They smoked out, passing Matt's old plastic bong around their little circle just like in the old days. When they were sufficiently stoned they climbed up on their makeshift stage and began to play around with their instruments.
"Check this out, guys," Matt said when he finally got his guitar adjusted to the sound he wanted. "This is what I've been working on for the past two days. It's called Service Me."
"Cool name," said Darren, sitting in a chair, his bass in his lap.
"Sounds like a fuckin' commercial for Tune-up Masters," said Coop.
"But its not," said Matt. "Now check it out. Here's the riff I came up with for it."
He began to play the riff over and over, grinding it out of the amps and letting all of them absorb it. They liked what they heard — which wasn't the case with all of the riffs he came up with — and began to nod their heads in time to it. After ten or fifteen repetitions, he stopped and asked opinions.
"That's got a good flow to it," said Jake. "It's loud and authoritative, but it isn't harsh at all."
"Indeed," agreed Bill. "I like the step-up progression between four and five."
"Sounds good to me," said Darren. "Let's try it with some back-beat. It'll sound good with heavy."
"You always fuckin' say that," Coop told him. "Let's try it with moderate back-beat first and then we can step it up or down from there."
"Okay," said Matt. "Sounds like it might be a keeper. Let's do some mixing."
He launched into the riff again, doing it repetitively. After the third repeat, Darren began hitting his bass strings, adapting to the timing of the riff and then enhancing it. Then Coop began to hit the drums, playing offset from Darren's bass strokes. They played around a little, experimenting with different formats and powers, with different combinations of drum strikes and bass string progressions but finally were able to lock in something that just sounded right.
"That's it," Matt said, nodding enthusiastically. "That's fuckin' it! Now let's get Jake and Nerdly in on it. What do you think, Jake? Too heavy for strong acoustic backing?"
"Yeah," Jake agreed. "You need me to go distortion for this one. The acoustic strokes wouldn't do anything but get lost behind the bass and the drums, and there does seem to be something needed between two and three and between five and one."
"How about a three-chord mock-up of the main riff?" suggested Bill.
"Hmm," Jake said, considering. He walked over to his effects pedals and stomped on one of them. He hit an open chord and listened to the distortion that emitted. With a nod, he put his palm against the strings, silencing them. "How about something like this?" he said, and then began to play. The riff that came out was a much simpler version of what Matt had been doing. He played around with it a little, upping the tempo and decreasing the overall power.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I think it'll work," Matt said. "Let's try it out."
Matt began to play the riff again. Darren and Coop chimed right back in with the rhythm they'd worked out. Jake let them go through a few repetitions and then he began to play as well, inserting his backing riff just beneath it all. It sounded good but not great. Jake changed his riff around a little, playing it stronger at the onset, a little weaker at the offset, and this seemed to do the trick.
"Fuck yeah," Matt said into his microphone. "This has got some balls. I like it."
"Get in on this thing, Nerdly," Jake said into his mic. "Let's put some frosting on it."
No one bothered suggesting to Bill just how he should incorporate his piano into the mix. Jake and Matt were both adept at the piano and Darren was passable on it, but none of them could even come close to matching Bill's mastery of both the instrument and its best use in a hard-rock song. Bill could always find a way to plug in, to give his playing soul, and he did so now, picking at a few keys for a moment but finally going full out and mixing the ivories just beneath the sound of the main riff and just above the sound of the backing riff.
"Fuck yeah, Nerdly," Matt said. "That's the shit right there."
"The fuckin' frosting, man," Jake said, smiling, enthralled by the music they were making. "You got the knack for that."
They played some more, solidifying the sound until all of them could do it without thinking. Then it was time to introduce the lyrics.
"Okay," Matt said into the mic while they continued to play. "Here's what I got for words. When you pick up on the main chorus lines, everyone sing them together. In between lines go to the lead. Got it?"
They all got it. Matt took on the lead vocal for the time being. "This is the chorus," he said, waiting for the riff to come around to the beginning again. When it did, he sang: "You're here to ser-vice me. You're here to ser-vice me!"
After five repetitions of this, Jake, Darren, Coop, and Bill all began to sing it in unison. When they had it dialed in, Matt began to sing out the in between lyrics for the first chorus.
"I hear you wanna meet me."
"You're here to ser-vice me," sang the back-ups.
"So come on back, babe, and see."
"You're here to ser-vice me."
"Just drop right down on those knees..."
"You're here to ser-vice me."
"... And show how you earned your SG."
They had to stop for a few moments as Jake and Coop both started laughing out loud at the last lyric Matt had sung. The SG he was referring to were the large blue letters on the Special Guest back-stage passes that the groupies were typically issued. And everyone, of course, knew how they earned those passes.
"Oh my god, Matt," Jake said. "Those are some classic Matt Tisdale lyrics you got going there."
"It only gets better," Matt promised. "From the top?"
"From the top," Jake agreed.
They began to play again.
They went solid for the next two hours, first perfecting the chorus of the song — there were five in all, and all had different in between lyrics — and then starting in on the verses. After the entire song was introduced to everyone, Jake took over the job of lead vocals and Matt went back to singing back up. Jake read the lyrics off a piece of notepaper taped to the bottom of his microphone but by the end of the second hour he hardly had to refer to it at all.
The song was far from together when they finally decided to take a break. On the contrary, they had only the basic riffs and melody and the basic lyrical formula down. They would still have to work on the bridge, the intro, the changeovers, and the merges. But all of that would have to come later. They were burned out on Service Me for the day and it was time to work on something else.
They smoked some more bonghits, reinforcing their jamming demeanor and then Jake introduced them to the new song he had been working on. As had been the case with the initial composition itself, the introduction was also different. Jake put his guitar back into acoustic mode and played out the song for them exactly as he had been practicing it on his guitar at home. By this point he had a complete set of lyrics to go along with the basic melody and a strong bridge section as well. He still had to refer to his notes to keep from stumbling on the verses but the guitar work itself had been committed to memory. It was a rough draft, of that there was no doubt, but the consensus was unanimous. They liked it.
"Classic Jake Kingsley lyrics touching on a new subject," said Matt.
"It's deep, man," agreed Coop. "I'm down with it intensely, you know?"
Jake was pleased at their praise. His opinion of the song was the same, of course, but one always needed the approval of others before one could surely know he wasn't deluding himself.