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“Always,” Remy said and slid into another one of the chairs.
“You know Vivi Swan?”
“I don’tknowher,” Remy said, because this was LA and the producer might have meant the question literally. “I recorded on her last album, though. I never met her. We did everything separate.” He remembered the album well enough—though admittedly, he had a good memory. It was a series of breakup songs. Angry ones, sad ones, excited ones, dreamy ones. One breakup song after another.
“Oh, right, right,” the producer said. “She recorded the vocals in, like, Japan, right? Anyway, she’s doing a world tour, and her tour drummer just fell off a skateboard and fractured his elbow.” As he said this, he lifted his phone to show Remy a gossip site article on the incident, like Remy had asked for hard proof. “They leave in two weeks and need a replacement. I know Walter Cunningham, the tour manager, and told him you might want it. Interested?”
Remy lifted his eyebrows for two reasons:
One, because he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why a drummer experienced and talented enough to be a tour musician would risk being on a skateboard, a machine known for smashing bones.
Two, because this was a big job. Vivi Swan wasn’t a musician so much as a pop culture icon. A frequent fixture on Celeste’s websites, a tabloid staple, blond and tall and leggy and undeniably beautiful but also undeniably inhuman, in that way all megastars were. They were all over LA, these creatures from movies and music and reality shows, and in person they were always thinner, shorter, and stranger. They didn’t look like they belonged here; they looked like they were only pretending to be human, not made of carbon but perhaps neon or gold. Playing for someone like Vivi Swan wasn’t just a gig—it was a résumé throne.
“They’d need you about six weeks of the North American leg. You know the music already, it’ll be easy money,” the producer went on, and his voice sounded a little strained—Remy could tell he’d already told Vivi Swan’s people that Remy was a sure thing. “What’s your holdup?”
“Just short notice, that’s all,” Remy said. “Six weeks?”
“Yep,” the producer said. “Not too long. You went on longer tours than that with Quiet Coyote, didn’t you?”
“Eight months,” Remy said, nodding, even though he suspected a Vivi Swan tour bore little resemblance to him and Val touring in the Van, which they’d hastily graffitied QUIET COYOTE on the side of the night they signed with their label. Of course, Remy and Val had beentogetherfor that tour, which was perhaps the biggest difference of all. To go off on his own like this, to just say yes and leave Val alone for the first time in…well,ever—
The producer cleared his throat. “Look, Remy—I’ll be honest, I told them you were in. You never turn down jobs. I figured you’d jump at this.”
“I never turn downlocaljobs. I just—I’ve got some other engagements. I mean, don’t we have the next three weeks booked here?”
“I can find another studio drummer, man,” the producer said, starting to sound desperate. “I can’t believe you’re not freaking out. This is Vivi Swan. This will be killer for your résumé. You’ve said you want to do more producing—well, having Vivi Swan on your résumé, even if you were just her tour drummer, will open some serious doors.”
The producer wasn’t wrong—Remy knew breaking in as a producer in LA was every bit as difficult as breaking in as an actor or singer or photographer or whatever. It required schmoozing, required wrapping your arms around young starlets, required sunglasses and fedoras. Remy was not good at those things. This might be a chance, the only chance, and it was just six weeks, right?
Celeste could keep an eye on Val for six weeks. It’d be fine.
Remy took a deep breath, and that California feeling, that perpetual dream sensation, rattled around in his lungs, fighting expulsion.
“Yeah. Okay. I’m in,” Remy said briskly. His chest tightened with something not quite excitement and not quite fear.
The producer hurried to give Remy a list of phone numbers, oblivious to the fact Remy was fairly certain he was experiencing an existential crisis.
Theno one—thetalentwas the real term—they were expecting showed up a few moments later, sporting artistically unkempt hair and skinny jeans, with his own producer and girlfriend in tow. Skipper was a good producer, but no one used the studio’s producer anymore—not the way they used the studio’s musicians. The talent’s producer was marginal at best. He sat behind the controls, a forty nestled between his legs, and moved the controls up and down, accomplishing very little by way of changing the sound despite his claims that he was “getting a feel for the heart of the piece.”
They finished the track, then another, then waited while someone ran out to get the producer another bottle of beer. The talent was young, probably eighteen or so, though he’d already lined his arms with tattoos. He didn’t look tired or worn.
“Is this your first album?” Remy asked as they waited for the runner to return. The other musicians were on their phones or talking idly; Remy could tell the talent was only pretending to go over the notes on his music stand. That was something Remy’d always done when Val wasn’t in the studio to start a conversation or instigate a random jam or suggest a cash-prize relay race through the studio halls.
The talent shrugged, trying to look like he wasn’t excited, wasn’t worried, wasn’t just another music-loving teenager desperate to become something greater. “Did a demo last year. Did pretty well in my home region.”
“Which region?”
“Maine,” the talent said without blushing, which Remy appreciated. He respected people who weren’t ashamed of where they came from, no matter how small or how far away from Nashville or LA or New York. “We’re working on a second song,” he added.
Ah, the second song. People thought breaking into the music industry was difficult, but they were wrong. Breaking in with one song washardbut not really difficult. But getting a foothold, getting a second song? That was the real test. The steepest step of all. The worddifficultdidn’t do it justice.
“This could be it, man. Sounds great,” Remy said and smiled. He didn’t believe this, really, but he’d been wrong before. And besides, if the label realized the producer was crap and made a few changes, it really could be a totally serviceable pop song. Remy dared to entertain the idea that perhaps, after the Vivi Swan tour, he’d get recommended to produce the piece.
The talent nodded in appreciation, a glimpse of a grin on his face. The kid was only two or three years younger than Remy, but in music industry years, that was a decade. Remy fought the urge to give him advice: Save your money. Don’t get too excited. Having a backup plan isn’t the same as failing. Let someone else buy the drinks. Remember there are more of you. There are always more of you.
Remy didn’t tell him any of this, though, because he knew the talent wouldn’t listen. He’d been the talent once, after all, and he hadn’t listened when a handful of seasoned musicians had tried to tell him the same thing. Why listen to some downers in the recording studio when you could listen to the label, the press, the producers screaming YES in your ears?
Then
