Blood and Guitars

by Heather Jensen

  I shook my head in disbelief, smiling at him. “You had me worried there for a bit.” I let out a sigh of relief. “I thought I was going to have to get on my knees and beg.” He waved a dismissive hand and took a drink while I leaned back in my chair, reminding myself that I could relax. “Now we just have to get the label on board.”

  “Let the adults deal with the label,” he said matter-of-factly. “I’ll give Wes a call later. We’ll figure that out.”

  “I can’t wait to see this new studio of yours,” I added happily.

  “I can’t think of a group of guys I’d rather have break it in,” he said.

  Mission accomplished.

  Chapter 10

  Two days later I was so excited about getting into the studio to do some more recording, that even getting lost on the way to Karatz’s new place couldn’t put a damper on my mood. (That’s saying something considering it was only eight in the morning.) I called Karatz, pleaded guilty to being an idiot, and got directions so I could find the place. He told me to pull around to the side of the house since his studio was a separate structure in the back. The last house Karatz owned had been a nice place, but I could tell immediately that this one would put it to shame. I also knew I was going to be jealous the minute I saw the building that was supposed to be the studio. To start, there was enough room for like eight cars to park around back. Chase’s car was parked there, as was Jonas’s. The studio looked like a small house in itself. I opened the door and walked inside the entryway. The hardwood floors beneath my feet were immaculate and shining and the ten foot ceilings made the space feel really open. I glimpsed a door to the left that looked like it might be a bathroom, and then continued on inside where I came upon the lounge area. Karatz and O’Shea were sitting on a large sofa and Chase was texting on his phone when I walked in.

  “Hey, you made it,” Karatz teased.

  “Barely,” I retorted. “A guy could get turned around in your private parking lot back here.”

  Karatz shrugged and said. “Don’t complain if you don’t want to have to walk in from the street.”

  I laughed and looked over at my best friend. “Where’s your car?” I realized it hadn’t been in the parking lot.

  “I caught a ride with Chase,” O’Shea said. “And even he managed to find the place okay.” I stuck out my tongue childishly and glanced around, wondering if I had missed Jonas somewhere along the way.

  “He’s on his way,” O’Shea said, picking up on my search.

  I nodded and said, “Do we have to wait for him to get the tour?”

  “Do I look like a tour guide?” Karatz said, “I’ll head into the kitchen and get everyone some water. You guys can show yourselves around.”

  “Works for me,” O’Shea said. I watched Kratz exit the opposite side of the lounge where I glimpsed a refrigerator and a bunch of cupboards. That was when I realized the studio had its own kitchen. I was already jealous. I followed O’Shea down a little hallway where we found a spacious control room with a top of the line soundboard. Across from it were the main recording room and a drum booth, separated from the control room only by a large window. Further down was a live room. If the place would have belonged to someone else I would have pulled out my check book and made an offer. It was just that great.

  “Can you believe this place?” O’Shea mused.

  “I’m trying to decide why I don’t have a house like this,” I said.

  “We’re not technically in the house. Besides, your house is fine.”

  “Okay then, at least a studio like this,” I corrected.

  “No idea. Maybe you should do some building on.”

  Chase bumped into me from behind and stared ahead, his jaw dropping at the sight of the live room we were gazing into.

  “Hey dad, where’s my room?” O’Shea teased when Karatz walked up from behind and found us standing around and gawking.

  “Don’t act like you’re not going to fall asleep all over the place,” Karatz said with a chuckle. “It hasn’t been that long since we recorded ‘Recycled Coma’ and this ain’t my first rodeo.”

  “Did someone say something about a rodeo?” Jonas asked from behind.

  “Good, you’re all here.” Karatz ushered us into the control room. There were a few plush chairs on wheels in front of the soundboard, and one long sofa against the back wall. The monitors mounted at angles toward the front of the room were modest in size but top of the line. Chase and Jonas plopped down onto the couch and I walked up to the soundboard, coveting the equipment as I scanned it with my eyes.

  “So, what do you think?” Karatz handed me a bottle of water.

  I gave an impressed whistle and opened the water, taking a sip. “We’re obviously paying you too much,” I said.

  “Probably true.” He laughed.

  “Enough drooling all over the place,” O’Shea called from the doorway. “Let’s see what kind of damage we can do with all this equipment.”

  “Well, what are you all waiting for?” Karatz asked. “Get your stuff and let’s get to work.”

  It took a while for all of us to get our gear and haul it into the live room, especially since Chase had brought his own drum kit. That was the only thing Karatz didn’t have, and I was sure that wouldn’t be the case forever, but Chase has a thing about recording on his own kit so it worked out fine.

  Once our guitars were tuned and Karatz had set up a few microphones on stands for O’Shea and I, he leaned against the doorway and said, “Let’s hear it.”

  I smiled, feeling like everything might just be falling into place after all. I nodded to Chase who counted us off. We played “Midnight Poison” all the way through, and managed to have a pretty smooth take, despite the song being so fresh to us.

  Karatz, who is always hard to read, stood in the doorway with his poker face on, listening intently to the song. The last note rang out until Chase muted his cymbals, and I looked up at Karatz, curious for his reaction.

  He clapped his hands together a few times and smiled at me. “Not bad, guys.”

  I sighed, breathing easier now that Karatz was on board with the song. He suggested a few changes in the timing and we played it through again, finding that it the transitions from verse to chorus went much smoother. We were just getting started but already the song was starting to flesh out and become what I had hoped it could be.

  Karatz, who is a musical genius with perfect pitch, is a perfectionist in every sense of the word when it comes to producing music. For this reason, we played around with the song for another hour, starting and stopping whenever he signaled us, and making whatever changes he insisted were necessary. We’d learned with ‘Recycled Coma’ not to question Karatz’s M.O. and the fact that we already had a relationship with him made the work that much easier. When Karatz had done all he could with us as a group, and we were confident about the way the song sounded, he told us all to take a fifteen minute break. I set Liza down on a stand and made my way back to the lounge. I’d only been sitting there for a minute or two when a beautiful woman with blonde hair came waltzing in with a baby in one arm and a basket of fruit and pastries in her free hand.

  “Hey guys,” she said. “I thought you might enjoy some breakfast.”

  “Serena!” I grinned and jumped to my feet to greet her.

  “Trey, it’s great to see you.”

  I took the basket from her and gave her a quick hug before admiring the sleeping baby.

  “Wow, he’s cute.”

  “Did you just use the word cute?” O’Shea said as he walked into the lounge just then. He looked up and saw Serena standing there and grinned, walking over to peek at the baby himself. “You’re right. He is cute.”

  I laughed as Karatz approached and lifted the sleeping baby out of his wife’s arms.

  “Serena, you’re the best.” I began sifting through the basket of food she’d brought.

  “I’ve been around too many musicians to believe that you guys all ate something substantial
before you came over this morning.” Serena grinned. “Joshua and I just had to bring you something.”

  “You mean Poptarts and Starbucks doesn’t count?” Chase grabbed a clump of purple grapes and popped one into his mouth.

  Serena rolled her eyes but the smile never left her face. “So, how’s it coming along? Do you have anything I can listen to?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted. “We were just getting ready to lay down some drums after the break.”

  “Click … click … click,” Chase said hypnotically. I rolled my eyes at him. “What? I’m just preparing myself for the hours of mind-numbing clicking I’m about to listen to.” He forced a smile.

  I shook my head and shoved him on the shoulder, knocking him back onto the sofa where he stayed, happily munching on grapes.

  Karatz kissed his son on the forehead and handed him back to Serena. “Thanks for breakfast, honey,” he said.

  “No problem. I’ll be back with lunch,” she said. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks,” I said between bites of an apple pastry of some kind I’d found in the basket of goodies. We spent a few more minutes munching on stuff and drinking more water before it was time to get back to work.

  “Well Chase, you’re up.” Karatz gestured in the direction of the drum booth and then turned to me and said, “You know the drill.”

  And I did. While Karatz was working with any of the other guys, I was to be playing my guitar and working on new material. It was a good set up, actually, since I would be sitting around a lot and doing nothing otherwise. I followed Chase back into the live room and helped him start to take his kit down so he could carry it to the booth.

  “So, who is she?” Chase asked as he pulled the toms off of the bass drum one at a time and set them aside.

  “Huh?” was my brilliant reply.

  He raised an inquisitive eyebrow at me. “You’re on cloud nine or something today,” he continued. “I just figured you finally took my advice and met someone.”

  “Are you implying that I have to have a girl to be happy?” I feigned insult.

  He chuckled and said, “Uh … yeah. Pretty much.”

  I picked up one of his drumsticks that he’d left dangerously close to me and tossed it at him. “Actually, I met this amazing woman,” I admitted. “But I’m not sure if I’ll ever see her again.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Chase said. “You can have any girl you want and you still manage to find one who’s unavailable?”

  “It’s not that.” I sighed. “I just couldn’t tell if she was that into me. Plus, like an idiot I didn’t get her number. I don’t want to pull a stalker move and just show up at her place.”

  “I would.”

  “Exactly my point.” Chase smiled and shrugged in defeat.

  “And the crazy thing is, I think she’s the girl I’ve been dreaming of.”

  Chase narrowed his gaze at me. “Okay, that does sound crazy.”

  “No, I mean that literally. I told you I’ve been having these dreams,”

  “Wow, didn’t know I was missing out on a therapy session,” O’Shea said as he walked in.

  “Forget it,” I said.

  “Don’t stop just because I’m here,” O’Shea urged. “Do tell.”

  “Trey met a girl,” Chase said.

  I glared at him. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Who is she?” O’Shea asked.

  “Just a girl.” I didn’t want to go into too much detail. Did I even have details about her to tell? Probably not. “She’s an artist.” I hoped that would be enough to satiate their curiosity.

  “Ooh. Sounds hot.” O’Shea rubbed the day old stubble on his chin.

  “Well, I won’t say I told you so.” Chase lifted up the bass drum and headed for the doorway.

  I shook my head, grinning, but Chase was right. It was no coincidence that I’d started writing music again now that the faceless woman in my dreams had taken on Aurora’s countenance.

  Chapter 11

  I sat on a stool and started strumming chords in succession, waiting for a rhythm I liked to develop.

  “Where’s Jonas?” I asked, hoping to break the silence.

  “Bathroom, I think,” O’Shea replied as he took the other stool. “So, what’s her name?”

  I let out a breath and looked up at him, unable to help the smile on my face. He was my best friend and would definitely drag it out of me sooner or later. I might as well get it over with.

  “Her name is Aurora.”

  “Also hot,” he mused.

  “You’ve never even seen her and already she has two hot points?” I grinned.

  He stared at me dumbly. “Well, is she?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Case in point. Where’d you meet her?”

  “Carlie’s.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yeah. I used her as an excuse to get out of a party some girls were trying to drag me to, and we started talking and I ended up walking her home.”

  He began picking out the melody for “Midnight Poison” on his guitar. “I’m happy for you, man. And honestly, whatever inspires you to keep writing songs works for me.”

  He elbowed me and I looked up and saw that he was grinning. Just then Jonas walked into the room carrying a little digital video camera with the red recording light flashing on the front.

  “What’s up?” I asked him.

  “For the fan club,” he said. I waved at the camera, and O’Shea stuck out his tongue lovingly.

  “Okay, come closer.” I looked into the camera as Jonas slowly came toward me. “Here’s a little sneak preview of what’s to come.” I started playing the chorus of “Midnight Poison” and O’Shea joined right in while I sang the words to the camera.

  “I spend my days waiting for the night. The hours pass with fading light…. She’s a poison; I’m addicted … to the sweet and secret darkness.”

  Then I muted my guitar and put my fingers to my lips. “Shh… It’ll be our little secret.”

  “Yeah, all over YouTube,” O’Shea said.

  I chuckled. “Well everyone, its official, as you can see. Catalyst is back in the studio.”

  “And it’s a nice one,” O’Shea added, with a sweeping arm gesture that included the entire live room.

  “So true. We know you’re anxious for some new material and we’re doing our best to give it to you. We’re working hard, or at least pretending to, and we’ll be sure to keep you guys posted with what’s happening here. Jonas will probably have this camera attached to his hand whenever his bass guitar isn’t, like he did with the last record. Anyway, now that you’ve had your sneak preview it’s time to get out of here.”

  “Yeah, there’s top-secret song-writing happening in here people,” O’Shea added in his best James Bond voice, which wasn’t that great. I grinned and half-heartedly waved Jonas away until he wandered back out of the room, camera still rolling.

  All in all it was a long but productive day at the studio. As far as recording goes, things had actually moved pretty quickly, even though we were there for eleven hours and the song still wasn’t completely finished yet. Karatz and Chase had managed to get all the drum parts laid down by the time we took a late lunch. Then we’d added lead, rhythm and bass guitars for the rest of the afternoon. The only parts left to record were my vocals and O’Shea’s backup vocals. We had plans to do that early tomorrow morning and then Jonas and Chase would join us so we could watch Karatz do his magic with some of the editing and piece it all together for us.

  Our band manager Wes stopped by for about an hour to check on us and see how things were going. Wes is high-strung, which is probably a good quality to have in a manager, or at least, it seemed to be working so far. He’d been with us since before we signed our record deal with Celebrity Dent, and he’s good to let us do our thing, which is about all anyone can ask for. He seemed impressed with our progress so far and he really liked what he heard of the song, which admittedly wasn’t all that much.

>   At the end of the day I offered to give O’Shea a ride home, sarcastically suggesting that maybe I should give him a lift the next morning as well, since there wasn’t nearly enough parking at Karatz’s place. We were heading down Cleveland toward O’Shea’s house when a building on the street caught my eye. I slowed down and squinted to get a better look.

  “Trey, what are you-”

  “Hold on a second,” I interrupted, pulling over into a parking spot. It was an art studio or gallery of some kind that I’d never paid much notice to before. Tonight it caught my eye because there was something familiar in the style of the painting that was displayed in the large window out front. I opened my door and climbed out. O’Shea grudgingly did the same, following behind like a good friend.

  “What’s going on?” he asked as I walked back toward the building.

  “This art studio back here,” I said. “We have to go inside real quick.”

  “Uh … okay. Do you mind my asking why?”

  But I wasn’t really listening to him. I made my way toward the front door, pausing only to look at the painting in the window again. Sure enough, I knew the name I would find at the bottom right corner before I read it.

  O’Shea was still babbling on. “Wait a minute. That girl you were telling me about is an artist, right? Is that what this is about?”

  I pushed open the door, hearing the bell ringing to signal that a customer had come inside. I glanced around but the only person I saw was a girl in her early twenties whose hair had been dyed bright red. She smiled and greeted me.

  “Can I help you?” she asked, seeing that I was obviously looking for someone.

  “Uh, I was just kind of hoping the artist might be here,” I said, trying not to sound too desperate.

  “I’m sorry, but she’s not in right now.”