saying anything to fill the void.

Roberts doesn’t. She returns her attention to her salad. She glances at me, a smile on her lips.

“I’m a frustrating interview subject,” she says.

“So I was warned,” I reply.

She nods. “I don’t like revealing too much of myself. I prefer to hold something back.”

I think, but don’t say, that she holds a lot back. The Night Watch maintains active accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, not to mention several other social media platforms, as well as their own busy web site. Roberts herself, however, has no social media presence. Her private life remains a mystery, for the most part. Every now and then some rumor will arise linking her with the latest Hollywood hunk. She inevitably refuses to either confirm or deny it; the speculation keeps her name at the peak of the zeitgeist for several days before fading away. Then another rumor comes along and the cycle repeats.

“Are there big differences between the public Candy and the private Candace?” I ask.

She smiles and laughs briefly, a sight and sound that causes many hearts to flutter the world over. “Yeah, I think there is! Not in terms of my opinions—but in terms of personality, yes,” she says, then shrugs. “I guess I like having a… secret identity.”

The admission provides me with an entry point to ask about one of the most unusual elements of her fandom.

“Desperate Measures”, the first single from Open Season, was tearing up the charts, its provocative video getting millions of views on YouTube and announcing the band’s lead singer as a new star and a sex symbol to be reckoned with. And in another corner of the internet, Candy Roberts inspired a surprising form of tribute.

The Adventures of Duster, a series of story collections and novels published anonymously through Smashwords, cast Roberts and her bandmates as superheroes, battling crime in their hometown and beyond. Fan fiction featuring celebrities, of course, isn’t unusual; but seeing it gain a following almost as large as the real-life subject it’s based on certainly is. These days, each new story featuring Duster and her team of costumed crime-fighters earns almost as many downloads as the hits received by each new Night Watch video.

To this day, no one has identified the anonymous author behind the stories. Most of them are standard comic-book fare—well-written and exciting, granted, but par for the course, or perhaps more accurately, for the genre. But some of the stories took the sexually provocative sub-text of The Night Watch’s music and made it, well, text. More than a few of those stories stray boldly into the territory of BDSM hinted at in songs like “Crowd Pleaser” and ”Capture My Heart”.

“I studiously avoid them,” Roberts says when asked about the popular stories based upon her and her bandmates. “I mean, legally, I have to. If I wrote a song inspired by that stuff, things would get complicated real fast.”

I point out that the stories are available for free, that they’re not copyrighted.

“Doesn’t matter,” Roberts says with a shrug. “Trust me, I have a team of lawyers advising me on this.”

I try a different tack. Does Roberts like the idea that people see her as a superhero? Even one who takes her share of lumps?

“I try to take it as a compliment,” the singer says. “Being viewed as a hero, I mean. Maybe it reflects some of our political songs, like ‘Power Supply’ and ‘Sinking Feeling’. Or the charity work,” she says enthusiastically, returning to one of her favorite topics: the campaigning and fund-raising the band does for sexual assault centers around the country, and to raise awareness of climate change.

The band’s stance on the latter topic earned them the ire of President Kardashian and America’s swelling ranks of conservative voters with their bright red “Make America Hot Again” ball caps.

“If she persists in her short-sighted environmental policies, she’ll certainly make that slogan a success,” Roberts says.

As far as the fans of the Night Watch are concerned, the current President (along with equally-strident Vice President Hilton) certainly seems to provide ample supervillain-like opposition for their musical heroes. Does Roberts think, but for a twist of fate, she might have been a superhero instead of a superstar?

The question provokes a laugh. “I’d need pretty formidable superpowers before I’d put on a leotard and go out to fight crooks!” she says, smiling broadly, obviously amused by the idea. “An eight-octave vocal range don’t exactly count,” she observes in a frank tone. “Not much good in a fight.” She gives her auburn locks a decorous shake. “Who knows, maybe there’s a parallel universe where I am a superhero.” Her smile vanishes. It’s rather like watching the sun disappear behind a cloud. “And maybe there’s another universe where I’m a fictional construct, just like this ‘Duster’ character that’s based on me,” she adds.

The Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s dark brown eyes stare at me provocatively. In my time with her, albeit brief, I’ve come to recognize the keen intelligence behind those lovely eyes. I do my best not to squirm beneath her penetrating gaze.

“That’s not a thought that’s conducive to getting a good night’s sleep, now is it?” she says.

My shoulders slump; I didn’t realize I’d tensed up until that moment. If in some parallel universe Candy Roberts is a superheroine, I’d wager she’s a formidable one.

I was walking my dog, listening to U2’s “New Year’s Day” as I am wont to do at this time of year, when I suddenly had a vision of Duster belting out the song, backed by her female teammates—now bandmates. Thus the idea for an image was born. And from that, a story of sorts—an ersatz web/magazine article—to explain it.

I had fun drawing on elements of both Duster’s stories and rock ‘n’ roll history to flesh out this vision of Candy and The Night Watch. It was also fun creating alternative versions of each character. And I’d had many of these digital elements (props and clothing) sitting on my hard drive for ages, waiting to be used. It was satisfying to finally see them come to light.

And to give props where they're due, I'm not the first artist to envision Candy/Duster as a lead singer. So below, some thumbnail links to other depictions of Duster as a musician.

Mature Content

Mature Content