You Can't Spell Star Without A&R
What A Catch Donnie.
Silence, complete silence around the table as the statement lingered in the air, three sets of eyes watched him for a moment before he heard Jules laugh slightly.
“Alright, ok, where are the hidden cameras you got me.” She held her hands up in the air in a surrender gesture before she shook her head and went back to her drink.
“I’m being completely serious Jules.” He said with a flat even tone that caused the colour to drain from her face…and her bandmates. “I want to sign your band.” There was nothing that could have prepared any of them for that bombshell. He was right it had been a massive spanner in the works but it wasn’t exactly a bad one…it certainly was not a bad one.
“You…want to sign us?” She asked him, stumbling over her words as she stared at him, pale skin and dark brown eyes that refused to believe what he was telling them. “Why the fuck would you-?” Her comment was soon cut off though as Chase hissed across the table loudly
“Jules, don’t question the man.” Chase just didn’t want Jules convincing him not to change his damn mind, his eyes strayed to Mattie who just sat with this blank expression on his face staring at Billie Joe in shock. “Dude, Mattie you alright?” There was a moments silence before Mattie finally answered with a blunt
“No.”
Mattie couldn’t quite believe who he was sat at the table with never mind the fact that he was offering to quite literally save this band. Things like this never came along, they had bad luck after bad luck, so many people had told them this band was cursed and he refused to believe them. However this was the first time, this was the very first time they were being offered something that could literally blow this entire thing wide open. There was a million questions running around his brain, his brain wasn’t liner it never had been he could jump around in his own brain and get lost but he couldn’t work out for the life of him why now this had happened. It felt like forever until someone else spoke, the silence was finally smashed as Jules looked between Mattie and Billie Joe. The shock registered on her face as well and it was written in black and white on Chase’s as well.
“Whatcha mean no? This is like…”
“Not real?” Mattie finished her sentence for her.
“Well yeah its pretty much the surrealist moment of my life but hey, this is like…” lost for words she looked at Chase but she wasn’t going to find any help in expressing herself from him. “I mean it’s…I can’t even…” There was no way in hell she was going to find a way to explain just how insane the entire prospect was completely and utterly insane.
There was a laugh from Billie Joe as he shook his head, he hadn’t expected them to be so disbelieving but he supposed that was the way he had been as well. When Green Day first got signed, and things really started going he hadn’t believed it either. There wasn’t anything that he could have said that would have made this any easier on them, after all this was their life, this was their means of survival and this was everything to them. That made it all the more harder for them to trust anyone, after all he was well respected in the music industry but they didn’t know each other. He didn’t blame them for being slightly distrusting and wary of him, here was this stranger who you looked up to come walking in to your life waving a bit of paper that held a huge part of your life on it.
“I don’t know…I…can we…”Jules was stumbling over her words again as she struggled to get her head around the prospect of being signed to Adeline Records.
“Yes.” Mattie answered looking around the three people at the table and all eyes snapped upon him before he explained his answer “lets do it…what have we got to lose?” He was right. Again.
Three nods as they looked at Billie Joe and each face had a smile including Billie’s.
“Is that a yes?” He asked raising an eyebrow, that cheeky grin on his face again and all three of them nodded.
“It is indeed.” Jules answered as the downed the small plastic glass of vodka and diet coke in one swift move before deciding that she had to have more alcohol to cope with this turn of events. “And I do declare that we need more alcohol to toast to this occasion.” Well that was a no brainer but it still had to be said, standing up she reached in to her back pocket and felt the faux leather cover of her passport to make sure it was still there and then reached for her wallet. “I’ll be right back.” This time it was Jules turn to fight with the line at the bar for drinks. Chase smirked a little and leaned forward a little and grinned at Billie Joe a little.
“You need to watch this; honestly, it’s the same story every single bar she goes to.” He explained pointing to Jules who was trying to fight her way though the people. Billie gave him a somewhat sceptical look before Mattie joined in and shifted his chair around the table trying to get a better view point.
“First…” Mattie started. “She manages to see over the bar.” He smirked a little, well she was short.
“Then, the bar man looks at her for a moment…” Chase continued, of course that was exactly what happened, Billie Joe watched the barman look her up and down before crossing his arms. “She orders..” Chase was right again.
“Then he asks for ID.” Mattie this time, Billie Joe nodded impressed that they had managed to figure this out. “Then she gets pissed off and hands him her passport.” Exactly what Jules did.
“He spends ages looking at it convinced that it’s fake, gives in and wears this really sour look on his face as he pours the drinks.” That was exactly how it went down, that was one thing Jules hated about herself, the fact she looked akin to a fifteen year old despite the fact she was twenty two and therefore legal to drink everywhere on the planet. It was almost amusing at first, now it was just ridiculous.
Returning to the table, drinks in hand it she spotted the three of them snickering, Jules sighed before sitting the drinks on the table before she leaned back and crossed her arms. “What?” She asked a slightly confusing look across her face.
“Didja get IDed again Jules?” Chase asked grinning like a mad man as he reached for his drink, Jules just stared at him for a moment, she raised an eyebrow and the grin slipped slowly off his face.
“May I remind you, I sleep in the bunk above you and when were drunk and on the road I have a tendency to feel sick...” Jules smirked a little as Billie Joe and Mattie couldn’t help but find the can of whoopass that was about to be opened somewhat amusing. “And being directly below its very easy to accidently spew on your bunk in the middle of the night,” there was a moment silence around the table before Chase shrugged his shoulders and took a drink of his beer.
“Point taken.” He said simply before taking another drink and Jules finally sat down. “Well drink yup Jules, you need to be drunk to spew on me.” There was that little grin of his that Jules adored so much, she loved her band mates, it was a strange kind of love, the family kind of love. They were just as much blood to her as her own family was, they would be the people she went down with.
The night took off, Jules wasn’t sure what it was, maybe it was the celebration in the air, maybe it was just the fact there was good company. Eventually she lost count over how much she was drinking that happened around the point Billie and Chase got sick of walking back and forwards to the bar and simply just bought a several bottles of random alcoholic crap. That was around the point that Jules had lost interest in exactly what she was drinking there was a certain stage of drunkenness where you didn’t give a toss what you were drinking, as long as it was alcohol. It was around that same time that the movie in her head started to skip. Soon it just became photos, she had the image in her mind of trying to play fight with Mattie, that ended in the two of them getting soaked with something or other and then it went black. Conciseness had decided to leave her at that point, of course a few hours later, hours later her eyes fluttered open and she felt that oh so familiar burn in her eyes.
Her eyes opened to the world and it burned. The world fucking burned. Suddenly she felt as if she had been hit by an eighteen wheeler truck, there was a slight groan from her lips as she realised she was sleeping on something that wasn’t exactly comfortable. She shifted pulling her arm over her eyes to block out the light streaming though the window above her head, it too a few seconds but the realisation that she was not on her own bus slowly sank in. There was puzzled moment in her head as she tried to work out where she was, didn’t help that she had managed to block most of the room from her view.
“Oi! Drooly Juley! Wake up!” The voice pearled her head like a hot knitting needle, oh god it hurt, she groaned slightly waved at the air before staying right where she was. A couple of seconds silence before she smelled coffee…Coffee was a must at this moment in time. Slowly she moved her arm, opened her eyes and realised she was asleep on someone’s very narrow couch…no correction asleep on someone’s very narrow couch on a bus. Sitting up and looking around reality started to dawn in, reality that she was somewhere she didn’t know with the mother father brother and sister of all hangovers.
“Christ! You look awful in the morning Drooly Juley.” Her eyes looked up at the black haired man standing in front of her holding two cups of coffee, she ran a hand though her hair ruffling the messy black mop before closing her eyes for just a moment.
“Why are you calling me Drooly Juley?” She asked, dumb question really.
“Because you drool in yourself and it rhymes.” He held the coffee out for her, she took it with a thank you before she sat for just a moment listing to the out of tune and time brass band that was playing in her head very loudly.
“I. Am. Dying.” She confessed before taking a sip of the hot caffeinated drink and looking at Billie Joe with a somewhat confused expression on her face. “What happened last night, how did I end up here and what time is it?”
“You got really drunk…we all got really drunk.” He explained slowly she could see the hang over on his features he was just a bit better at dealing with it than Jules, who was a whiner at the best of times. It pissed off everyone in the morning. “We couldn’t find your bus and it’s like...ten.” Jules almost instantly groaned again, she hated being up before noon. She nodded before she realised it hurt before she smirked a little.
“Can’t remember most of last night, means it was a good night.” She explained as Billie sat down beside her and picked the TV remote up off the floor, how it got there he wasn’t too sure.
“So what are you lot up to tonight?” He asked trying to get a conversation rolling though conversation between hung over people was a hand thing to set alight.
“Set on stage….one of them.” The reply was polite but short, her head begging her to just lie down and sleep this off but it wasn’t going to happen. “I would like to think we would spend a nice night on the bus recovering but we both know that isn’t going to be the way the night runs.”
Billie smiled glancing sideways at the woman before laughing a little.
“What?” She asked a little perplexed.
“Nothing, you just…are interesting that’s all.” She didn’t get what he meant by that but she supposed it was better than being a freak or a weirdo.
“Interesting how?” The question was begging to be asked and Jules couldn’t resist a flashing neon invitation like that.
“Just interesting, different interesting.” Still wasn’t an answer but she was too hung over to argue it out with him. Though she didn’t know how to take it, was she interesting because she was different or was she just interesting because of something else. Jules for as loud and arrogant that she could be was pretty insecure. She didn’t quite understand people, she didn’t understand how social situations worked and no matter how often she was in situations around people it never got better.
“Better than being the freak I suppose” she muttered under her breath quietly, Billie just caught the statement and glanced at her for a second before flicking through TV channels. “Anyway, whats for breakfast?”
He shot her a glance, smirked a little before shrugging his shoulders. “Get your own lazy, I don’t know we’ll go to catering or something, get poisoned from the food. You can pass out and Drool everywhere again.”
“Shut it Sherriff.”
“Alright, ok, where are the hidden cameras you got me.” She held her hands up in the air in a surrender gesture before she shook her head and went back to her drink.
“I’m being completely serious Jules.” He said with a flat even tone that caused the colour to drain from her face…and her bandmates. “I want to sign your band.” There was nothing that could have prepared any of them for that bombshell. He was right it had been a massive spanner in the works but it wasn’t exactly a bad one…it certainly was not a bad one.
“You…want to sign us?” She asked him, stumbling over her words as she stared at him, pale skin and dark brown eyes that refused to believe what he was telling them. “Why the fuck would you-?” Her comment was soon cut off though as Chase hissed across the table loudly
“Jules, don’t question the man.” Chase just didn’t want Jules convincing him not to change his damn mind, his eyes strayed to Mattie who just sat with this blank expression on his face staring at Billie Joe in shock. “Dude, Mattie you alright?” There was a moments silence before Mattie finally answered with a blunt
“No.”
Mattie couldn’t quite believe who he was sat at the table with never mind the fact that he was offering to quite literally save this band. Things like this never came along, they had bad luck after bad luck, so many people had told them this band was cursed and he refused to believe them. However this was the first time, this was the very first time they were being offered something that could literally blow this entire thing wide open. There was a million questions running around his brain, his brain wasn’t liner it never had been he could jump around in his own brain and get lost but he couldn’t work out for the life of him why now this had happened. It felt like forever until someone else spoke, the silence was finally smashed as Jules looked between Mattie and Billie Joe. The shock registered on her face as well and it was written in black and white on Chase’s as well.
“Whatcha mean no? This is like…”
“Not real?” Mattie finished her sentence for her.
“Well yeah its pretty much the surrealist moment of my life but hey, this is like…” lost for words she looked at Chase but she wasn’t going to find any help in expressing herself from him. “I mean it’s…I can’t even…” There was no way in hell she was going to find a way to explain just how insane the entire prospect was completely and utterly insane.
There was a laugh from Billie Joe as he shook his head, he hadn’t expected them to be so disbelieving but he supposed that was the way he had been as well. When Green Day first got signed, and things really started going he hadn’t believed it either. There wasn’t anything that he could have said that would have made this any easier on them, after all this was their life, this was their means of survival and this was everything to them. That made it all the more harder for them to trust anyone, after all he was well respected in the music industry but they didn’t know each other. He didn’t blame them for being slightly distrusting and wary of him, here was this stranger who you looked up to come walking in to your life waving a bit of paper that held a huge part of your life on it.
“I don’t know…I…can we…”Jules was stumbling over her words again as she struggled to get her head around the prospect of being signed to Adeline Records.
“Yes.” Mattie answered looking around the three people at the table and all eyes snapped upon him before he explained his answer “lets do it…what have we got to lose?” He was right. Again.
Three nods as they looked at Billie Joe and each face had a smile including Billie’s.
“Is that a yes?” He asked raising an eyebrow, that cheeky grin on his face again and all three of them nodded.
“It is indeed.” Jules answered as the downed the small plastic glass of vodka and diet coke in one swift move before deciding that she had to have more alcohol to cope with this turn of events. “And I do declare that we need more alcohol to toast to this occasion.” Well that was a no brainer but it still had to be said, standing up she reached in to her back pocket and felt the faux leather cover of her passport to make sure it was still there and then reached for her wallet. “I’ll be right back.” This time it was Jules turn to fight with the line at the bar for drinks. Chase smirked a little and leaned forward a little and grinned at Billie Joe a little.
“You need to watch this; honestly, it’s the same story every single bar she goes to.” He explained pointing to Jules who was trying to fight her way though the people. Billie gave him a somewhat sceptical look before Mattie joined in and shifted his chair around the table trying to get a better view point.
“First…” Mattie started. “She manages to see over the bar.” He smirked a little, well she was short.
“Then, the bar man looks at her for a moment…” Chase continued, of course that was exactly what happened, Billie Joe watched the barman look her up and down before crossing his arms. “She orders..” Chase was right again.
“Then he asks for ID.” Mattie this time, Billie Joe nodded impressed that they had managed to figure this out. “Then she gets pissed off and hands him her passport.” Exactly what Jules did.
“He spends ages looking at it convinced that it’s fake, gives in and wears this really sour look on his face as he pours the drinks.” That was exactly how it went down, that was one thing Jules hated about herself, the fact she looked akin to a fifteen year old despite the fact she was twenty two and therefore legal to drink everywhere on the planet. It was almost amusing at first, now it was just ridiculous.
Returning to the table, drinks in hand it she spotted the three of them snickering, Jules sighed before sitting the drinks on the table before she leaned back and crossed her arms. “What?” She asked a slightly confusing look across her face.
“Didja get IDed again Jules?” Chase asked grinning like a mad man as he reached for his drink, Jules just stared at him for a moment, she raised an eyebrow and the grin slipped slowly off his face.
“May I remind you, I sleep in the bunk above you and when were drunk and on the road I have a tendency to feel sick...” Jules smirked a little as Billie Joe and Mattie couldn’t help but find the can of whoopass that was about to be opened somewhat amusing. “And being directly below its very easy to accidently spew on your bunk in the middle of the night,” there was a moment silence around the table before Chase shrugged his shoulders and took a drink of his beer.
“Point taken.” He said simply before taking another drink and Jules finally sat down. “Well drink yup Jules, you need to be drunk to spew on me.” There was that little grin of his that Jules adored so much, she loved her band mates, it was a strange kind of love, the family kind of love. They were just as much blood to her as her own family was, they would be the people she went down with.
The night took off, Jules wasn’t sure what it was, maybe it was the celebration in the air, maybe it was just the fact there was good company. Eventually she lost count over how much she was drinking that happened around the point Billie and Chase got sick of walking back and forwards to the bar and simply just bought a several bottles of random alcoholic crap. That was around the point that Jules had lost interest in exactly what she was drinking there was a certain stage of drunkenness where you didn’t give a toss what you were drinking, as long as it was alcohol. It was around that same time that the movie in her head started to skip. Soon it just became photos, she had the image in her mind of trying to play fight with Mattie, that ended in the two of them getting soaked with something or other and then it went black. Conciseness had decided to leave her at that point, of course a few hours later, hours later her eyes fluttered open and she felt that oh so familiar burn in her eyes.
Her eyes opened to the world and it burned. The world fucking burned. Suddenly she felt as if she had been hit by an eighteen wheeler truck, there was a slight groan from her lips as she realised she was sleeping on something that wasn’t exactly comfortable. She shifted pulling her arm over her eyes to block out the light streaming though the window above her head, it too a few seconds but the realisation that she was not on her own bus slowly sank in. There was puzzled moment in her head as she tried to work out where she was, didn’t help that she had managed to block most of the room from her view.
“Oi! Drooly Juley! Wake up!” The voice pearled her head like a hot knitting needle, oh god it hurt, she groaned slightly waved at the air before staying right where she was. A couple of seconds silence before she smelled coffee…Coffee was a must at this moment in time. Slowly she moved her arm, opened her eyes and realised she was asleep on someone’s very narrow couch…no correction asleep on someone’s very narrow couch on a bus. Sitting up and looking around reality started to dawn in, reality that she was somewhere she didn’t know with the mother father brother and sister of all hangovers.
“Christ! You look awful in the morning Drooly Juley.” Her eyes looked up at the black haired man standing in front of her holding two cups of coffee, she ran a hand though her hair ruffling the messy black mop before closing her eyes for just a moment.
“Why are you calling me Drooly Juley?” She asked, dumb question really.
“Because you drool in yourself and it rhymes.” He held the coffee out for her, she took it with a thank you before she sat for just a moment listing to the out of tune and time brass band that was playing in her head very loudly.
“I. Am. Dying.” She confessed before taking a sip of the hot caffeinated drink and looking at Billie Joe with a somewhat confused expression on her face. “What happened last night, how did I end up here and what time is it?”
“You got really drunk…we all got really drunk.” He explained slowly she could see the hang over on his features he was just a bit better at dealing with it than Jules, who was a whiner at the best of times. It pissed off everyone in the morning. “We couldn’t find your bus and it’s like...ten.” Jules almost instantly groaned again, she hated being up before noon. She nodded before she realised it hurt before she smirked a little.
“Can’t remember most of last night, means it was a good night.” She explained as Billie sat down beside her and picked the TV remote up off the floor, how it got there he wasn’t too sure.
“So what are you lot up to tonight?” He asked trying to get a conversation rolling though conversation between hung over people was a hand thing to set alight.
“Set on stage….one of them.” The reply was polite but short, her head begging her to just lie down and sleep this off but it wasn’t going to happen. “I would like to think we would spend a nice night on the bus recovering but we both know that isn’t going to be the way the night runs.”
Billie smiled glancing sideways at the woman before laughing a little.
“What?” She asked a little perplexed.
“Nothing, you just…are interesting that’s all.” She didn’t get what he meant by that but she supposed it was better than being a freak or a weirdo.
“Interesting how?” The question was begging to be asked and Jules couldn’t resist a flashing neon invitation like that.
“Just interesting, different interesting.” Still wasn’t an answer but she was too hung over to argue it out with him. Though she didn’t know how to take it, was she interesting because she was different or was she just interesting because of something else. Jules for as loud and arrogant that she could be was pretty insecure. She didn’t quite understand people, she didn’t understand how social situations worked and no matter how often she was in situations around people it never got better.
“Better than being the freak I suppose” she muttered under her breath quietly, Billie just caught the statement and glanced at her for a second before flicking through TV channels. “Anyway, whats for breakfast?”
He shot her a glance, smirked a little before shrugging his shoulders. “Get your own lazy, I don’t know we’ll go to catering or something, get poisoned from the food. You can pass out and Drool everywhere again.”
“Shut it Sherriff.”