You Can't Spell Star Without A&R
The Worlds Not Waiting
Upside down, Mattie was spiralled across the couch in Double Jeopardy’s bus waving a sheet of paper back and forth trying to move some air. The heat was getting to them all, the day was hot and the bus’s air-conditioning wasn’t working properly. It was a minor detail, one that got them though, none of them were used to that heat but still it wasn’t something they could do anything about. Any other time she was willing to bed the three of them would be lying wilting in the heat moaning about it and begging for ice baths. However there was a more important pressing issue, one that was going to determine the future of the band. The idea of that alone sent a shiver down her spin even in the heat, there was something wrong with the idea that one action like that could completely change your life. Their life was about to be thrown in to turmoil by someone who was reading an account on a sheet of paper where the numbers weren’t adding up. It was heartbreaking to think that the music and the songs that they poured their heart and soul in to…we’re just numbers on a sheet at the end of the day.
Pacing the room Jules heart kept leaping from her chest to her mouth, she couldn’t believe this had happened, her hands trailed down her features, a deep breath caught in her chest and she felt her fingers tremble. Chase was sitting on the couch, his head on his knees looking so decidedly worried and unusually quiet. The complete silence between the three was unusual, normally they’d be play fighting – and the boys would let Jules win – or they would have some form of music up very loud, or a video game or something. Not this time, the silence hung like a dark repressive cloud right over them, it strangled the conversation before it even got started. A heavy sigh fell from Mattie’s lips as he half fell off the couch in what had been an attempt to get himself the right way around.
“We can’t sit here like this all day, we need a plan.” He eventually stated, Jules stopped pacing and Chases head came up off his knees to look at the man. Mattie smiled slightly, he was the brains of the band, he was also one of the most resourceful people Jules had ever met. He was the problem solver, if there was something going wrong he took change, that was just the way it was and it came in handy many, many, many times.
“Like what?” Chase however sounded utterly unconvinced, Jules had to side with Chase on this one, she couldn’t work out a way out of this mess either. It wasn’t as if they could just click a finger and that would be the problem gone, and it wasn’t as if anyone was going to come along and drag them out of this mess either.
“I don’t know.” Admitted Mattie with a shrug of the shoulders. “Anything. I’m not ready to give this up, we work hard, sure we get in a couple of fights and we fuck around but we do work hard and I’m not letting that go to waste.” He was right, the band did work hard, but they were exhausted as well there was only so long you could work before your mind started to beg for a day off. Jules breathed in sharply before nodding her head, she wasn’t ready to give this up either, they had to save this band, they had to do something, anything, just something at all that could give them a moment of light. Not even a chance, just a moment of light, because that was all they needed to prove themselves. A lot of this was about proving themselves, as musicians, as a band, as people to everyone who laughed in their faces when they found out what they were doing. To all the people who told them ‘no you can’t do it’ and to their parents who had begged them not to throw away careers to do this, who had begged them not to give up university, who had sleepless nights worrying about their children’s futures. This had to work. Failure is not an option.
“Ok, so start with the problem right?” Jules said as she seemed to zone out a bit, anyone else would have thought that she wasn’t listing, the boys knew she was thinking when she bit her lip lightly before nodding to herself. “In a nut shell, we’re screwed, the label hates us because we’re not lining their pockets with gold and is about to send our asses home on a coach ticket…unless?” She stopped, well that was the problem, the label had no interest in them, and they weren’t making the kind of money they had been expected too. How did they fix that, well they couldn’t fix that, Jules couldn’t help but think the label had shot themselves in the foot with the album when it had come back…they hadn’t got what they had been promised. The label promised promotion for the album when it had come out; they hadn’t got it. The label had promised to listen to them and what they wanted creatively; that hadn’t happened. They had been naive when they had signed the contract, they didn’t know anything about the music business they had never needed to they were just three people who really liked music and wanted to play in a band. It had always been their little universe, it had been their little gang, the band was a place where the three of them flocked for safety, for a mental saviour from their own problems and as an outlet for the trials, tribulations and heartbreak. This was all they had now, that realisation made Jules stomach turn and she felt physically sick for a moment.
They shouldn’t have been so stupid, that was what it fell down to, but people made mistakes and when someone offered you the chance to do what you were dreaming off. You didn’t turn that down.
“Ok. So what can we do?” Mattie said, talking to himself more than the others, hoping to prompt his own mind in to thinking. Chase on the other hand could see a clear solution to their predicament, it was one that he had personally no idea how the hell they would bring around and he doubted if they even could.
“Let’s just find a new label then.” The way he said it made it sound so easy, as if all they had to do was phone one up and ask for a contract like ordering a pizza. Jules and Chase stared at him for a moment as the suggestion sank in, it was so simple an idea why the hell had they not thought about it before? Jules and Chase slowly looked at each other before looking back to their band mate, and a grin spread across their faces.
“Then we start again.” Jules said with a nod as if to back up her point. “We do what we did the first time around….we record demos, plus we have the advantage now. We know people.” There seemed to be a slight buzz of…excitement in the air now as the three of them spoke. Mattie broke in to a grin, nodded his head.
“Plus it’s even easier this time around, we have Garage Band, we should be able to knock together a couple of songs in a few days.” He reasoned, looking between Chase and Jules, he could see it in there eyes there was this spark of excitement, something about getting back to what they had actually enjoyed about being in a band.
“We have to keep this secrete though.” Chase injected, giving the hopeful conversation a deep tone of worry. “Maxwell can’t find out about this, he’s already sold us up the river and in to shit creek without a paddle, we can’t trust him.” That was a depressing thought, that they couldn’t trust their own manager but it was something they were just going to have to work around. Chase was always the one who said what the other two were thinking, while Jules was outspoken, sometimes controversial and completely honest about her opinions. However Chase had the balls to say the hard thoughts. The ones that they didn’t want to admit as a group, he was the one admitting that they had played like shit that night and he was the one that kept them going.
“We can’t trust anyone with these demons, not until they are recorded, Maxwell doesn’t find out about this, we tell no one, it’s between the three of us. If these demos get out, and I love our fans to bits but if they get on the internet it defeats the points of finding another label.” Mattie was the voice of reason. You always needed that and Jules, well she agreed more than they could have told. There was always part of Jules that never wanted the songs to get out, she was excited about them yes but they were her.
When Jules wrote, it was her, it was her head on paper and arranged to some chords, they were little secret snippets of her brain, they were bits of her soul. Jules would have been lying if she had said that she wasn’t scared when a new song went on show, because well, it was a bit of her that she handed to the crowd and the reception always affected her. Sure getting a bad review or someone slating your record hurt like hell for a while, but she soon got over, realised that one person didn’t matter, realised that they were insignificant compared to the people around you. Still didn’t stop the initial pang of hurt did it?
“Did you bring the leads and the jack for the guitars so we can actually use the comptuer?” Jules asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the very real fact that there wasn’t anyone around them that they really knew and who they could trust. Then again they needed to get this ball rolling fast as well.
“Um…yes!” Mattie answered jumping up and heading for the bunk area on the bus, he knew to bring the damn thing she wrote on tour. Most of their songs had been written when they were on the move, it was just when Jules managed to get her mind out and on to paper. “You see,” he stared as he riffled though bags, there was a thud as he knocked something off his bed and on to the floor but he ignored it and left it. “Ah-ha! There we go Waffle!” He dangled the cable in the air as if to prove to her he had found it and laughed a little to himself. Jules smiled, there was something about that almost…proud grin the boy had at remembering. “You write the most when we’re away from home, so I figured just in case you know?”
“Aww Mattie you know me so well.” Jules grinned in reply as she flopped down on the seats before remembering she had her phone in her back pocket. The device was slipped out her pocket and the sidekick three landed on the table with a little ‘chink’ mentally she told herself not to throw it around.
“What do we do in the meantime though?” It was a valid question, though Jules had no idea how to answer Chase, that was the one thing about him that irritated her. She had no idea how to answer most of the questions that he asked.
“Well….” Mattie started with a serious expression on his face before it cracked in to a grin. “I saw we play the best damn show of our lives tomorrow when we close stage three…but tonight we get drunk.” Jules grinned slightly. There was nothing better for a hangover than getting drunk again, causing some trouble and plus it wasn’t like the label could do anything else to punish them.
Pacing the room Jules heart kept leaping from her chest to her mouth, she couldn’t believe this had happened, her hands trailed down her features, a deep breath caught in her chest and she felt her fingers tremble. Chase was sitting on the couch, his head on his knees looking so decidedly worried and unusually quiet. The complete silence between the three was unusual, normally they’d be play fighting – and the boys would let Jules win – or they would have some form of music up very loud, or a video game or something. Not this time, the silence hung like a dark repressive cloud right over them, it strangled the conversation before it even got started. A heavy sigh fell from Mattie’s lips as he half fell off the couch in what had been an attempt to get himself the right way around.
“We can’t sit here like this all day, we need a plan.” He eventually stated, Jules stopped pacing and Chases head came up off his knees to look at the man. Mattie smiled slightly, he was the brains of the band, he was also one of the most resourceful people Jules had ever met. He was the problem solver, if there was something going wrong he took change, that was just the way it was and it came in handy many, many, many times.
“Like what?” Chase however sounded utterly unconvinced, Jules had to side with Chase on this one, she couldn’t work out a way out of this mess either. It wasn’t as if they could just click a finger and that would be the problem gone, and it wasn’t as if anyone was going to come along and drag them out of this mess either.
“I don’t know.” Admitted Mattie with a shrug of the shoulders. “Anything. I’m not ready to give this up, we work hard, sure we get in a couple of fights and we fuck around but we do work hard and I’m not letting that go to waste.” He was right, the band did work hard, but they were exhausted as well there was only so long you could work before your mind started to beg for a day off. Jules breathed in sharply before nodding her head, she wasn’t ready to give this up either, they had to save this band, they had to do something, anything, just something at all that could give them a moment of light. Not even a chance, just a moment of light, because that was all they needed to prove themselves. A lot of this was about proving themselves, as musicians, as a band, as people to everyone who laughed in their faces when they found out what they were doing. To all the people who told them ‘no you can’t do it’ and to their parents who had begged them not to throw away careers to do this, who had begged them not to give up university, who had sleepless nights worrying about their children’s futures. This had to work. Failure is not an option.
“Ok, so start with the problem right?” Jules said as she seemed to zone out a bit, anyone else would have thought that she wasn’t listing, the boys knew she was thinking when she bit her lip lightly before nodding to herself. “In a nut shell, we’re screwed, the label hates us because we’re not lining their pockets with gold and is about to send our asses home on a coach ticket…unless?” She stopped, well that was the problem, the label had no interest in them, and they weren’t making the kind of money they had been expected too. How did they fix that, well they couldn’t fix that, Jules couldn’t help but think the label had shot themselves in the foot with the album when it had come back…they hadn’t got what they had been promised. The label promised promotion for the album when it had come out; they hadn’t got it. The label had promised to listen to them and what they wanted creatively; that hadn’t happened. They had been naive when they had signed the contract, they didn’t know anything about the music business they had never needed to they were just three people who really liked music and wanted to play in a band. It had always been their little universe, it had been their little gang, the band was a place where the three of them flocked for safety, for a mental saviour from their own problems and as an outlet for the trials, tribulations and heartbreak. This was all they had now, that realisation made Jules stomach turn and she felt physically sick for a moment.
They shouldn’t have been so stupid, that was what it fell down to, but people made mistakes and when someone offered you the chance to do what you were dreaming off. You didn’t turn that down.
“Ok. So what can we do?” Mattie said, talking to himself more than the others, hoping to prompt his own mind in to thinking. Chase on the other hand could see a clear solution to their predicament, it was one that he had personally no idea how the hell they would bring around and he doubted if they even could.
“Let’s just find a new label then.” The way he said it made it sound so easy, as if all they had to do was phone one up and ask for a contract like ordering a pizza. Jules and Chase stared at him for a moment as the suggestion sank in, it was so simple an idea why the hell had they not thought about it before? Jules and Chase slowly looked at each other before looking back to their band mate, and a grin spread across their faces.
“Then we start again.” Jules said with a nod as if to back up her point. “We do what we did the first time around….we record demos, plus we have the advantage now. We know people.” There seemed to be a slight buzz of…excitement in the air now as the three of them spoke. Mattie broke in to a grin, nodded his head.
“Plus it’s even easier this time around, we have Garage Band, we should be able to knock together a couple of songs in a few days.” He reasoned, looking between Chase and Jules, he could see it in there eyes there was this spark of excitement, something about getting back to what they had actually enjoyed about being in a band.
“We have to keep this secrete though.” Chase injected, giving the hopeful conversation a deep tone of worry. “Maxwell can’t find out about this, he’s already sold us up the river and in to shit creek without a paddle, we can’t trust him.” That was a depressing thought, that they couldn’t trust their own manager but it was something they were just going to have to work around. Chase was always the one who said what the other two were thinking, while Jules was outspoken, sometimes controversial and completely honest about her opinions. However Chase had the balls to say the hard thoughts. The ones that they didn’t want to admit as a group, he was the one admitting that they had played like shit that night and he was the one that kept them going.
“We can’t trust anyone with these demons, not until they are recorded, Maxwell doesn’t find out about this, we tell no one, it’s between the three of us. If these demos get out, and I love our fans to bits but if they get on the internet it defeats the points of finding another label.” Mattie was the voice of reason. You always needed that and Jules, well she agreed more than they could have told. There was always part of Jules that never wanted the songs to get out, she was excited about them yes but they were her.
When Jules wrote, it was her, it was her head on paper and arranged to some chords, they were little secret snippets of her brain, they were bits of her soul. Jules would have been lying if she had said that she wasn’t scared when a new song went on show, because well, it was a bit of her that she handed to the crowd and the reception always affected her. Sure getting a bad review or someone slating your record hurt like hell for a while, but she soon got over, realised that one person didn’t matter, realised that they were insignificant compared to the people around you. Still didn’t stop the initial pang of hurt did it?
“Did you bring the leads and the jack for the guitars so we can actually use the comptuer?” Jules asked, trying to steer the conversation away from the very real fact that there wasn’t anyone around them that they really knew and who they could trust. Then again they needed to get this ball rolling fast as well.
“Um…yes!” Mattie answered jumping up and heading for the bunk area on the bus, he knew to bring the damn thing she wrote on tour. Most of their songs had been written when they were on the move, it was just when Jules managed to get her mind out and on to paper. “You see,” he stared as he riffled though bags, there was a thud as he knocked something off his bed and on to the floor but he ignored it and left it. “Ah-ha! There we go Waffle!” He dangled the cable in the air as if to prove to her he had found it and laughed a little to himself. Jules smiled, there was something about that almost…proud grin the boy had at remembering. “You write the most when we’re away from home, so I figured just in case you know?”
“Aww Mattie you know me so well.” Jules grinned in reply as she flopped down on the seats before remembering she had her phone in her back pocket. The device was slipped out her pocket and the sidekick three landed on the table with a little ‘chink’ mentally she told herself not to throw it around.
“What do we do in the meantime though?” It was a valid question, though Jules had no idea how to answer Chase, that was the one thing about him that irritated her. She had no idea how to answer most of the questions that he asked.
“Well….” Mattie started with a serious expression on his face before it cracked in to a grin. “I saw we play the best damn show of our lives tomorrow when we close stage three…but tonight we get drunk.” Jules grinned slightly. There was nothing better for a hangover than getting drunk again, causing some trouble and plus it wasn’t like the label could do anything else to punish them.