Chapter 8 #2
“Okay,” Zack said, his voice carrying a dubious quality. “But let me know if you change your mind. There are four bedrooms here, so plenty of room for everybody.”
“What I like is this garage,” Braden said.
“Yeah, well, we better get good at these tracks before July, ‘cause I promise you won’t like it then.” On that note, we went through every single song twice, more than we’d ever done with the new songs before.
And it was easy to believe we had another successful album on our hands. We just had to get good enough to head into the studio to record it.
We had a festival date in California scheduled in mid-June where we hoped to test a couple of our new songs so we could see the crowd reaction when mixed with old favorites.
We knew that, after the costs and our per diems were taken off the earnings, we’d hopefully break even, but we were hoping to clean up with merch.
Zack still hadn’t had the money or the opportunity to switch the way merch was sold which would make more money for us, but there hadn’t been time.
We were excited about getting back in front of fans and eager to see what they thought about the new tracks.
Now that we’d started practicing, I’d discovered that the lyrics of a few of the songs got uncomfortably close to home.
Like “Burned It Down.” That felt like Zack’s confession to me, that he’d royally fucked up what we had and he was asking for my forgiveness…
and asking me to stay. The way he sang it, like his heart was on his sleeve, broke my heart.
It was the power ballad I’d complained about when we’d first heard the tracks…
and I knew our women fans probably would love it, a man saying he’d fucked up but wanted his woman to stay because he needed her… and he was a better man now.
Nice try, Zack.
When we played that song, I never looked up from my drums—not at Zack, not at Braden, and not even in Cy’s direction. I didn’t want to give anything away.
Then there was the song called “The Grind.” It was clearly about life on the road and his words captured exactly how it had felt to me.
Get up, brush your teeth, get on the bus, go a few hundred miles, perform, then rinse and repeat.
The song “Crumbling” clearly told the story of Zack falling apart as he gave into his addiction, and I suspected it would never be a single but it would be another fan favorite.
Zack’s voice hadn’t sounded this good in months.
He’d be ready to record when the time came.
But there was one other song that was like a punch in the gut.
It was the song called “Freezing,” the one I’d loved the music for.
The lyrics were again about a relationship gone wrong and how he felt like he was dying, left out in the cold, because I’d—or, rather, the woman in the song—had left him.
They were more poetry well-suited to the bluesy, mourning feel of the music itself.
If nothing else, Zack was a brilliant artist, thanks to his ability to express himself not only through music but words as well.
Maybe not so much in real life face-to-face with people, but when he had to create, when he was forced to put emotions on paper, he did it far better than anyone I’d ever known.
Part of his rock God persona was well-deserved, and he had to know it—and maybe that was part of why he was getting lots of ink…so he looked “legit.”
At the end of one rehearsal, Cy was talking about it. “I’d like to start getting some tats, but not until I can afford to not work other jobs during my downtime.”
“Nobody cares if you’re tattooed anymore, man,” Zack said.
“Maybe not in the jobs you do and maybe not even all the jobs I do, but if this shit doesn’t work out, I still need to figure out how to pay the bills.”
Braden said, “If you wear suits, you can cover a lot of them up.”
“I guess.”
Zack said, “We should all get Riot tattoos.”
Cy again spoke up. “That’s a bad way to spend what little money we have.”
“It’s not. It’s investing in our art. If we look like real rock stars, we’ll earn more money. And what if I pay for them and you pick where you want it?”
That was why we all got matching tattoos.
We all got the upside down bleeding heart that was part of our logo.
Although we’d all talked about getting them in different spots, each of us wound up having them put on our upper left shoulder.
I was a little bummed because I wouldn’t get to see it, but I figured it would look intriguing when I wore tank tops.
And, as we continued practicing the new songs, the controlling version of Zack began to re-emerge.
I knew that meant he would probably start drinking more—and I hoped that Cy, his new roommate, could help him stay sober more.
Maybe just his presence would help calm Zack’s inner beast. But, of course, Cy got a job at Walmart, meaning he wouldn’t be around much when we weren’t rehearsing.
And Braden was considering setting up a Cameo account to earn a few bucks here and there.
I, however, was trying to enjoy my downtime, because I knew it wouldn’t be long before we were back on the road.
As we approached summer and the first festival date, I wondered if I should find a job, but I didn’t want to leave after just a few weeks.
If we were near harvesting season, I could easily find day work picking vegetables and no one would care if I didn’t stay more than a week or so.
As it was, Cy was looking less like a rock star every day. He cut his hair and it was back to the black shade I was used to, so he had the look of a young executive.
Except some of the teenage girls who shopped there recognized him and made it hard for him to get his job done—even with a more traditional appearance. He managed to keep working, but he was relegated to stocking and different hours.
A week and a half before the festival, we’d settled on a playlist—all of the songs we’d played while on our first tour and three new ones, because we wanted to get our audience hyped for the new album but also gauge how they’d react.
And we had an interview scheduled with Roxy of Ferocity.
I’d only met her once and I hadn’t known her name at the time, during our interview in some hotel on our first tour when I’d had a horrible hangover, and I wasn’t sure what to think.
She seemed nice enough, but I’d been in bad shape that time.
We would be interviewing over Zoom again, and Zack asked that we all come to his grandpa’s house for it. But I started thinking of it as Zack’s place, even though he continued calling it his grandfather’s.
Zack had asked us to dress like we would if we were onstage, and I took him seriously, so I put on heavier makeup and, instead of pulling my hair back in a ponytail, I made it a little messy and big—and I wore a tank top that might show off my new tattoo if I turned just right.
Before firing up his laptop, Zack said, “I’m not gonna tell you what to say, but make sure you talk about the new album at least a little.
We wanna get people excited about it.” And then we took a few photos selfie-style in front of the garage door—but, even with Zack’s long arms, he didn’t get much more than our faces in the frame.
So we piled into the downstairs bathroom and he pointed his camera at the mirror. “Don’t smile so much, Dani. Look metal.”
I rolled my eyes at Zack, but I knew exactly what he meant—and the next pic was pretty cool.
When we logged in, we were greeted by Roxy French.
The last time we’d seen her, she’d had beautiful dark brown hair that cascaded around her face.
Today, it was a gorgeous deep purple, and she had it pulled back a little bit.
Something else I hadn’t noticed before was her arms. She had two full tattoo sleeves on display because she too was wearing a tank.
She couldn’t have been much older than we were, if at all. How the hell had she managed to afford all that ink? Surely writing for a rock magazine didn’t bring in that kind of cash. And, if it did, maybe I would have been better suited to it than playing drums.
“Hey, guys!” she said, her calm, slightly husky voice putting us at ease. “Thanks for making time to talk with me today.”
“We wouldn’t miss it,” Zack said. “Can you see all of us okay?”
Based on what our monitor showed us, I was pretty sure she could see us just fine—and she confirmed that. “Yeah.”
“I’m gonna send you a couple pictures of us through chat if you want to use them.”
“Awesome—but how about I chat you my email address? That way you can also include the copyright holder info and give me permission in writing to use them.”
“Consider it done. So what questions do you have for us?”
“Oh, my God. So many. How about I start with general questions for the band. Like…I know you guys are working on your new album. What can you tell me about that?”
We let Zack take the reins for that question—because, really, it was his baby.
He’d been the one who’d written the songs and, even though he’d been a little more relaxed with letting us make them our own, they were still his creation.
Roxy’s eyebrows raised when he began talking about the blues-infused sound.
“Is there any way I can hear a sample?”
“We’re gonna be at the Amped in Anaheim Fest week after next—and we plan to play three of our new songs.”
“No shit. I’m gonna be there.”
Zack put on his knee-buckling rock star smile…the one that used to make me melt. “We can’t wait to rock you hard.”
Braden of all people spoke next. “You’re not gonna believe the way Zack managed to do it. We think our fans are gonna eat it up.”
“I have to admit you’ve got me intrigued.”
She asked a lot of questions and, as time passed, I was starting to feel tired and bored, because most of the questions were geared toward Zack or the guys.
I started to wonder if maybe I’d been wrong all these years when I blamed it on misogyny—because we were being interviewed by a woman.
Then again, maybe she was enamored of the guys.
After all, the three men in the band were pretty hot.
But, I reminded myself, Braden was my guy and the only one I needed to care about.
Her next question, however, made me almost freeze. “So there’s a rumor, guys, that Zack and Dani are dating.”
Looking at our images in the laptop, I couldn’t miss how Braden’s face fell. How the hell should we answer that? But Zack took it before I could even try. “Uh…we kind of were—but not anymore.”
I nodded affirmatively while debating if I should take Braden’s hand in reassurance.
Roxy said, “Ah, your female fans will love hearing that. All the girls love you guys. And that’s not to make you feel bad, Dani. Women want to be you.”
What? I hadn’t even considered that. I’d always felt like the fifth wheel, like the outcast that no one wanted to acknowledge.
This was a first. “Seriously?”
“Hell, yeah. You’re a bad ass drummer in a field where not many women dominate. In fact, I’d love to interview you by yourself next month.”
“Oh…okay.”
“And I don’t want the rest of you guys feeling bad. Over the next year, I’d love to interview all of you by yourselves. But at the festival, let’s plan on doing a quick video interview.”
My bubble burst quickly knowing that I wasn’t any more special than the guys in my band—but then I realized that was okay. All I’d wanted was to feel equal and part of the group. Why did I have to feel special on top of that?
Then Braden said, “For the record, I’d like you to know that Dani and I are dating.”
For just a split second, I would have sworn it had grown so silent that I could have heard a pin drop—but, of course, that wasn’t true.
Zack had a fan blowing in the background and there were kids playing across the street, their voices occasionally easy to hear through the open window in the kitchen.
Zack said, “That shit’s off the record.”
Raising an eyebrow, Roxy jotted something on the little notepad she had. “I’m happy for you guys—but what a bummer for all those girls out there drooling over you, Braden. You’re a lucky lady, Dani.”
I knew I was…but I still didn’t feel like it.