Center Stage - Chapter 30

Up to this point, we’d done all of our recording in Raleigh. The studio was nice, but walking into a label’s primary recording studio, it was clear we’d been small time and they’d been up until that moment.

The equipment was state-of-the-art with the latest recording gear and mixing consoles. The recording spaces themselves were spacious and beautiful with what looked like wooden sound baffling, and incredibly comfortable accommodations.

Tran, who I guess would be our producer on the full album, was already inside and getting things set up. I’d asked Hal who we were going to have, and at the time he didn’t have an answer for me. I don’t know if he knew it was going to be Tran or not, and it didn’t really matter since, considering the money they were shelling out, it wasn’t like I could argue it very much. They were footing the bill, and we’d already made a lot of money with them, so it made more sense to just shut up and stick with the program.

We’d just gotten to the main recording studio when I heard Quinn’s voice unexpectedly behind me.

“Charlie,” she said, coming out of a small side room that looked to be some kind of waiting or green room. “Finally. I’ve been waiting forever.”

“What are you doing here?”

Quinn had moved her office to LA after I’d gotten my contract with ARC, and things had started taking off. I guess on the back of the work she’d done for me, she’d started picking up some smaller clients, which I’d signed off on when she’d proposed it. Warren had actually given me a heads up about it and made it clear that this was common for producers, publicists, and even managers to have multiple clients at the same time. I didn’t doubt him, and she’d told me she was going to keep me as a priority.

She’d kept her word too, so I knew she was going to be out here, but there wasn’t really any reason for her to come by the recording studio.

“What are you doing here?”

She gave me a somewhat smug smile and said, “I stopped by to go over the album release and tour marketing schedule. I know how you feel about it, so I figured I’d have an easier time getting you to sit still in person.”

“Since you already told me you’d have the schedule this week, that sounds more like you think it’s a lot worse than I’m expecting and think it’ll be easier to get me to agree to everything here than over the phone.”

“Just take a look,” she said, pulling a tablet out of her purse, turning it on, and handing it to me.

The more I scrolled through the calendar, the more I realized how right I’d been. “Jesus, Quinn. This is insane. Nearly a hundred call-in interviews? And a full week of travel between the album drop and Tokyo? And I’d talked to Hal about doing some call-in shows while I’m in Tokyo, but this is not some. This is like an hour every very early every morning I’m there! I’m not going to be getting any sleep.”

“You’ll manage, and it’s not as much as we should be doing. In any sane world, two weeks after an album drop you’d be out every day doing a dozen call-ins and in-person interviews pushing it. You wanted to have two whole weeks of nearly no interruptions, this is how we’re getting it done. Now, beyond the album release marketing we have to look at the pre-tour marketing, which is incredibly short.”

“If you mean other than those call-in interviews while I’m in Tokyo, then yes.”

“That is what I mean. You only have four days between the closing ceremonies and the start of your tour, and one of those is going to be spent mostly traveling, meaning we have to make the most of the final three days.”

“Which means?”

“Fifteen in-person interviews, maybe a dozen more call-ins.”

“Do you know how jetlagged I’m going to be, and then I have to perform a show right after that. There’s no way I can handle that.”

“Charlie, I don’t know how many times I need to say this, but this is how it has to be. If we had the two weeks you’re in Tokyo, maybe we could have made it work without pushing so hard, but this is the bed you made. Unless you don’t want the shows to sell well. You’re getting pretty popular, I’m not going to lie, but everyone has to sell their shows, especially at the venues you’re booked at. You wanna aim big, you gotta put in the work.”

I didn’t love that she was right, again.

“Fine. Just make sure I have the schedule and Warren has it.”

“It’s not all doom and gloom,” she said. “I did come bearing good news. The day after the album drops I’ve got you booked on The Late Show. That’ll be fun.”

“Maybe,” I said, not sounding like I believed it would be cool at all.

“Come on. It’s The Late Show. Your last appearance there went really well.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t have the best experience. The whole thing was just … weird. When the cameras went off, I might as well have been invisible. They kind of hustled me out as soon as it was over.”

“That’s just how those shows work. It’s not personal. They have a tight schedule and a lot of moving parts.”

“Maybe,” I said. It wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy feeling.”

“Well, warm and fuzzy isn’t what we’re going for here. If I have to say it again, I will. This is a business, Charlie. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do things you don’t love for the sake of your career.”

Knowing that and accepting it wasn’t the same thing. And it wasn’t just the Hayden interview.

“It seems you end every argument with ‘suck it up and do your job.’“

“Because that’s the truth every time. You’re paying me to do a job, and for me to do mine, you’ve got to do yours. I’m not in this for my health, Charlie.”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said.

“Charlie, we’re waiting,” Lyla called out from the recording booth where she and Seth had been talking to Tran.

I gave her a wave and said to Quinn, “Just get them all set up and don’t mind my grumbling. I’ll do it.”

“Good,” she said, taking the tablet back and heading to the front door.

I watched her go for a second and then headed back into the recording booth where all the equipment was sitting.

“Sorry, Quinn needed to talk to me.”

“Yeah, she’s been hovering around since I got here,” Tran said, reaching out and offering his hand. “It’s good to see you again.”

“You too,” I said, shaking his hand.

“I know we got off on the wrong foot last time, so I wanted to start off by apologizing and saying I was wrong and you were right about End of the Blues. People are loving it and I’ve read a lot of reviews talking about how much you understand the history of the genre. Clearly I have some learning to do. So, I’m sorry about that and I’ll try and be more open-minded this time.”

“Thanks, Tran. I appreciate you saying that.”

He gave a nod and released my hand, “So, let’s talk about the album. I’ve listened to the temp tracks you recorded and you guys have done a lot of work. I like that it’s more focused than your last album, with a pop-rock basis underscoring everything. It feels cohesive but I wanted to see if you had any feeling of an overall theme of the album.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I didn’t really have a coherent plan or anything when I wrote the songs. I just … had ideas and ran with them.”

“Really?” Seth asked, actually looking a little shocked.

“Uhh, yeah. Why?”

“Because I was almost certain you two had discussed some kind of idea, because it was all so cohesive. Hell, I wrote Velocity to try and match it. Well, I wrote the words, at least.”

Seth was still a little gun shy after what happened with accidental plagiarism. We’d managed to rewrite the music while keeping the sound right for what he’d written, and I’d insisted he keep sole writing, partly for his self-confidence and partly for the separate earnings he could make on it for licensing.

I hadn’t, however, realized the thought he’d put into it when he’d written it.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know if you two were doing it on purpose, but I tried to match what you both were doing.”

“I’m not sure I was doing anything on purpose,” Lyla said. “I just liked the ideas.”

“Me either,” I said.

“What do you think it’s about?” Tran asked.

“I mean, it seemed all of the songs were about figuring out who you are or where you belong. I guess, if I had to put it into words, it’s like, about identity and self-discovery.”

I thought about it, and he actually wasn’t wrong. I mean, a few were a stretch, but even those, an argument could be made. The furthest would be End of the Blues, which was more about losing an identity, but even that could be argued for self-discovery. Some of the ones about finding love would also be a bit of a stretch, but a lot of it was on the nose. Smallville Dreams, Rust Belt Revival, Starlight Fever, and Shadows and Silence were all exactly about this.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said.

“Like, it’s all about finding the unexpected path,” Seth said.

“That’s not bad,” Lyla said.

“What?”

“As a name,” she explained. “Unexpected Paths. I mean, it works for the songs, but I think it also works for you, right? Your path here was certainly unexpected. And it kind of fits with Country Road.”

“Huh,” I said.

“That’s not bad. We have time to think about it over the week,” he said, and then stared at the list of songs for a minute, tapping his finger on the back of the chair next to him. “So, I think yeah, we can do two a day and get all of these down without needing another massive fourteen-hour day, like we did with the EP. The good thing is, you have three songs down, so we really only have like ten to go.”

“Good, ‘cause I don’t know if we could keep that up for a full week,” I said.

“Yeah, I get it. So I think I want to group recording by genre, since you’ve got a few ballads and then some heavier stuff mixed in. For today, I think I want to do Wild Fire Heart and Rust Belt Revival since from what I heard they are the hardest of the songs you have. Unless we hit any problems, I think we’ll get them all in the can by Friday. Start thinking about song order, though. We have some time, but they’re wanting to fast track this, which means having answers when we turn in the masters. I’ll put down some notes as we record, but you should be thinking about it too.”

“Okay, I’ll do that,” I said.

The day actually went really well and we didn’t have nearly the same problems we’d had the last time I’d worked with Tran. He still made suggestions and had alterations, but they were more minor than anything else and helped the existing flow of the songs.

It helped that we’d worked out the songs a lot ahead of time so we had a clear vision for each one, but it had already become apparent that no song was done all the way and needed the help of a professional. He took Rust Belt Revival more rock than I’d originally intended, going for a classic rock feel that really played into my roots.

As far as sellability went, I wasn’t sure how big of a seller this one would be. It felt very throwback. But it was very true to me, which is why I thought it was a little bit of a surprise that he’d make those suggestions, since last time it was all about the sellability of the song.

Maybe Hal or someone had talked to him, because his attitude was completely different. If it stayed like this, he would definitely be a producer I’d be happy to work with again, instead of being annoyed seeing him.

True to his word, Tran kept us for about nine hours, which was a long day, but a far cry from fourteen. Better yet, at the end of it, we had two solid songs in the can and done.

We were standing in the booth, just talking about the plan for tomorrow, when one of the sound techs stuck his head in the room and asked, “Hey, uh, you guys expecting someone or a delivery?”

Jean, who’d replaced Manna several hours earlier, looked up from her place on one of the couches and asked, “Why?”

“Well, there’s this car that’s driven by like, three times now. I swear I saw it earlier too, when the big guy was here. The only reason I noticed it was because it’s got this weird bumper sticker my ex had that I always hated.”

“Show me,” Jean said, getting up and pushing the guy out of the room and toward the front where you could see the streets through the window.

Jean’s reaction was enough to get all of our interest up and we all followed them, until there was a small gathering behind her and the sound tech.

“That sedan up there,” he said, pointing in the direction of the car. “I don’t think I would have given it a second thought but it also has all those bumper stickers on it, which is kind of weird for such a nice car, you know?”

I followed his finger to a very nice black luxury car idling about half a block away. I could see why it would stick in his head. Bumper stickers alone would have stood out, but the ones this had really made you look twice. I couldn’t read many of them, but the ones I could read from this far away were out there conspiracy stuff.

Jean started for the door and I started after her until she stopped and shoved her hand out, open palm striking me in the chest. It didn’t hurt, but it felt kind of like I’d hit a brick wall. I could feel the power behind it, however, and had felt Chef give me something similar when he was teaching me to spar. I knew, almost instantly, that she wanted to knock me on my ass and leave me gasping for breath, she could have. And how much skill it took to have the kind of control she’d just displayed. She’d hit me with exactly as much force as she’d meant to, and not an ounce of pressure more or less.

“Stay,” she said, giving me a look that made it clear I had no choice in the matter.

Then she was out the door, moving crazy fast. The car’s engine revved. Whoever was inside had clearly spotted her. She slid across the hood of a parked car like something out of an action movie and took off after the vehicle in a full-out sprint. As soon as she burst out of the door, the car revved its engine and began to take off.

Even with that, for a second, I thought she might actually catch up, which was crazy, I know. I think she realized it too, since as the car accelerated, she slowed to a stop. She stood there for a minute, watching it disappear around a corner before turning back to the studio.

She was on her phone talking to someone as she walked back inside.

“…just get on it. And Malik know we’re switching to the paired schedule right now. So get your ass back up here,” she said, and then hung up, putting the phone back in her pocket before pointing to the studio. “Get back in there until Manna gets back here.”

“What’s happening?” I demanded.

“We’ll handle it.”

“No. I stayed where you said. I’m going to go back there and follow your instructions, but I deserve to know what’s happening. Is that him? Is it the guy?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. We’ll have to assume it is until we know otherwise.”

I couldn’t believe this guy would follow me across the entire continent. I thought maybe we’d have been able to leave him a few thousand miles away. It terrified me to think this person hated me so much that he’d come all the way out here.

“That means starting now, we’re on high alert. You are not to walk out of this building without one of us. And then you’re to be locked in the hotel room. No going out to restaurants or anywhere else. If you want something, it’ll be brought to you.”

Part of me wanted to say screw that, I wasn’t going to allow this person to make me a prisoner in my own life, but I didn’t. He had followed me, which meant this wasn’t someone trying to get famous or troll me or even who just hated my music.

This was someone who meant it when they said they wanted to hurt me. They were serious, and dangerous, and I could see it in Jean’s eyes. She was stern and serious as always, but there was now an undercurrent of worry I couldn’t ignore.

“Okay. I understand.”

“It’ll be fine, Charlie. We’ll keep you safe. It’s our job.”

I didn’t point out presidents had the best bodyguards in the world, and several of them had died. It seemed like, if someone was crazy enough and determined enough, nothing was going to stop them.

I just hoped this guy didn’t fall into that category.