THE FOUR MUSKETEERS

The Four Musketeers consisted of four neighborhood friends that occasionally jammed around Eric’s piano at his house. The band attempted to play classic rock and art rock. This was the era where Eric’s older brother, Christian Johnston, gave Idle his nickname “idle” because as Christian said, “There would go Idle, just Idling along, as if time stood still.” Christian Johnston also nicknamed keyboardist James, “Manana” because he would take until ‘tomorrow’ to come over. The band would all end up going to “Manana’s” House to hang out on his couch and watch MTV. The band sometimes got to go on the Lynnhaven River on Eric’s little boat, sometimes capsizing.

“We would have all sort of competitions, sometimes risking serious injury. Some involved fire breathing, jumping across buildings and some balancing and heights. We would grab onto cars while riding bicycles, to see who could make the longest skid marks on the asphalt. One time, after the blizzard of 1980, we had a race, and because of the ice mopeds and motorcycles performed equally.” There might be an audio cassette of the band floating around somewhere.