Putting an elbow on the table, I rested my head on my hand and barely listened as Jen continued to sum up the possible candidates to be picked for the album. Day three and we had hardly settled on anything. What was wrong with us? Was this what it was like to be in charge of your own work? Was this what we had been fighting for for so long?
The biggest problem was that we were five people with five different tastes and five different opinions that were supposed to think as one. How do music groups ever get things done, I wondered, wincing slightly as the headache that had been lurking since morning decided to make its presence more apparent. AJ shot me a look, dramatically sighing and rolling his eyes and I smiled back at him. At least I was not the only one who thought this whole song picking thing took too long.
How did we even manage to record 32 songs?
I was busy playing with the water bottle in front of my face before I realized Jen had stopped talking. I looked up at the sudden silence and felt Kevin’s gaze burning me down. “What?” I mumbled.
“Anything to add to that?” Kevin asked, narrowing his eyes.
“Not really,” I said slowly, wondering if that was the right answer. I saw Howie roll his eyes and knew that it wasn’t.
“Alright, let’s not dwell on songs, we have limited time,” Jen reminded us patiently, knowing that we usually analyzed every little bit out of them until the point that nobody really liked the songs anymore. I looked around the conference table carefully, seeing the tired faces of my bandmates. AJ’s hands were nervously picking at a tiny hole in the table, Howie’s mouth was pressed into a thin line and his face was tense, Kevin was uselessly rocking back and forth on the legs of his chair and Brian already looked asleep.
Shortly said; our nerves were fried.
“Define what not dwell means,” I said, smiling knowingly at Howie.
“There’s no time limit, just don’t dwell,” Jen repeated unfazed. “Play ‘Be Your Soldier’,”
I bopped my head to the beat for the duration of the song. The more I listened to it, the more I liked it.
Howie and I wrote it after all.
“The chorus just doesn’t do it for me; the song is great-” I looked up at Brian’s words, surprised that he’d finally decided to wake up. Not that he really had been sleeping, but the entire day he’d had something disinterested about him, just like the two previous days.
And now he didn’t like my chorus.
“I agree, but as a subject matter,” Kevin interjected, “I like what the song is saying.”
“It’s cool,” Brian relented, “But the chorus- “I’ll be your soldieeer”, it doesn’t do it.”
I narrowed my eyes as his voice cracked on the word soldier. Him and his chorus. Nobody else had a problem with it, right? “I disagree,” I said tightly, “I think the chorus is actually good.” I looked straight at Brian, who raised his eyebrows.
“I like the verses...” Howie said slowly, pausing, “I hear what you’re saying on the chorus.”
That traitor.
“It’s just that one little...,” Brian continued, humming the melody, “it bothers me.”
“- I can sing this with conviction,” Kevin said, “because it means something to me.”
“I know, it’s just the melody,” Brian muttered.
I sighed, feeling the frustration build up underneath my skin. Brian was steadily getting on my nerves and he knew it very well. Why was he so bothered with that chorus? He wasn’t even on it.
Maybe that was the problem.
“I’m not comfortable with changing the chorus of this song,” I stated as calmly as I could manage. Everyone started talking at once, like I had made a big announcement, “No, no, no, no,” I said as Howie laid a hand on my shoulder, “You don’t have to do that to me, I’m fine, I’m just saying.”
I was not very good at hiding anger or frustration, I noticed as Kevin jokingly started to calm me down. I could see Brian out of the corner of my eye stoically staring ahead. He was better at hiding his feelings, apparently. Or he just didn’t care.
“Nick’s getting red,” Kevin warned, smiling at my expense.
“No!” I said in a higher pitch than I had intended, “people are gonna... if it’s not on a record, we’re gonna be regretting it.”
“My point is,” Brian said, willfully staring at me in particular and I knew he was going to push every single one of my buttons, I just didn’t know why, “I still don’t like it, whether you change it or not, I still don’t like it.”
“I’ve heard your point,” I said slowly.
“I know,” he drawled, “And we see your point.”
He wanted a fight, I was sure of it. He always knew exactly what to say and when to say it, and there was no way he accidentally ever said the wrong things. He was challenging me in front of everybody, criticizing my song and humiliating me with my poorly hidden aggravation. He wanted me to snap, he was waiting for it, almost counting on it.
Why?
I stared down as the others tried to make light of the situation. By now some of them had figured what Brian was trying to accomplish and they did their best to diffuse the tension that was slowly building between him and me. I smiled and shrugged, delaying the moment Brian was aiming for.
“Alright, next song,” Jen announced finally and I saw a sigh of relief pass through Kevin and Howie next to me.
“We haven’t decided yet,” Brian interjected. I swear the whole room did a collective eye-roll. What the hell was he doing? He was getting on everyone’s nerves now, why did he have to be so damn annoying. I preferred him being half asleep like yesterday.
“Will you shut up about the fucking song?” I asked harshly. “You’re dwelling.”
“We could do a different version maybe,” Brian continued, ignoring my request. AJ looked at me like he had no idea what was going on anymore.
“The current version is fine,” I grumbled.
“You might want to hear everybody about that,” Brian countered.
“You’re just pissed cause you don’t have any leads,” I muttered.
“You wanna hear what everybody has to say about it,” Brian repeated, pretending he didn’t hear what I said.
“You’re not gonna get it either,” I said, studying my water bottle. If Brian could blatantly push my buttons, then I could press his. I just wanted him to explode first. The room had suddenly gone quiet and I felt the stares of the others on me and Brian as our argument slowly escalated.
“I don’t care about your leads,” Brian said in a constricted voice, indicating that he actually did care.
“Sure you do,” I drawled, “you don’t like the chorus, because you want the chorus. Don’t pretend that isn’t true, you said it yourself.”
“Maybe in a different version-”
“See!”
“Would you shut the fuck up and let me talk?” There it was. The little hypocrite swore in front of a camera.
Ha! I leaned forward as I pointed a finger sharply in his direction.
“You shut the fuck up!,” I yelled, finally letting the frustration that had been building for the better part of the afternoon explode in Brian’s face. I pointedly stabbed a finger in his direction.
“Listen-” Brian started.
“Shut the fuck up!” I repeated, determined not to let Brian finish one more sentence. Everybody was so done with him, couldn’t he just see that?
“You-” he tried again, only to be cut off for a third time.
“You shut the fuck up!” I felt like my mind was going to explode in anger. I didn’t care about the camera that was now curiously floating around me. People had heard me swear dozens of times on TV and in public; I didn’t get what the big deal was.
“You-” Brian just didn’t know how to quit, did he? “You wanna hear everyone around the t-”
“I swear, don’t fucking talk to me that way!” I growled, “I swear to God.”
“I’ll talk to you however I wanna talk to you,” Brian stated defiantly, looking at me as if I were nothing but a little kid that he needed to put straight. And there you had it; that obvious lack of respect just because he was older. But just because I was thirteen when he met me, doesn’t mean I’m still thirteen. When was he ever going to treat me with some respect? When was he ever going to stop pretending like he was better than me for some reason? Sure, I have been pretty messed up throughout the years, but so was he. The difference between him and me was that I had finally owned up to that fact, and he never has. I decided to make my point clear.
“Don’t talk to me that way, you don’t get respect out of me that way,” I warned him, but he didn’t seem to care as he continued about his mantra of hearing everybody around the table. I decided to turn it up a notch.
“Don’t be a fucking dick like everyone knows you are,” I sneered as he continued to defy me, “You understand what I’m saying? Don’t be a fucking dick,” I tried to inform him, but could tell he didn’t hear a thing of what I was saying, as he went on about hearing everybody’s opinion, “Don’t be a dick!” I exploded to get his attention. By now I could tell that everybody was pretty much tired of this fight, and I was too. I just wanted to make Brian and his stupid, ignorant stubbornness see why he couldn’t get every lead on every song that he wanted. “Trust me, you don’t want it from me baby,” I tried to warn him again.
Brian threw himself back in his chair and looked at me challengingly, “Dude,” he said with an irritating grin, the lack of respect again apparent on his face.
“I’m not afraid of you anymore!” I cried out, watching with some satisfaction as Brian began to frown. I had never spoken those thoughts out loud and it was clear that he had no idea what I was talking about. The grin fell from his face and he looked at me with growing confusion.
“What, and you were afraid of me?” he asked incredulously. He had a point, considering I was almost a head bigger than him. There had just always been something about him that I’d found quite intimidating.
Like he was too perfect for me to ever cross him. Like he was the almighty Greek God that would save the day and was obviously better at everything than anybody else. And now that he wasn’t perfect anymore, I stopped being afraid, and started being angry and disillusioned. But he obviously didn’t know any of these deeply hidden beliefs. Nevertheless, I tried to explain it as I felt Kevin’s hands on my shoulders that tried to put out some of the flames that roared deep inside of me.
“No,” I said in a high pitched voice, “he knows what I’m talking about, dude! He knows exactly what I’m talking about, we all know what I’m talking about!” I stood up, ignoring the warning eyes of the people around me that told me to immediately drop it. Because they did know what I was talking about, and they didn’t want to have this conversation.
“What about fucking vocals on songs, are we gonna talk about that?” I spat, “are we gonna talk about the fact that you don’t necessarily sound as good as you used to?”
There. I said it. I saw him wince, despite him trying to hide it by taking a sip of his water. A shadow had fallen over his eyes as he shrugged, trying to be nonchalant, “Is that what you wanna talk about?” he asked, his voice far more quiet than before, “Let’s talk about it.”
I continued my rampage, at that point not caring where it lead me or what regrettable things I might say, “Are we gonna talk about when producers come to us and tell that they got problems because of your fucking voice?”
I had crossed a line. I had broken the frail truce that had silently existed between the five of us. I could almost hear it break. Brian’s face turned cold as he directly stared at me. “Yeah, cause I can’t do your job anymore,” He said calmly, a detached look in his eyes.
I knew that he had no idea that producers had actually come to us, instead of directly to him. I could see how much the information hurt. I also remembered how stupid I looked when producers asked that question and I had no idea how to answer, because I didn’t know what was going on with his voice. He never, ever talked about it.
“No, it’s the truth,” I said, trying to ignore Kevin’s increasing attempts at calming us, primarily me, down; talking about places of love and anger and all that bullshit. “I’m not being angry,” I exclaimed angrily, “I’m fucking being real, cause everyone just wants to sugarcoat it. Everyone wants to sugarcoat it, let’s fucking bring it out in the open,” I spoke so fast, I couldn’t even keep track of my own words anymore. Kevin went on and on about his place of love and Brian just stared at me, suddenly have gone completely silent. I saw his defenses had completely shattered and suddenly, I couldn’t stop myself anymore, spewing out the frustrations that had developed over the course of the album cycle. Kevin didn’t back down, and now Jen was trying to interfere as well. Why was everybody always so behind Brian and so against me?
“Stop!” I exclaimed at Kevin and Jen. AJ and Howie wisely kept their thoughts to themselves and Brian tried to look everywhere except at me. “When producers come to us,” I started again, a little slower this time, “and say, what is wrong with Brian’s voice? What’s happening with his voice?” Brian made a brave attempt to look at me and nodded, as if he understood where I was coming from. “And then you wanna sing on the records dawg, and you sound great on the records cause you could do a fucking little bit of editing,” I went on, the tempo of words already breaking the speed limits again, and my voice in a pitch I only recognized as me being angry. I looked at the pain and anger on Brian’s face as I took his pride and ego and smashed it to the ground, stomping on it as I went. Because he and I both knew that he required a shit ton of editing to sound decent on the record, whereas in the past, that had never ever needed to happen before. “But when we got to go on stage and sing that shit, when we got to go do a world tour, I mean, this is the kinda... this is all I’m trying to say!”
I backed off a little bit at the strange hatred I saw appearing on his face. Brian had never looked at me like that before. His face was tense and his mouth was firmly pressed into a thin line as he observed me and I sensed that the hatred was not directed at me. “Yeah, but you take the good and the bad, dawg,” he finally said after I had scattered everything he had been afraid to hear over the table, “you take the good and the bad, we’re a group.” He sounded assured and collected, but I could see that he was on the verge of storming out of the room and away from the crushing pressure we were laying on him. I continued to argue with Kevin, who found it appropriate that I sit down and act like an adult. Good old Kevin always found it necessary to bump in and get involved in a fight, just so he could try and settle it. He would calmly evaluate the situation as if it were something we should look at from a distance and try and figure it out.
I paced around, letting Kevin do the talking for a minute as I tried to regain control over myself. He was right, as usual. There was a lot of baggage that was coming out. Brian used to be my best friend and we used to know each other to the point that I could almost read his thoughts. Now, Brian’s eyes were those of a stranger’s to me and I wondered where it had gone so wrong that we had merely turned into colleagues, at best. I missed the carefree Brian with a heavenly voice that hadn’t been ripped apart by countless years of stress and anxiety. I missed the way we used to get on the other guys’ nerves, instead of on each other’s. And I hated myself for letting it come to this, even though it wasn’t particularly my fault. I hated how I had been too swallowed up in my own misery that I had never noticed his struggles and crumbling facade until it was too late.
Was it too late?
“Yeah, we need to talk about Brian’s vocal issues, we need to find a way to make it work,” Kevin said in a neutral tone of voice. I nodded swiftly, not bearing to look at Brian and the lost expression on his face.
“That’s all I’m saying,” I muttered with a sigh.
“I think this is an appropriate time to get dinner and take a break,” Jen suggested and we all grunted our approval. I got up, muttering something about stretching my legs and left the suffocating room. I rolled my eyes as I heard Howie’s voice behind me.
“You’re going to give me a lecture as well?” I drawled when he caught up with me.
“Depends on your definition of lecture,” Howie mumbled.
“I just don’t understand,” I replied, “Why does he even want those leads?”
“Habit, I suppose,” Howie mused, “Fear of change, maybe.”
I grinned at Howie’s attempt at basic psychology. We both knew that trying to dig into Brian’s psyche was a whole new level of stupid. God, that idiot had layers that went from here to Jerusalem. “We’re long overdue for some change.”
Howie paused a couple of seconds, shivering as we stepped outside in the cold air of March evening. “Did you know he only has like twelve solos and leads the way this record is shaping up?” Howie stated.
I looked at him with a bit of surprise, “Really?”
“Yeah,” Howie continued, “You take the cake with like 35, then there’s me and AJ with around thirty, then Kevin with 23, and then there’s Brian. With twelve. And that’s including adlips on songs.”
Twelve.
Perhaps I was a little harsh on him.
“Huh,” I grunted as I took a seat on one of the benches outside, breathing in the fresh air around me.
“There’s your change,” Howie muttered, staring straight ahead as he took a seat beside me, “How would you like it if you went from the main lead singer with a whopping average of 33 leads per record, to a poor total of twelve solos on an album?”
I frowned, wondering when Howie had taken the time to get familiar with these statistics. But you could always count on Howard to win an argument solely based on numbers. I rubbed tiredly at me face, sighing in frustration, “But we have to do something,” I stated quietly.
“I agree,” Howie replied, “but you could have gone about it a whole different way.”
I looked at him and raised my eyebrows, “A better person could have,” I said.
“You could have too,” Howie answered, “You’re angry, right?”
I nodded.
“And frustrated?”
I nodded again.
“And you want this whole situation to sort itself out?”
“Well, yeah,” I sighed.
“Now try to sum up that anger, frustration and impatience and try to think of how Brian must feel about it. Whatever you’re feeling, he’s experiencing it on a whole different level.”
I frowned; then scoffed. I hadn’t quite thought of it like that yet. Brian’s voice issues were primarily Brian’s. I could go home tomorrow, have a nice dinner with my fiancée and banish Brian and his broken voice out of my thought entirely, knowing that after all, I would sound good enough on stage and on a world tour.
But Brian would have to drag the burden with him wherever he went. He would barely eat or sleep, which I had noticed as early as London, when we were busy recording the damn record in the first place. Those nights I had come into his room because my own room was too hot for any human being to find sleep in and I needed my sleep if I did not want to end up cranky for the entirety of my day, thank you very much. He would pretend he was sleeping, but I could tell he wasn’t.
Not really. I only know because I had slipped a sleeping pill into his coffee one day and he was out cold for the better part of the evening and night. I’m still not sure whether I feel guilty about drugging him like that or not, I just couldn’t bear the look of pure exhaustion on his face anymore, I guess.
I stared up at the darkening sky with Howie beside me.
It was starting to rain and I wondered for the first time if we didn’t have a much bigger problem on our hands than just Brian’s voice.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Okay, so this chapter was inevitable from the start. It's way longer than I realized, lol. I have been debating for a while whether to do it in Nick's or Brian's perspective, but I think I figured it out. Sadly it doesn't end very cheerfully.
Just tell me what you think and if the scene was portrayed accordingly.
Just tell me what you think and if the scene was portrayed accordingly.
