Not By Choice's MMVA Confessions

Being the amiable bunch of drunks they are, we tricked Not By Choice into documenting their adventures at the MuchMusic Video Awards. Here's what they had to say:

Right off the bat, we have been pretty pumped about being nominated and going to the Award show in the first place. So we decided to start our evening off right by drinking liquid courage and smoking cheap-ass stinky cigars while riding in a limo to the MMVAs.

The limo was a bit early arriving so we hunkered down on Queen Street, waiting for the Sum 41 vehicle to go first. Thing was, they were down at a local Mexican establishment and were running late, so Much decided that we'd be dropped off first. Our limo pulled up to the red carpet and we waited for George and the cameras to take us down the path.

The stinky, cheap-ass cigars were making us feel pukey so we tossed them out the window only to be ordered by the fine Metro Policemen guarding the red carpet that they would fine us $150 a cigar if we didn't pick the smoking stogies up off the street. Our publicist ran out of the limo, grabbed the cigars, gave the crowd a rocker salute and rushed back inside just in time for the cameras to welcome us.

The Red Carpet experience was wacked.

So many screaming fans, cameras flashing, people directing us where to go, man... if it seemed like we were the calm ones in the bunch it was a lie. Nope, it was pretty wild and our heads were spinning from the cheap liquor. We were hauled over to the Much Queen street window where we presented the MuchMoreMusic Award.

The winner was Shania Twain, who happened not to be there so Chico gave the acceptance speech:

"We know Shania would have thanked Not By Choice first for sure and secondly, thanks to hubby Mutt Lange for sure."

Then they grabbed us back down off stage and told us to wait. A few autographs later, Theory Of A Deadman are handing us an award for Best Independent Video. Absolutely blew our minds!!!

After lots of shout outs and high fives, the mission became the search for the bar. To our surprise, there happened to be MANY available bars at our disposal and hey, there was a table of pogo dogs, man and wow, a table of chicken skewer things and, cool, man, another bar. Wicked.

We were told we had to meet back at a designated spot at 9:15 for the next award, (yeah right, we'll be there). So in the meantime we figured we would hoover back as much booze and food as possible. One has to get into the party spirit after all and hanging in the back party area we got seriously sore necks with all the hot chicks everywhere!!!

We headed up to the VIP fourth floor lounge to witness exactly what the VIP area was all about and then figured that we should hit the side stage for Simple Plan's performance 'cause they rock. After Simple Plan we headed back into the general schmooze area to hang with the guys from Alexisonfire, our friends Sum 41, I Mother Earth and the Goddess Of Rock, Bif Naked.

Things were starting to become very blurry by this point and band members started to drift in all directions but somehow we managed to all hook up in the front lobby where the Man Of Men, Mr. Ray Romano, was cool enough to congratulate us and pose for a picture. That will be the Not By Choice Xmas postcard shot this year. Wicked.

Just walking through the halls was crazy shit, seeing the Swollen Member guys, hot chicks, Maestro, more hot chicks, Michelle Branch (very hot chick) and chugging beer with The Salads, Rahmel from Harpoon Missile, MORE seriously hot chicks, Shawn Desman, all the cool Much VJs, man, wicked!!!.

One blurry moment turned into hours of blurry moments and we headed over to the Revolver after-party at The Courthouse. Mike decided to head to Montreal with the Sum 41 guys, so his after-party shenanigans weren't recorded. Being the drunken guys we were and since no cab would pick our loaded asses up, we walked.

Then we arrived at the building and figured someone is playing a shitty joke on us as we hung on the front steps of the City Hall Court Building. Man, there was obviously no party action going on here. Liam double-checked the invite and noticed that it wasn't the City Hall Courthouse we were looking for.

On we went to "The Courthouse" on King Street where there WAS a party going on and then we ran into Shawn Desman who just kept saying "Respect" to us. We dug that.

The smart dude who smokes doobs in Road Trip was there. Charles Oakley was hanging (man, tall dude) and the Goddess Rachel Leigh Cook looked so hot. By this point we were tanked. Absolutely tanked. We ended up back at our pal Hoogie's hotel room where there was more tankness happening and we didn't remember how the hell we got home until we were sitting at our record company office the next morning.

All in all, it was an amazing, wicked-cool experience and we never thought we'd actually win, so when we did it was one of our best band moments ever. Great time, thanks to Much for the cool time and to ChartAttack for letting us record our drunken ramblings.

Yours, 
the boys of Not By Choice