“You were guaranteed consideration, Mr. Darke, not a definite spot on the roster. They’re here because I’m impressed with what I’ve heard from both bands. However, I only need one opening act.”
“Then what’s the solution?” I ask, because somebody has to.
“I intend to sleep on it.” He’s going to make us wait until after breakfast to see which band has made the cut, and which is going home empty handed. I can’t help suspecting he’s been watching too much reality TV. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn he’s already made his decision, and this is actually a test to see how we handle the stress. Everyone knows that Black Halo have put him through the wringer these last few months. I reckon Callahan’s looking for a nice together, low maintenance band, who are going to do what they’re told, when they’re told. But that’s just not what being part of a rock band is about. Some level of anarchy is necessary to keep the creative juices flowing. The moment everyone feels contented and settled is when the passion dies.
Callahan pushes his considerable girth up out of the chair. “I want both Bitch Slap and Paradise Kiss back down here at 6:00a.m. You’ll get one chance to give me your best track, and then I’ll give you my final decision.”
“Six?” Loveday Trevaskis bounces to her feet.
“Is there a problem with that?”
She shakes her head, even though I’m certain she’s thinking the same thing as the rest of us. Who the hell wants to see that time of the morning?
“I’ve a tight schedule, ladies and gents. I don’t have time to waste. 6:00a.m. sharp, if you’re not here, then I’ll assume you’re not interested, and I’ll find another band who aren’t so commitment phobic.” He strides away without saying a damned other thing, leaving his minions to scurry after him.
“Christ!” Joel complains. “The only time I see 6:00a.m. is when I pull an all-nighter.”
“I think that’s true of most rock stars.” Not that we’re genuinely entitled to that moniker yet, but we keep similar hours to get the practice in. “It wouldn’t be nearly the same test if he’d said 4:00p.m. now would it?”
“He wants us to play rock music before breakfast.” Dane wraps his arms around Knox and Joel’s shoulders and drags them into a huddle. “You never said the man was a complete sadist.”
“Aw, are the lickle boys scared they’ll not be able to rise in time without their mums around to help them get dressed?”
Jessie is such a frigging bitch, but maybe Dane has realised she’s deliberately trying to goad him, because he manages to constrain his response to a twitch.
“I do my salutation to the sun at six,” Bitch Slap’s resident hippy chick complains. “I’d arranged to meet—”
“—you can see Nightshift once we’ve bagged this deal, Ivy,” Jessie snaps.
The other girl’s eyes go wide, and she gives her head a little shake. I’m not sure if she’s objecting to adjusting her plans or something else, but it’s good to know Bitch Slap aren’t as together as Jessie would like to have us believe. It’s a strange boost to be sure, but it is one, because while we’re all huddled together faking solidarity, I know we’ve issues of our own that need resolving before tomorrow comes, the first being what we’re going to play that has any chance of competing with what Bitch Slap have already shown they can produce. I’m certain they’ll use that song again—Loveday on vocals, weaving a spell with her bass guitar. It’s down to that rollicking, foot stomping piece of dynamite that everything is buggered up. I’d like to say it’s not fair, but the music scene isn’t about fair. It isn’t even about talent, more luck and opportunity. Still, if she’s wholly responsible for that song, as I believe she is, then she’s a fucking genius, because the strands of it are playing in my head even now, when I’ve heard six of Bulldozer’s offerings, and played eight of my own since hearing it.
We need to play something equally great to compete. We even have that, well sort of. TL:DR is going to be the goddamned anthem of a generation once it’s done, but there’s the rub. It has lyrics, a killer drum track, rhythm and lead, but no sodding bass yet, because Knox has so far failed to produce the goods.
“We need to do To Long: Didn’t Read” I tell the guys as we leave the function room.
“You’ve finished it?” Dane asks.
I shake my head. “Knox and I still have some work to do.”
“Right now,” the big oaf complains. “I was hoping to get some down time, since we have to get up so early.”
I consider it a good start that the dawn wake-up call has pierced his skull and made it to long-term memory. I’m still going to set his alarm for him and get the reception desk to give him a wake-up call or three at the appropriate hour. That’s assuming sleep is on the cards for any of us, given the task ahead. “You can sleep or whatever after we’ve blown Bitch Slap out of the water and nailed this deal. Until then, you and I are working. We’ll all rendezvous at five, to give us time to put it all together and work out any creases before we perform it for the boss man.”
“5:00a.m.” Dane scratches at the front of his head. “That’s a fucking dead zone if ever there was one. Might as well stay the hell up and mainline a few caffeine tabs. Got any of those, Knox?”
We all fix our gazes on Knox, because if there’s a weak point in this plan, he’s it. Joel, Dane and I want this. We’re willing to sacrifice a bit of shut-eye in the name of fame, but Knox doesn’t inhabit the same plane as the rest of us. Fame’s too transient a notion for him to grasp. Hell, he struggles enough with time. He has a few other issues too, namely his inability to hit the sack without having a smoke to chill himself out first. Actually, he doesn’t do much without calming his nerves first. He’s been too laid back recently, which is one of the reasons this track still isn’t complete after six weeks in the making.
The three of us stare at him.
“What?” he asks, raising his hands before him palms up. “I don’t have anything like that. Why would you want to take something that leaves you jangling?” He squints at us. “I can get you something better.”
“I’m good,” Dane gives Knox’s shoulder a squeeze. “I think I can find a way to pleasantly while away the hours, without having to poison myself.”
No guesses as to what he has in mind, as long as that soft comfort doesn’t involve him humping the fuck out of Jessie, I don’t care. Too bad that I wouldn’t put it past either of them to lock horns like two raging bulls, beat the crap out of one another and then turn it into a demented fucking session. I try not to be pissed at Dane for putting us in this position. If his harridan of an ex-girlfriend hadn’t got it into her head to form a band out of spite, then we’d be celebrating right now.
“Nate, a word,” Joel shoots me a look that says there are choices to be made, and things we urgently need to discuss. I don’t agree, but he’s not going to piss off and leave me to fix this song before he’s said his bit.
“Right.” I head toward the door to the men’s loos.
Knox looks confused. “I thought you wanted us to work on the track.”
“I’m taking a dump. Twenty minutes. I’ll see you back here.”
“Right, man.” He brushes knuckles with me. “We’re going to fucking nail this.”
I wish Joel shared his belief.
Joel follows me into the men’s toilets. He doesn’t even wait until I’ve unzipped and pissed before he starts laying everything out like there are actual choices to be made. Yes, I know Knox has issues, who the fuck among us doesn’t, but that’s not a reason to go backstabbing him.
“It’s not happened before, Nate, there’s no reason to suppose he’s going to deliver tonight.”
“He will. It’ll work. I’m not giving him a choice.”
Joel shoots me a look as he pisses right alongside me that lets me know he’s unconvinced. “Knox isn’t going to give you shit and you know it.”
“He wants this just as much as we do.”
“Pfft! You don’t even believe that.”
“He’s getting worse, Nate. Don’t pretend you can’t see it. Wake the hell up. If we fuck up tomorrow, we’re not just going to be playing dingy clubs forever—it’s going to be over. No one is going to sign the band that Graham Callahan passed on.”
“And what are you suggesting, eh? That we give Knox marching orders? Jeezus, Joel! If this track isn’t right by tomorrow morning, we can just play a different one and hope Callahan appreciates we’ve a solid backlist, and not just one decent track.”
He zips up, and glowers at me. “Knox needs to go.”
I shake my head, because there’s no sense in even responding to that. We’re not going to fire and recruit another bass guitarist in just over five hours in the middle of the night, and that’s even supposing I was willing to cut Knox loose.
“We approach her,” Joel insists. “It wouldn’t hurt to sound her out.”
“Are you fucking for real? She’s in the band we’re competing against.”
“Not if she accepts the offer.”
“And if she doesn’t we’re going to look fucking desperate. Callahan gets one whiff that we’ve issues, and we’re toast.”
A gruesome smile spreads across Joel’s handsome mug, because unfortunately, I’ve just acknowledged that we have a problem. Knox is a problem. He’s always been a problem, but that doesn’t mean I’m about to give up on him. I don’t give up on my friends, not ever.
“She’ll jump, Nate. She wants that deal. You can see it in her. She knows full well that Jessie’s only doing this to get back at Dane, and the other bitch is living in cloud cuckoo land. Come on, admit it, her talents are wasted on them. With us, she could fly to the moon and back. We’d all be on the same page, completely committed.”
I’m going to need committing if this conversation goes on much longer.
“What you’re saying is all very poetic, Joel, but it ain’t happening. There is no way in hell I’m asking Loveday Trevaskis to join us. Sure, I’d love to have her talent on the team, but Paradise Kiss doesn’t need two bassists, and I’m not letting Knox go. For fuck’s sake, I made a promise to his dying mum.”
“The fuck you did.”
“I swore I’d look out for him.”
Joel wasn’t there the night Mrs. Knox passed away—terminal cancer. She’d had it as long as I’d known her. I was the one who rode with Knox to the hospital, the one who sat by her in that sad, overheated, little room that stank of pollen, while she sent her son off to find a nurse to top up her pain relief, when she could have just pressed the buzzer. “Someone needs to look out for him,” she said. “I know you’ll do it, Nathaniel, same as you look out for your brother. You boys have been good to my Teddy. Keep him on the right path.”
I’m not sure rock and roll was what she had in mind, but there’s not a whole lot else the lot of us are good for, especially Knox. I can’t exactly see him holding down a typical job, he’d forget where he was supposed to be and what he was doing all the time, but things weren’t quite so bad with him back then.
“We carry on as we are,” I say, making it plain that the conversation is done for good. It’s time Knox and I got down to work.
Joel gives me the stink-eye. “Maybe Bitch Slap are looking for a drummer,” he mutters, stilling me, before I’ve had a chance to take a step.
“Don’t even fucking joke about it.”
“The only joke is that we’re saddled with Knox. If he blows it…” Joel shakes his shaggy mass of curls. “It’ll be choosing time for all of us.” With that threat still hanging in the air, he storms out, leaving me wondering what I’d do if it came down to that choice.
Knox or Joel?
Mediocre bassist or fucking hot drummer?
Teddy bear or wild beast?
It’s not a question with an easy answer.
SIX
Nathaniel Darke
After the door stops rattling following Joel’s departure, I dowse my face with icy water. Everything is going so wrong tonight, that I hardly know what to do anymore. Scream. Tear a few handfuls of hair out. Punch mirrors. The one right before me is tempting, but seven years bad luck is not what I need. Instead, I fill the basin and this time, properly dunk my head. The cold brings crystal clarity to the situation. Only one thing of importance matters, and that’s finishing TL:DR. Everything else can wait. It really can.
I slick my wet hair back when I raise my head from the water and secure the dark strands with a hairband. There’s no sign of the rest of Paradise Kiss or Bitch Slap in the foyer as I pass back through. I collect my guitar and Knox’s bass from the dressing room, then head into the dark function room. I flick on a single light switch, which turns on the centre stage spotlight, giving me a puddle of illumination in which to work. There’s no sign of Knox. Ten minutes pass and he still doesn’t show. Obviously, he’s forgotten he was supposed to be here, but I decide to give him a little longer anyway. It won’t hurt for me to go over what we’ve got and refresh my memory. Maybe working it out alone isn’t such a bad plan anyway. It’s hard work keeping Knox focussed, whereas once I’m lost in the zone, I can work for hours without my attention wandering.
Normally, I stick to an acoustic for composing, but the normal method has failed me so far. In any case, old trusty is at home in her case. I connect up Knox’s bass. Bass guitar isn’t my instrument. It’s different to playing lead, even if to the uneducated they look like virtually the same animal. Still, I try out a few chords and manage to produce a sound that’s not wholly akin to a caterwaul. The situation is made more taxing by the fact that Knox is a leftie and his bass is custom-made to his personal taste. Nothing about it is comfortable. It feels alien. Still I slip on some headphones and fire up the dirty mix of the track as it stands so far.
This is the song that’s going to make us. Whether Graham Callahan says yay or nay in the morning won’t matter once this gem is complete. It has all time classic pencilled all over it. I knew that from the moment I had the first chords. Listening, I can almost hear what’s missing. I know where the additional bass notes are supposed to fit, but the exact pattern remains a mystery. I try a few things, but…wrong…wrong…wrong. It fails to blend smoothly, making things discordant instead. What I need is something that will provide shape, give the music some backbone. So I keep working, playing the recording on an endless loop, head down, fingers dancing over the frets, wondering if my fingertips are going to be so numb by tomorrow morning that I’ll be unable to play. I need to get this right. It’s almost, almost there…I swear I catch a hint of it on the very edge of my senses. I lean towards it, I strain for it, pray for it, which is right when I realise I’m not alone.
“’bout time, Knox.”
The time on my watch is 1:40AM. The minutes are flying by too quickly.
“It’s not Knox,” she says. “Leastways, I’m not him, and he’s not here.”
Prickles creep across the bare skin of my arms at the sound of her voice. She’s standing a few feet away, long hair wild about her shoulders, eyes focussed intently upon me. She’s still wearing the same outfit she wore on stage—jeans, ripped in so many places they must be a swine to put on, a heavy belt made of chain links, stiletto heeled boots and the sort of top that makes it next to impossible to look her in the face.
“Need lessons?” she asks, positioning a stool before me and perching her tight derriere on its padded surface.
No I fucking don’t. “Go away.”
I sound like such a twerp, but she’s a distraction I don’t need right now, and I can’t see any reason for her to be here. We’re not friends, only rivals. We don’t know one another. In fact, we’re barely acquainted with each other’s names.
“No wonder the ladies swoon over you,” she remarks, and I struggle to know whether she’s being sarcastic. “I bet they think you’re ever so cool and aloof when you glower like that. Do you tell them to piss off and leave you alone?”
�
�You’re not a fan. What do you want?”
She shrugs, and I decide that she’s not entirely sure herself what it is that’s brought her here to fraternize with the enemy. I think back over Joel’s words, and his assertion that she’s ready to jump, all she needs is incentive. I can’t deny that the fantasy of playing alongside her is a compelling one. The girl has the power to rock my world, no question about it. What’s more thrilling is that she’s capable of rocking the rest of the world at the same time.
Temptation doesn’t mean shit, though, in terms of reality. Two groups are not about to become one and some extras overnight. There’s too much at stake to fuck about like that. Callahan’s not going to stand for it. He’ll just walk. I’m not arrogant enough to think we’re the only band with chops enough to impress him or fill the slot on Black Halo’s tour roster. In fact, low drama probably trumps talent right now.
Safe rather than sorry.
The man’s had his patience stretched to the limits over the last few months between fatalities, exposes, accusations and a jaw-dropping stage dive that’s put the whole tour on hold, and Black Halo’s lead guitarist in a hospital.
“We didn’t know this was going to happen,” she says, leaning forward a little. “It was a complete surprise. He approached us after our set. I didn’t even know who he was.”
“Why the hell are you telling me this?”
She gives another of those little shrugs, and I can’t help admiring the way the action lifts her breasts.
“I just want you to know that we didn’t set out to make trouble for you. I know Jessie lost it earlier, but Bitch Slap’s about more than sticking two fingers up at your brother. We work hard at what we do.”
“Ergo I’m supposed to believe that you deserve it just as much. I don’t give a shit whether you’re worthy.”
What have Bitch Slap being doing since Callahan approached them and then sprang this talent competition on them? Not getting early nights and bedding down like good little girls, by the sound of things. I suspect heated words have been exchanged, which is why she’s antsy, and sounding me out at quarter to two in the morning.
BANGED: Rock Stars, Bad Boys & Dirty Deeds Page 41
