Dissonance - Chapter 6

Rowan had been right. By Saturday night we were done with all but one song. He said he wanted to leave a little time on the last day to talk about the actual lineup of the songs on the record and listen to it all the way through several times, to make sure we liked the song progression.

We were all back at Hanna’s aunt’s house and the place was kind of a mad house. Monday, we’d all come back to put the drum kit into the garage, since we wouldn’t need it for the rest of the week and she’d invited the guys to stay for dinner. Somehow that turned into what we ended up doing every day, even though we didn’t have to. Originally, we’d decided that they would come to meet us every morning, we’d load the van, and then all drive to the studio, but once we found out we didn’t need the drum kit, that could have changed. They were able to carry Marco’s keyboard and Lyla’s bass guitar up to the apartment, since neither took up that much room. Since they were staying closer to the studio, they could have just gone back and forth each day without needing to come all the way out to the suburbs, and we’d meet them there.

And yet every evening when we finished recording, we’d all come back here to eat. I felt a little bad for Hanna’s aunt because she was basically paying to feed six teens and young adults, with all of us eating quite a bit, and dealing with how noisy we’d get.

Sam was eating it up, though, since everyone but Marco seemed to like kids and was okay with him hanging out with us. Lyla was the most surprising. While she wasn’t a nerd like Kat, she’d play games with Sam and listen to him ramble on about whatever thing he was obsessed with that day. I vaguely remember her saying she had younger cousins and got the impression they were close, so maybe it was just that she was comfortable around little kids.

Marco didn’t seem to love Sam being around, and just ignored him. I think that upset Sam, but at least Marco wasn’t being actively hostile. Besides, everyone else was okay to talk to him, and Kat would actively engage with his interest, so he was okay. Marco ignoring Sam, however, did annoy me a little bit, since Hanna’s aunt was going out of her way to feed us, and to give us somewhere comfortable to decompress after very long days in the studio.

Marco had also been a little difficult in the studio, giving Rowan attitude when one of his suggestions got shot down. It wasn’t like Rowan was treating him any different than any of the rest of us. He was good about listening to us and always gave well thought out reasons why this or that suggestion didn’t work, but he did shoot down a lot of our ideas. I’m pretty sure a lot of that was because of how green we all were, especially about the marketing side of the industry, and he did take a fair number of our suggestions, but Marco took it bad every time.

We were just sitting down to eat when my cell phone went off. We were running late for dinner, because we’d gotten back later so we could keep our schedule for the next day, and Mom usually called around this time, so I picked it up without checking, stepping away from the table.

“How are things going, Charlie?” Mr. French asked.

“Good. We’ve only got one more song to lock in and then we’ll start working on the song order. I can’t believe we got it all done. I would have sworn we’d only be three of four songs in by this point.”

“Rowan’s a pro. He’s been wrangling musicians since before you were born.”

“I can tell. I’m still a little concerned with the …”

“No,” Mr. French said, cutting me off.

“What?”

“You were about to complain or ask for my input on something, probably something you suggested to Rowan that he disagreed with. Right?”

I was a little surprised I was that transparent.

“I just wanted to hear another take on the idea.”

“I know, and I get the impulse, but I’m not going to second guess him. He’s there with you in the room, and I’m not. You also don’t want multiple people making changes to your record. It’s one of the reasons you’re so lucky you got someone with his status. A newer producer would have been getting notes from the studios with everyone from marketing guys to accounting giving suggestions on what they think you should do. That’s why so many bands first records are so much different from their second. They don’t know how to say no for that first one, so it isn’t until their second album that you hear their actual sound. I guarantee you that he’s been intercepting those notes and turning them around, since he has the clout to push back.”

“Ohh,” I said. “Sorry. I wasn’t meaning to ask you to second guess anything.”

I could see what he meant, and I guess it wasn’t fair to Rowan to start asking someone else to second guess his decisions and recommendations. I still felt one of my songs had gone too far pop and lost what I liked about it, and I was a little bit salty about it.

“I get it. I know we all like to think we don’t compromise on our art, but you aren’t just playing for yourself anymore. Commercial artists, be it actors, painters or musicians, all end up compromising sometimes. It might not always be conscious, but if you’re doing it for a living, you’re thinking about what sells and what doesn’t. You’re thinking about audience expectations and what didn’t resonate with them the last time. Let me guess, you feel the album’s gone too far into pop for your liking.”

“How’d you know?” I asked, a little taken off guard.

“Because I’ve heard everything you’ve recorded up through today. I got off the phone with Rowan just before I called you. Believe it or not, he recognizes that you’re chaffing a little bit at being herded, and he wanted a second opinion to make sure he wasn’t being too focused on commerciality.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Now, before you go thinking you’re somehow special, he does this kind of often. Not for all the albums he works on, but on many of them. Just like you want to hear what others think about what you’re doing, he needs that feedback too. I’ve been in the industry, have training in both scoring and producing, and I’ve had my stuff on the market. True, it flopped, but you know what they say, those who can do, those who can’t, teach.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“Only cause you’re a good kid and don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and because I’ve never played you my own stuff. Trust me, it’s not great. I can recognize that, but at least it makes me someone a pro like Rowan feels comfortable bouncing his ideas off of. Why do you think he hangs out with me?”

“Your winning personality?”

“Ha, yeah. Anyway, I think he’s got you going in the right direction. Yes, it’s further away from classic rock that you try to put into everything, but it works, especially when it’s put with the stuff your band mates added. They’re a lot more mainstream than your stuff, so if everything stayed pure, it wouldn’t fit well.”

“Did you like what you heard?”

“I did and I think the public will too. Just keep listening to Rowan. He’s pointing you in the right direction.”

“Fine,” I said, putting on my best disgruntled teen voice.

“If I thought you were like that, I would’ve never suggested you to Rowan or the talent scout,” he said, laughing.

“All right. We were about to eat, so I gotta run.”

“Go, go. You’re doing a good job out there.”

“Thanks, Coach,” I said, laughing at my dumb joke as I hung up.

It was getting late after dinner, so we walked the other three out to the van to see them off.

“So, I looked up some clubs so we could go blow off some steam this weekend, and I found one that looks good. How would you guys feel about having some fun tonight,” Marco said.

“I’d be game,” Lyla said.

“Uhh,” Seth added, looking at the rest of us.

“Absolutely not,” Hanna said, crossing her arms and giving us her most serious expression. “I know there’s only one song left, but going out and getting hammered the night before your last day in studio is dumb. Don’t get this close to the finish line and then drop the ball.”

“Come on,” Marco said. “Like you said, it’s just one more song, and we already got a start on it. We still have a full day to finish it.”

“We also have to go over the song order and finalize everything,” I pointed out.

“Pssh,” he said, waving a hand. “That’s not going to be that hard. Hell, I bet we won’t even need a full day to finish.”

“No!” Hanna said, all but stamping her foot. “You guys have really been pushing this week and everyone already looks exhausted. Besides the fact you all promised Rowan on Monday you’d take this seriously, this is your one big shot to make it. If you get a reputation as not being serious, as being all about partying, the studio might decide you’re all more trouble than you’re worth, and kick you to the curb.”

“So,” Marco said. “It’s not like it’s our names on the contract.”

“Do you think that matters?” Hanna said angrily, her nostrils flaring. “If the contract gets pulled from Charlie, do you think you’ll still somehow be getting paid? If they didn’t want you when Charlie was involved, what makes you think they’d want you if Charlie was gone, fired because you guys couldn’t produce? They didn’t even want you in the first place!”

Marco rocked back a step, and both Seth and Lyla looked a little shocked. Although saying the label didn’t want Marco or the rest of the band in the first place wasn’t fair, it was true that they’d contracted with me specifically on purpose, and we’d all danced around the point since it had happened.

To her credit, Hanna realized she stepped over the line the moment the words came out of her mouth.

“Hanna,” I said in warning.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes, you did,” Lyla said, although surprisingly, not sounding at all upset. “And you’re right, they didn’t care if we were involved or not. Charlie has gone out of his way to make sure we’ve been equals in this. You’re also right that this isn’t the time to start acting like prima donnas. We haven’t produced anything yet. As of right now, the label is just taking a chance on us. If we start acting like something is owed to us and we can do whatever we want, we’ll blow it.”

“You’re right,” Seth said. “Sorry, Hanna.”

“Guys,” I said, still feeling bad about what Hanna had said. “I don’t care what the label said, we’re in this together. I don’t want any of you to think I can just say ‘this is what’s going to happen’ and we have to do it my way. I hope you haven’t felt like I’m big footing you or anything.”

“You’re not,” Lyla said. “We all agreed we wanted Hanna’s help keeping us organized and doing everything we needed to, and she’s doing what we asked her to do. Let’s go back and get some rest.”

Seth nodded and turned to follow her, but Marco was a few steps slower, still looking pissed.

“That’s going to be a problem, you know that, right?” Hanna said.

“What, Marco?”

“Yes. This isn’t the first time he’s tried to push you into doing something. I think he feels like he should be in charge, and he’s testing how far he can get you to bend.”

“Do you blame him? He’s been playing since he was my age, and he’s what, seven years older than me? He’s been out on his own, making his living playing music, before I even moved here. It’d be hard not to resent some kid coming in and getting everything you’ve worked for, and then bringing you along as charity.”

“Charlie, you can’t think like that. I know this sounds harsh, but this isn’t about being fair or making sure everyone feels special. Right now it’s just one record and one tour, but there could be a lot of money in the future, and you have to treat it seriously. You can’t keep making promises that’ll come back and bite you in the ass later if things go bad. What if Marco decides he isn’t getting enough credit and argues that you’re promising him you were equal was some kind of verbal contract. I’m not saying he would or that he’d win even if that were the case, but you have to think about these kinds of things. You’re not just doing this for fun anymore. It’s time to stop being naïve.”

I was a little too stunned to reply for a second. It wasn’t quite a gut punch, because Mom had already said something similar to me after we signed the contract, but it’s still hard to hear someone call you naïve.

“I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” Hanna said, seeing the expression on my face. “I believe in you, and really want you to succeed, but that means sometimes telling you when you’ve got your head up your ass. You’re a good person, Charlie. You’re always thinking about making sure everyone else is happy and trying to never be the bad guy. Those are both good qualities to have, but only when you don’t go overboard. You need to decide what you want. Do you want to be everyone’s friend, or do you want to make it as a musician.”

“I don’t want to become like some of the people I’ve met at clubs. Guys who made it briefly and became such assholes that no one wanted to work with them again.”

“I’m not saying you have to be an asshole. It’s fine to make sure the band is included in decisions and split everything equally. What’s not okay is giving away more than that because someone else feels they deserve more than you. Marco isn’t a bad guy, but he thinks he should be the one with the contract and he should be fronting the band. He didn’t really care when it was just you guys playing at the Blue Ridge, but this became real for him and he sees something he wants, and he’s going to push until you push back and make it clear where everyone stands. If you’re trying to go out of your way to make sure he isn’t unhappy, the only way that’s going to happen is if you sign the contract over to him. Do you want to do that?”

“No.”

“Good, then start acting like it. You don’t have to be an asshole and you don’t have to come down on him, but you do need to stand your ground when he starts up, because this isn’t going to be the last time he tries to bully you into doing something.”

“Okay,” I said.

Again, she was right. I did go a bit too far trying to keep from being like my dad, who was always trying to prove how much better he was than anyone else and how he deserved to be back up on the stage.

“Don’t sound like I ran over your cat. You don’t have to do it alone. This is what you have managers for, to do the dirty work you don’t want to do. I may not really be your manager, but I can help until you get one. Of course, you have to make sure your manager doesn’t bully you either.”

“You bully me all the time,” I said, giving her a half-grin.

“Yeah, but that doesn’t count. I’m allowed to bully you.”

“Ohh, I see how it is.”

“Good. I wouldn’t want to have to kick your ass. It would be embarr …” she cut off mid-sentence with a screech as I lunged for her.

I was laughing as she dashed inside, with me hot on her heals. Within a few minutes Sam and Kat had joined in, making it a boys verses girls battle, with Hanna’s aunt yelling at us to not break anything.

For a little bit, we got to forget about Marco and the studio, and just be kids again.

***

“Shouldn’t we end with something bigger?” I asked as the music stopped.

We’d just finished our second listen through of the songs, this time in the order that Rowan was suggesting we keep them in. I noticed it was pretty close to the order he’d had us record them in, which probably wasn’t a coincidence. It made sense that, since he’d heard all of the songs already, he’d have an idea of what order to put them in. In fact, the only two that moved around a lot were our two most recent songs, both of which Rowan had heard only once before we started recording them, since we’d written them during the mad dash between getting the contract and coming out to Raleigh.

We’d actually written six songs during that time, but Rowan cut two of them before we’d even gotten to the studio. The other two he’d cut for time, since we hadn’t gotten to them by the end of our recording time, and he didn’t want to have to ask the label to extend our studio time. I thought maybe we should fight for it, because I liked a lot about both of the songs, but he said they were both really rough and would take a long time to get worked out.

He also pointed out that at this point in our career, we needed to show we could come in on-time and under budget. If we ever got some of the songs to chart, the studio would be willing to extend things for artistic integrity. But a new band that couldn’t keep to their budget, was unlikely to get a second album, unless the first one went near the top of the charts. He thought we had a good record on our hands, but that it would be dumb to push our luck this early on.

In the end, the album came out to be eleven songs, which was okay. I’d been pushing for fifteen, mostly because I knew some would get cut and I didn’t want to not have enough songs. Rowan said the current standard was between nine and twelve tracks, so we were doing fine.

Three of the songs were ones I’d written, and I agreed they weren’t ready. There were some good ideas there, but I’d been pushing to get them done, and they were clunky and hadn’t found their sound yet. The fourth was Marco’s, and he wasn’t happy about it.

He’d actually written two during our sprint to get ready and one of them did make the final cut. Let’s Go Out Tonight, similar in feel to Lyla’s One Night Stand, was pretty catchy and I really liked the bass melody he’d come up with for it. We’d had to do a lot of work on it yesterday, since other than the main melody, it was kind of flat and sounded one dimensional, but we’d made it work and Rowan had used it and Lyla’s song to break up the slower, more emotionally intense songs.

The song that didn’t make it was called Open Ecstasy about a wild night he’d had playing a gig while on psychedelics. It wasn’t terrible, but it really didn’t sound like us. At first, I’d thought maybe Rowan had cut it because of the drug references, but he’d pointed out it was more tame than One Night Stand which stayed in, and that a lot of big hits were about drugs.

“No,” he said. “Most of the songs on this album are about emotional subjects, like breakups or lost family members, so thematically it makes sense to end it that way. If we wanted to end it more upbeat, we’d have to move one of your two fun songs to the end, and it’ll cause pacing problems in other areas.”

“That’s why we should have kept Open Ecstasy. I’ve been saying all along we’re relying too much on the slower, emotional stuff,” Marco said. “No offense Charlie, but your songs are kind of a bummer, and I don’t think that’s really the message we want our first record to have.”

“I don’t know if I’d say the songs were a bummer,” Rowan said, seeing an argument I’d already had twice this week with Marco picking up again. “They are more serious, which is fine. These kinds of albums sell. Sure, people like a good bop; but it’s the songs that really hit home, that people listen to over and over. If you were going to do something harder and more upbeat, you would have needed more of those songs than you already have. We have two in already, and they work to break up the album, but more and it would just come off as muddled. We had to go with what you had coming in, and this is it. If you think you want to do different and this one sells well, there’s always the option to go that route next time.”

Rowan had been good about not taking sides in situations like this, and still steer us in one direction or another, so we didn’t bog down. If it had just been us, I was pretty sure we’d only be finishing the fourth song in the lineup about now instead of finalizing the album.

“I guess,” Marco said, still not sounding convinced. “Next time I think we need to have a better understanding of what we’re working on. Just playing whatever songs Charlie brings in isn’t going to push us to the next level.”

“I seem to remember you being there during the daily practices Marco,” Lyla said. “You could have brought this up at any time and you didn’t. We talked about the lineup every day, and this is the first time I’m hearing that everything is slow.”

“He has some good points,” I said, seeing Marco start to take the conversation personally, his face turning read. “I think Rowan’s right, though. It’s too late to do anything about it now. I also think Marco’s right that next time we need to think about what our goal is for the next batch of new music, and all of us work towards the same sound, rather than everyone doing their own thing and pitching it against the wall.”

“That’s all I was saying,” Marco said sullenly.

“How do you feel about this lineup?” Rowan asked, trying to get us back on track.

“Should we be frontloading our better songs like we are? Country Roads and Hush get the best response whenever we play them for audiences, and they’re the first two tracks. I know it used to be the more obscure stuff would go on the B side, since people didn’t want to flip the record as much, but that doesn’t matter when it’s digital, and I think it would flow better with Hush somewhere near the middle, maybe after One Night Stand.”

“Maybe not in direct digital sales, it still matters more than you’d think. Station managers will usually only listen to the first song or two when deciding if they want to put a new artist in their rotation, and they don’t have the time to dig through an entire record to see if they like everything. They listen to the first two songs and then hand it over to the DJs, who are more likely to listen further in and pick songs they want to play. That’s true with both traditional and satellite radio. Digital is all algorithm based, which means you either have to already have a fan base driving your plays up to the point where it pops into the feeds of people who’ve never heard of you, or you try to get some of the captured market from radio and satellite, who will then go and add it to playlists, which will then help drive you up in the algorithm.”

“I thought that’s what the marketing was for,” Hanna said.

“Partially, but a lot of the marketing the label does is to get it into the hands of station managers and producers at the satellite companies. The label has enough pull that they’ll give something they’re handed a listen, and maybe a few plays. If they get a good reaction, they’ll put it into rotation more. That’s not something a band off the street could do. The days where an unknown could send their CD to a DJ and get it on the air are gone.”

“I thought they’d do ads on social media and websites and stuff,” Seth said.

“Not for an unknown. Those kind of ads are more for awareness of a new release for established bands. Sure, if they put you there you’d get the occasional person to click on it, but mostly the only ones people respond to are for bands they know, but may not have known the band had a new release.”

“So there isn’t really any actual marketing, it’s just a shot at getting air time, and that’s it?” Hanna asked.

“Well, there’s some newer stuff like SoundScape, where people make short videos doing dances or lip-syncing to music and sounds. The label will sometimes pay people with big followings to use a clip from new song and see if they can get it to go viral. From what I’ve seen, it’s hit or miss what people are going to react to, so I’m not sold on that.”

“Do they do it on other platforms, too?”

“A little, but I don’t think there’s another video platform that translates into something like that, at least not with the same huge following. Beyond that, there’s things they’ll do here and there. Some of the streaming platforms, especially the ones where the listener can select types of music but not individual songs, will allow paid placement of songs from the label into people’s feeds, which really isn’t that different than traditional radio. Honestly, I’m not sure what the label is going to do. You’d be better off talking to Kent at the dinner he’s setting up for tomorrow night. He’ll go over the next steps, the tour and what you can expect as far as marketing. I’m just giving you generalities.”

“Can we go through the order one more time?” I asked.

I found all the marketing stuff interesting, but this was our last day in the studio and I wanted to make sure everyone was happy with how the songs came out and the order on the record before we started into the weeds of what came next.

As he started the tracks over and Country Roads started to play, I tried to push the thoughts about marketing and touring and fame aside, and focus on making sure this album was something I could be proud of.