Well, it’s the first time I slink home after the show in a slump. For just a minute, the competition has actually got me under its spell. For a fleeting moment, winning or losing this clash of the Titans has meaning.
By the next day, however, my equilibrium has returned. There are no losers on this show and I’m not even sure what the prize is for winning.
For the final showdown, the two teams have to sing four songs each. In this desperate race for the finish, I’m all paternal sagacity, supportive to both teams, but I get a poke in the back from Penelope’s clipboard: “Be hostile—DRAW BLOOD!” Ha-ha! I love the BBC!
So, playing for gasps, I rip into my pet team and lavish praise on Screech. Then I turn about again and erratically heap praise and scorn in the most capricious fashion as the teams take their alternate turns. All the while my scores are working out dead even. I have already decided to call it a draw and let the public choose their winner. What would I know about this kind of schlock music anyway? Finally we get to the drumroll of destiny…the nation is holding its breath…the lights are somber…the judges are stern….
And the winner is…Screecher and the Voice!
Now comes the final comedy. After the dramatic victory moment, after the winning duo has been presented with the coveted perspex slab trophy, it’s time for the victory performance of the winning song. “Great Balls of Fire” is the unlucky tune.
The band kicks in, the lights are twirling, and the special effects are flaming. The choreography for this number is very strenuous. Russell has to throw the girl around in that old rockabilly style and at the end she has to jump into his arms for the final pose. After a pretty tough week of competition, Siân and Russell are tired. Their moves don’t quite work out as planned, and her singing is pretty much reduced to grunts and yelps.
When the moment comes for the big leap, she just hasn’t got the gas. Her rubbery legs only launch her about as high as his knees, and she almost bowls him completely over. The crazy lights are swirling; confetti is ejaculating everywhere. The final pose finds them locked in a weird embrace, with her legs scissoring his thighs and him trying to gather her up, clutching at any and every protuberance. But everybody can kiss their ass—they won!
I love this TV gig. I ought to give up music and take this up full-time.
CHAPTER 24
THE GRATEFUL DAD
2007
The all-star band from hell strikes up for the Wildwood School fund-raiser.
A
nd you, and you, and you, and You, and you.…” We’re all sitting cross-legged in the school assembly hall, glowing with morning virtue and singing this song, pointing to each of the children around us.
Fiona, Eve, Grace, and I are here to cheer on our smallest girl, Celeste, who is going to be performing in one of the opaque class productions that are presented every Friday morning. The parents and siblings around us are the most pleasant folk imaginable. Wife beaters and Satanists behind closed doors I’m sure, but damned mellow to hang with at school functions.
These nice folks are dressed down, and there is very little bling on display, but they’re masters of the universe nonetheless. Tout le monde of Los Angeles is spread out among three or four schools, including this one. Since our town is the world capital of the entertainment industry, the parent body has a concentration of the most acute creators of film and song.
These great minds are now absorbed with rapt delight in the worst catastrophe of stagecraft imaginable. Script, pace, execution, talent—it’s hard to imagine a more cheerfully chaotic parody of what these parents do. All except for Celeste of course, who comes on the stage beaming and utters her non sequitur uncomprehendingly but with unmistakable charisma. We too are rapt in delight.
“HELLO, STEWART, THIS IS Gene Simmons…you know, the guy with the tongue, ahm…can you call me back about the school concert? I’m at—”
I wish there was some way that I could easily save and file some of the messages that have been left on my answering machine over the years. This is one of my favorites. Gene, it seems, is the dad who has been snared to organize the music for the school fundraiser party this year. So far, the school dad band is comprised of Gene Simmons, Stephen Stills, and Solomon Burke. Bob Dylan is going to get back to us. Put me on drums and we can call ourselves The Grateful Dad.
DOWN A LONG LEAFY lane off Mulholland Drive lives the legendary Stephen Stills. It’s the perfect spot for a California crooner. The south wing of the house is devoted to a charming analogue studio. The walls are clad from floor to ceiling with vintage guitars. Jeff is in the drum booth setting up a stripped-down version of my drum set, and eying me suspiciously are two hoary old geezers on bass and Hammond organ. They have no idea who I am, although they may have heard distantly of The Police (one o’ them short-hair punk bands). It doesn’t matter to these old bastards how many teenage hearts have been broken by my teenybopper band, I might as well be a Jonas brother.
This is how the hierarchy works. We piss on those who come after us. It’s not a matter of who sold more records or tickets, it’s about who hit first. These guys hit when I was in college, so even a major patriarch of fifty-six years like me is just a pissant.
Stephen arrives after everyone else has convened, including his son Chris on guitar and his daughter Eleanor on vocals. He’s all genial hospitality and we get straight to work. The first song up is “Proud Mary,” sung by Eleanor, which is a no-brainer for everyone. There’s hardly a living American who can’t play “Proud Mary.” Stephen counts it off, and after the distinctive introduction we lock down into a groove for the song.
For the first verse I go into a kind of hybrid reggae thing that takes the old bastards by surprise. But they can’t deny the motion and the sound we’re making is right in the pocket. I had forgotten how fat a real Hammond can sound through real Leslie cabinets (don’t ask). I’ve been making do with samples of Hammonds for years, but Mike is the real thing. He has the drawbars tweaked just so…and I can swear that we’re in an Alabama tabernacle. This feels great! Everybody is smiling now. The Mount Rushmore dudes are beaming. Stephen is beaming at his little girl on the mic. There is something deep about playing music with people who have been doing it for decades, like soft old leather. Mary was never so Proud.
And then Stephen starts to sing. It’s one of those quiet acoustic guitar songs, “Teach Your Children,” for which normally I’d be the wrong drummer. It’s the kind of song that is so gentle that the drums must be played with brushes. I know this song only too well. In college this music was surefire for melting the girls, and with Stephen singing it now in the room with us I’m pretty darn transported myself.
“OK, EVERYBODY, MY BASS is tuned down a half step so everybody tune your stuff…down a half step.”
So commands Gene, our music director. Onstage with us at the last rehearsal and sound check before the show, are a dozen Wildwood teenage guitar gods. Each one of the students has his own little amp and they are all piled up in an impressive stack on the Wadsworth Theatre stage. Down a half step? First one kid, then the others start to tune their guitars down to the required pitch. It sounds like a fleet of B-52s all running out of gas at the same time. The old Stills cats are gaping in disbelief. Did he say…down a half step? That’s insane!
Just as the cacophony is reaching its most deranged pitch, it dawns on the music director that these kids are a little sketchy on tuning at any level and they’re peering blankly into their electronic tuners while detuning their instruments to God knows what.
“OK…bad idea…everybody back to concert pitch. I’ll just tune my bass up a half step.”
Now it sounds like a fleet of kamikazes starting up their engines. Cool, since we now have everybody completely out of tune, let’s rock. Moving quietly through the kids is my Foo buddy Chris Shiflett. He’s helping them tune and organize. We actually get a couple of songs into workable shape, with little spots for each of the kids to shine.
Gene is also going t
o do a song with his own side band, a hairy gang of tattooed rocksters who will surely cause palpitations among the alpha moms. They’re probably going to do some Satan worship right in front of everybody. We all clear off and leave the stage so they can do their sound check. Gene counts in his band.
“Hunt, Two, fee, fah!”
CRUNGAKLANGACRUNGAKLANG—
“Stop, stop!” calls Gene. And he shouts to the sound guy at the back of the hall for more drums and less guitar in his monitors.
“OK…Hunt, Two, fee, fah!”
CRUNGAKLANGA—
“Stop, STOP!” cries Gene, and calls again to the sound guy at the back of the hall with more instructions for what he wants in his monitors. The Stills cats are still gaping. We’re all thinking the same thing. Each of us wants to shout “Yo, Gene…the sound guy at the back of the hall isn’t fixing your monitors. The monitor guy is over here in the wings!” Personally I’m way impressed that a guy can have such a lengthy and prosperous career as a stage performer and not know where the monitor guy is.
But all this is nickel and dime. Gene Simmons is a motherfucker. The Stills cats can snicker about the musicianship, but there is no denying the raw animal charisma and cunning of the man. By the end of the evening he’s got my vote.
During the long evening of speeches and music, Gene and I get to talking backstage about a subject that fascinates both of us. It seems that we’re both Bible-thumpers, students of Mosaic literature. Well, it is a beautiful concept, isn’t it? The Kiss bassist and The Police drummer arguing Old Testament theology is just what you would expect at a Westside school function. Mostly us two eminent scholars are just trying to one-up each other, glad to find listening ears for our dusty hobby. We’re two slum-dog millionaires who just happen to know some of this stuff.
What I really like is how all of the alpha moms are scandalized by the Neanderthal lowbrow vibe and just can’t stop twittering about it. Sure, they’re swooning over the gentle beauty of the old California ballads, but it’s the big guy in leather who has got their pulses racing and bosoms heaving. Ha-ha! The age of chauvinism is not dead!
CHAPTER 25
SUNDANCE
NOVEMBER 2005
It was the Night Before Thanksgiving, I’m deep in the studio making music for someone else’s film.
T
he phone rings right as I’m deep in the middle of a problem cue. Usually I’m pretty bombproof, but right now I’m not in any mood to be disturbed. Soon, however, I’m glad I picked up the phone. The caller identifies himself as Trevor Groth and he’s telling me that my little movie, which I’ve been working on in my spare time, has been selected for the Sundance Film Festival. Holy shit!
LAST YEAR I FINALLY got around to digitizing all the old Super 8 films that I shot back in The Police era, and have been snatching moments between work to cut it all up into the ultimate home movie. I love to tinker away on my computer at various creative enterprises and this has been one of my more consuming exercises.
I never really thought anyone but my friends would ever see it because anything to do with The Police is so fraught with legal constraints. My local chums, of course, were full of enthusiasm, urging me to release it out unto the world. For this, the first stop must be Universal, who own the rights to the recorded Police music. It took several weeks to get a meeting. They were mildly interested and reasonably supportive but said (truthfully) that nothing could happen without Sting’s permission to use his compositions. Never mind the band, the guy who wrote the songs holds the key.
So after dithering for a couple of months, I sent him and Andy DVDs. They both responded immediately. They don’t mind it! I’m all warm and glowy from this uncharacteristically warm response.
At this point the film was my sole creation—untouched by professional hands. I told Universal that I had the necessary blessings, and could I have some money to redigitize at a higher standard and hire professionals to complete the movie? They offered less than I asked for, but at least I was now in business.
The fateful moment came when I was talking to my buddy and sage, Les Claypool. You should send it to Sundance, he said, and he guided me right then and there on the phone to the online application site. It took a couple of minutes to complete, I sent my $35, and then forgot about it. The legal work with the bosses dragged on and I got back to work, earning a living.
Then comes the call.
Suddenly, I have to seriously finish the movie. Starting with a title. I had been calling it “Behind Andy’s Camel,” knowing full well that such a name (lacking the words “The Police”) would never survive the first marketing meeting. Now I have a nice lady from the festival telling me that they need the definitive title by close of business—today!
Thinking up names for bands, albums, and children is something that takes time. The most brilliant ideas often sound utterly lame twenty-four hours later. You have to try them out on people, consider unintended connotations, say them aloud, and check how they look in print. You are going to be stuck with this name forever.
I had tentatively landed on Miles’s suggestion: “I of The Police,” which seemed clever because of the pun with I and eye. In print there is also the visual pun with I and 1. Actually, quite ingenious. Problem is, I just don’t like saying it. It doesn’t sound so bad for other people to say, but coming out of my mouth, it sounds a little solipsistic. I need to be able to speak the name of my own movie.
So now, on a Tuesday afternoon with Miles in France, Derek unfindable, and Fiona’s cell turned off, I must come up with something for tomorrow’s press release. Feverishly, I go online to my fan site with a plea for help. Suggestions start coming in immediately. I had already been toying with the idea of Everyone Stares, which follows the established tradition of using a song title, but I’ve still got to get “The Police” in there.
A mysterious person called Lady P comes up with “The Police Inside Out.” Not bad. I get on the phone to Andy and he approves. I call Les Claypool and another chum, Taylor Hawkins, and they both concur. I’m striding around my studio, saying it over and over. Still sounds good: Everyone Stares: The Police Inside Out. I count to ten and say it again. Yup. I exhale and call the lady in Utah with three minutes to spare. She even likes it. The die is cast.
Next thing I know, my e-mail is jammed with messages from strangers offering to sell my movie to the world. Their résumés include every independent film you have ever seen. The guys who sold Super Size Me, Fahrenheit 9/11, and My Big Fat Greek Wedding are now interested in my little film. And the people they sell to are on to me. One morning I find three messages in a row from Sony Pictures Classics, Focus Features, and Miramax.
My next meeting at Universal is a little different from the first. I walk into a huge conference room containing at least twenty vice presidents, all with their chests out, arms raised, and their voices singing in unison about their zeal for my movie.
There is a gravitas to this Sundance thing that slowly blows my mind. It has more impact than last year’s Emmy nomination, more even than the Hall of Fame thing. This is really big. My head is spinning, I’m hyperventilating. I’m having trouble stringing sentences together. But there are suddenly a million loose ends to tie up.
JANUARY 2006
Man, this is the best breakfast that I’ve ever had. The vending machine has delivered an omelet with sausage that I am eating in my rental car at the Salt Lake City airport. I’ve been dreaming about this meal since rising at 4:00 this morning (in L.A.) to get here for the Sundance Film Festival.
Eastbound on I-80. The sun is reflecting off the snow and I’m squinting as I sing and laugh, driving up the mountains. The last month has been a tornado of exertion and excitement to bring me to this moment. The movie is finished and I have this moment of mental freedom on the highway as the snowy mountains draw me up to the frenzy of promotion that will be my mission for the next week.
Fiona and I pull up to Park City, Utah, in the nick of time for my first interview
. Amy, the publicist, has fixed up a hotel suite for me to sell from. Her two accomplices, Katie and Kim, are unloading boxes of postcards, posters, T-shirts, and other promotion materials. Two journalists are settling down and placing their recorders on the table, and the hawking is ready to begin.
I have already been doing this over the phone for the last week, so by now I have the basic sound bites down pat. The rest of the day goes by, talking, talking, talking.
It’s not all in my own room. Amy and I spend the freezing cold days trudging up and down Main Street, hitting the TV crews and news pools while Derek and Cassian, my new William Morris rep, work the buyers.
After a photo shoot for People magazine, I’m taken to the swag mall. This is a suite of rooms where purveyors of high-end articles like $5,000 watches and $300 jeans shower the celebrities with their products. It’s called “gifting.” Most of the stuff is way out of my style but, after a while, moving from stall to stall, it gets easier and easier to just say yes. A nice person holding a logo-splattered holdall follows me. No sooner is the word “cool” out of my mouth, than the article plonks into the bag. I barely notice the photographer.
“Cool.”
Plonk.
Click.
Each of the major promotion points has such a mall, and by the end of the festival I will have picked up three ski jackets, two pairs of boots, an iPod, an mp3 player, a digital camera (does movies, too) a telephone/camera/movie player/communication device and several thousand dollars’ worth of watches, jeans, and handbags for the girls. And a slightly soiled feeling.
Strange things happen: a life with the Police, polo, and pygmies Page 18
