Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
Eric
? Just Say When - Nothing More ?
As always, I was the first to arrive at the studio we’d rented out for the month. I plopped down on the blue velvet couch in the back room and unpacked the Thai I picked up on my way in. I was halfway through when Josh showed up, followed soon after by Kevin and Max.
We were close to finishing our third album, Fade, when the record label contacted us and requested we do a collaboration with a new band they’d just signed—a group of four sisters called Murphy’s Law.
They’d sent a few of their tracks over for us to listen to in order to get familiar with their style and their lead singer’s vocal range, and I was immediately intrigued.
Amy Murphy’s voice was like nothing I’d ever heard before—full and rich and hauntingly beautiful.
“Wrote three more last night,” Josh said, tossing a notebook down on the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Jesus, how do you do that?” I asked, setting my Pad See Ew to the side and turning the notebook toward me, reading through the lyrics on the first page.
Josh shrugged and let out a heavy sigh.
“Turns out writing lyrics for angry rock songs is easier when you’re in the middle of a divorce.”
I leaned back into the couch and ran a hand over my face.
Josh and his almost ex-wife, Emily, had been married less than two years.
When he met her, he’d fallen hard. I’d never seen him with a woman like he’d been with her—all in from the start—and I hated seeing him so down about the whole thing coming to an end.
Kevin picked the notebook up and read through Josh’s words as Max looked on over his shoulder.
“Do you have a melody or anything for these?” Max asked and Josh shook his head.
“Nothing concrete,” he said, picking at his nails.
I saw motion out of the corner of my eye, and when I looked toward the doorway, I found myself staring into the eyes of the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.
I stood from the couch and the other three looked up to see what had snagged my attention.
“Hi,” the woman said, setting a giant bag on the floor inside the door. She stepped forward and extended her hand to Josh, because of course she did. They always went for Josh first. “I’m Amy.”
“Josh,” he said, taking her hand. “It’s great to finally meet you. I listened to your album. Your vocal range is insane.”
Her cheeks flushed and her shoulders slumped a little, like she didn’t know what to do with Josh’s compliment. Like she wasn’t used to people telling her she was a powerhouse.
“Thank you,” she said, her hand still in his. “That means a lot, coming from you. I’ve been a fan of yours since I heard ‘Echoes in the Dark.’ Your voice is sick on that track.”
Josh flashed his signature smile, and I wanted to punch him. Five minutes ago, he’d been down about Emily, and right now I don’t think he’d be able to pick her out of a lineup.
Amy’s eyes finally left Josh’s irritatingly perfect face and moved to look around the room at the rest of us. She let go of his hand before stepping around him and introducing herself to Max, then Kevin, and finally, me.
When she looked up into my eyes, I forgot how to speak.
I’d known she was beautiful when she walked through the door but seeing her up close was something else entirely.
She was a tiny little thing, standing at five foot three, with big, brown eyes and long dusty pink hair that was pulled into a high ponytail.
“Eric,” I blurted. “I’m Eric.”
“Nice to meet you, Eric,” she said, smiling. God damn, that smile. It was wide and striking and made a few lines form at the corners of her eyes. She had a small gap between her teeth that gave her a sense of innocence that intrigued me.
We invited her to sit and look over the songs Josh had brought in, and she went right to work, a crease forming between her brows as she studied the lyrics and flipped through the pages.
“Alright, feel free to tell me to fuck off,” she said, crossing one leg over the other and flipping back to the second page.
“I think this one is incredible, but I think we could take it to another level if we turn it into a duet. There are two sides to every breakup, right? So, we take your side here,” she pointed to the first verse.
“But I write a second verse. Make it about the fact that you’re going through some shit, but so am I.
The chorus and bridge will still work as you have them.
” She looked up at Josh like she was waiting for him to tell her to go to hell, but he looked—interested.
“Let’s try it,” he said. “Whatcha got?”
“Well, off the top of my head…” she trailed off, studying Josh’s words and chewing on her thumbnail for a bit. “What about something like this?” She sang the words like she’d been carrying them in her head for years instead of minutes.
“Holy shit,” I said. Apparently out loud. Everyone turned to me, and I swallowed nervously. “Sorry, I can’t believe you just…did that. Pulled those lyrics and melody out of thin air.” Her cheeks turned pink, and she bit her lip.
“That melody is beautiful,” Josh said, moving to the edge of his seat.
“Let me see that.” He motioned for her to hand him the notebook and she did.
He placed it on the table and pulled the pen from behind his ear, scratching words out and writing new ones that fit better with the melody she presented.
With the timing in my head, I walked out of the lounge, into the tracking room, and over to the kit the studio provided and started messing around with a beat, Max and Kevin following soon after with their guitars.
This was my favorite part of songwriting—laying down the foundation to carry the words. Experimenting with different patterns and dropouts until we found what worked.
An hour later, we had something we were all on board with, so Josh fired up his laptop, opened Pro Tools, and hit record.
We ran through it a few times, stopping every once in a while to re-write a line or change a chord.
Amy’s voice had been incredible on their album, but I think she sounded even better live, and I was amazed that such a big, strong sound came out of such a small person.
“Not that I don’t love all of you,” Amy said, looking at me, Kevin, and Max. “But can we try something different on this next run?”
“What are you thinking?” Josh asked.
“Strip it down,” she said. “All of it. Max, do you have an acoustic here?”
“Yeah, I have my twelve string. I’ll go grab it,” he said, removing his electric from across his shoulders and setting it in one of the stands against the wall.
“Shit, acoustic,” Josh said, the wheels turning in his head. His brow creasing instantly, thinking through the options.
“I can get my brushes,” I said, standing from my kit.
“No,” Amy said. “I literally mean strip it. No drums, no bass—nothing but the acoustic.”
Max tuned his guitar and came back into the room a few minutes later, and the three of them went through it once while Kevin and I watched in awe.
Amy had been right—it was good with all of us, but it was a hit without us. Without my drums or Kevin’s bass, the raw emotion in Josh and Amy’s voices shone through. This song should be about the words and pulling it back to an acoustic guitar was the right move.
“Strings,” Josh said as soon as they finished the first acoustic run.
“Fuck yes,” Amy agreed, closing her eyes and moving her hand through the air—as if she could see the instruments in front of her. “Violins and a cello.”
“None of us play those, do you?” Josh asked.
“No, but I can put something together in Pro Tools,” she said. “I’ll go mess around with that and you guys can work on whatever else you have.”
Amy stepped out of the tracking room and slung the giant bag she’d dropped against the wall earlier over her shoulder before disappearing through the door of the control room and down the hall.
“Yo, Eric,” I snapped my eyes to Kevin. Then Max and Josh. They were all staring at me.
“I’m sorry, what?” I asked. They all laughed.
“You’re the deciding vote.”
Fuck.
“Between…?” I asked, admitting I hadn’t been paying attention.
“Are we breaking or are we powering through?”
“How’s your voice?” I asked Josh.
“I’m good.”
“Then I say let’s get this shit done.”
We spent the next hour laying out one of the other songs Josh wrote the night before and re-recording one we’d done yesterday after figuring out we wanted to change the key.
After we got through those two songs, Josh called for a break to rest his voice before heading to the kitchen to make some tea. Kevin stepped outside to call his wife, and Max walked off to the bathroom. Left alone in the room, I decided to check in on Amy.
When I walked through the door, she looked up at me and smiled before pulling her headphones down and resting them around her neck.
I sat next to her on the couch and, to hide the fact that I did it because I wanted to be as close to her as possible, I immediately asked her how it was going with the backing strings.
“I think I have it,” she said. “I just need Josh to send me the file from the acoustic run-through so I can lay it over what I have to make sure it works.”
“Can I hear it?” I asked, and she looked away and shifted like she was nervous. “Hey,” I placed my hand gently on her arm. “You’re brilliant.” I said, trying to reassure her. “Josh came in here with words on a piece of notebook paper, but you? You gave it life.”
She nodded once and smiled.
“Thank you,” she said, and then we just sat there—my hand on her arm and our eyes locked. I could feel her pulse thrumming under the thumb that was resting against her wrist and breathed a sigh of relief knowing that her heart was hammering as wildly as mine.
She looked away first, smiling and biting her lip before removing her headphones from around her neck and placing them over my ears. I needed to adjust them a little to fit better on my giant head while she turned her attention back to her screen.
“Ready?” she asked, and I gave her a thumbs up. She pressed play and I closed my eyes, ready to let the music she made take me somewhere else.
It began with one deep, vibrating note from the cello and then dropped out again for a while before coming back in and dropping out again. It was haunting and lovely. Even without Josh’s vocals, I could already feel the emotion of their lyrics in these notes.
A few beats passed and then layers of higher notes from the violins came in and goosebumps covered my skin.
The chorus of notes built and built into a beautiful crescendo—and then they stopped.
Just when I was about to open my eyes to see if it had been the end, the cello came back in for one last long, sweeping note as the hair on my arms stood at full attention.
I opened my eyes and looked over to see Amy staring expectantly at me. I pulled the headphones off my ears and shook my head in disbelief.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, and she smiled wide.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
I had never wanted to kiss someone I didn’t know as badly as I wanted to kiss her in that moment, and I probably would have tried if Josh and Max hadn’t come back into the room.
“Hey, Josh,” Amy said as he set his cup of tea on the side table beside one of the recliners. “Can I get the file from the last run-through? I think I have something.”
Josh went back into the tracking room and grabbed his laptop. Once he found the file, he AirDropped it to Amy’s laptop, and she put her headphones back on to match everything up. It took a few minutes, but she removed her headphones and said, “Alright, I think this will work.”
We got her laptop connected to the Bluetooth speaker Josh brought with him, and we called Kevin in from outside before we all gathered around to listen.
She’d kept the first verse and chorus as they’d recorded it—just Josh’s voice and Max’s guitar.
The first cello I’d heard came in as the first chorus ended and faded back out right before she started her verse.
After her first two lines, it crept back in again, sounding incredible beneath her lower register.
The violins came in as Josh began the second chorus, and built through that chorus and the bridge, before dropping out again leaving just their voices and Max’s guitar until Max hit his last chord at the end and the cello re-appeared.
Goosebumps covered my body again as that last note hung in the air. No one spoke for a long moment, letting it settle in the air around us as long as possible.
“Wow,” Max said on an exhaled breath.
“It’s incredible, Amy,” Josh said. “Absolutely perfect.”
Amy breathed an audible sigh of relief before closing her laptop and throwing her head back into the couch.
“Were you nervous?” Kevin asked, chuckling.
“I have never been more nervous in my life,” she said, head still back against the couch.
“I have looked up to you guys for so long, I just—well, you know what they say about meeting your heroes.” She finally looked at us then, biting her lip when her eyes met mine.
“But you guys have been amazing. So, thank you. For listening to me, for trusting me…for just—being amazing human beings and making this so much fun.”
“You’re going to have an incredible career,” Max said, and we all nodded in agreement.
Amy relaxed after that. She could have left after the song was tracked, but she didn’t. She stayed to watch us record the last few songs on our list, before we all packed up and headed outside. Kevin and Max left first, leaving Josh, Amy, and me standing on the sidewalk outside the studio.
“Any chance you want to grab a drink before you head home?” Josh asked Amy, and my blood pressure spiked.
Irrational? Maybe. But it irritated me that Josh, who was heartbroken over his marriage failing mere hours ago, was hitting on her.
Not because I was delusional enough to think she was somehow mine because we shared a moment on a couch, but because I knew Josh.
He truly was broken up over Emily, and I knew that meant he’d fuck around with Amy and use her as his rebound, leaving her heartbroken in the end.
“Actually,” she said, looking over at me. “I was kind of hoping Eric would want to go to dinner?”
“Of course,” I said without hesitation. “I’d be honored.”