My cousin looks nothing like the drummer from Seether. Nor is he from South Africa, which is where Seether is from. My cousin ─ born and bred in Texas’ Gulf Coast region ─ couldn’t fake a South African accent if his life depended on it. Based on look, accent, tattoos, dress sense and swagger, he could, maybe, do a passable impression of country legend Zac Brown but that’s a lie that could too easily unravel.
Pretending to be the drummer from Seether, my cousin insists, is easier to pull off. It’s a band that achieved just enough fame that people will say, “Oh, yeah, I think I’ve heard of them,” without actually being able to recall a single relevant detail. Especially not what the drummer looks like.
So, that’s what he does: when my cousin goes to bars and clubs and the like, he tells people he’s John Humphrey, drummer for Seether. To the amazement of everyone he’s with when he does this, it’s a trick that earns him all kinds of free drinks and VIP access. My cousin is an inspiration. I sometimes feel that I am making the wrong choices in life by not being more like him.
Which is why I’ve been thinking that I may start telling people that I am Mikkey Dee, drummer for Scorpions.
“Yeah, you know, the band that sang ‘Winds of Change,’” I’ll explain. “What’s that? No, I’m not one of the original members. I joined in 2016. Yeah, the band’s still going strong. Mostly gigging in Germany and Eastern Europe…”
I would do this for the same reason my cousin pretends to be John Humphrey. Because who the hell would know that I’m not Mikkey Dee? Who could spot that man in a crowd? Who has any idea at all what he looks like?
And if I did pretend to be Mikkey Dee maybe I would get free drinks and VIP access and, like the real Mikkey Dee recently, a free bike from Indian Motorcycle. As part of its Forged custom bike series, Indian last month handed Dee the keys to a custom Scout. The bike is simultaneously cool (because of its old-school chopper styling) and old and busted (because they gave it to the drummer from Scorpions).
Your personal mileage may vary on the appeal of chopped bikes, and definitely it’s the case that most deserve to be set on fire and catapulted toward Russia, but I really like the look of this one. If not simply because it’s a departure from other custom Indian Scouts I’ve seen.
In the past, most custom Scouts have looked a whole lot like factory Scouts with little more than aftermarket bling. They haven’t looked different enough to feel truly, you know, custom. As I understand it, that’s because the previous generation Scout platform had cast aluminum frames, which made cutting pretty much impossible. In the new generation of Scouts, announced earlier this year, Indian has chosen to use steel tube frames of the sort known and loved by custom builders everywhere.
That’s a plus side I hadn’t clocked when the updated Scout line-up was revealed back in April, and it’s yet another aspect that puts the modern Scout ahead of the modern Harley-Davidson Sportster. The Sportster platform used to be known and loved for its customization options. But with a stressed-member engine now serving as a structural part of the chassis on Sportsters, dramatic changes aren’t as easy as they once were.
I’m not sure how many people are buying brand new bikes for the sake of cutting them up (especially considering that the Scout’s starting price is in excess of £13,000), but if they are, it seems Indian has cornered the market.
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