Выбрать главу

"No fucking way," Jake said when he first heard this. "That is not what the song is about and I will not sign off on any video that represents one of my songs incorrectly."

Rutger, of course, started his whole spiel about how he couldn't work under such conditions and how the "visionless buffoons" had a lot of nerve questioning his inspired imaginings.

"We'll do it my way or we'll use our veto power," Jake told Crow and Doolittle when he was called into their office.

"But Rutger is the premier video producer," Doolittle said. "He refuses to take direction from a musician."

"He does have a good sense of what the audience is looking for in a video," Crow said. "Two of your other videos were almost nominated for awards."

"I don't give a shit about videos or video awards," Jake told them. "I thing videos are destroying music and perverting this entire industry. The music world would be much better off without them. But if you insist upon us making one, it is going to be a video that is true to the meaning of the song. I will not compromise on this. I've Found Myself Again is a song about being on the road, about the frustrations and the boredom and the burnout and about how all that disappears when we hit the stage each night. We make a video about that or we don't make a video at all. It's your choice."

"But Rutger refuses to take input on the content of his videos," Crow said.

"Then find someone else to produce it," Jake said. "Someone who does take input."

Left with no other choice, they did as Jake asked (cursing the new Intemperance contract all the while). They found an unknown producer named Erica Wilde, a woman in her mid-thirties who held a degree from a prestigious filmmaking school but who had spent her entire career making commercials for auto makers and soap manufacturers. She had never done a video before but she was eager to give it a shot.

Erica was an overweight, bespectacled librarian-looking woman who had very little fashion sense. But she proved to be an intelligent and open-minded filmmaker. "What are we going for, here?" she asked Jake at their first meeting. "My understanding is that you have specific imagery you wish to convey with this video and that I am to follow your suggestions to the best of my ability. So what are we talking?"

"Look," Jake said, "I'm not trying to control your production of the video. I am a musician and I know next to nothing about filmmaking. All I want is a video that is true to the theme of the song. Do you think you can do that?"

"What's the song about?" she asked.

Jake popped an advanced copy of the master recording into a cassette player. "I just happened to have the song with me," he said. He pushed play. "You tell me what its about."

She listened to it and then had him rewind it and listened to it again. "Not bad," she said. "I'm more of a soft rock fan but that is good music."

"Thank you," he said. "So what is it about?"

"Well, it's a road song, obviously. That's a fairly common staple of musical recordings, isn't it? Wheel In The Sky by Journey, Homeward Bound by Simon and Garfunkle, Turn The Page by Bob Seger. It's in the same genre as those tunes. Yours is a little different though. It describes the boredom and the long hours and the fatigue and the nameless groupies but it also expounds upon the reason you're out there in the first place, the thrill you get when you step out onto the stage and hear the crowd screaming for you."

Jake was grinning as he listened to her words. "I think you know a little bit more about music then you're letting on," he told her.

"Maybe," she said. "So do I pass your little test?"

"You do," he said. "So let's talk about what we're gonna do with this song, shall we?"

They talked, and as they did, Jake started to like this mousy, unassuming woman more and more. When Jake told her that National had some fifty hours of video that had been taken during the Thrill tour, footage that included activities during the bus trips, activities back stage, and activities onstage, her interest perked up considerably.

"I'd like to see all of that footage," she said. "Do you think they'll let me?"

"If it will get their video shot by March 20, they'll let you," Jake told her.

They let her. And from those randomly shot tapes she formed the basis of the video, taking cut scenes of actual tour life and mixing them with other scenes that she carefully directed in the video studio rented for her use. The final result was a moving and very deep representation of the rigors of life on the road and the animation that filled the band when they actually stepped out onto the stage each night.

"It's a fucking work of art," Matt proclaimed when a copy was screened for them on March 16.

"You are a true talent, Erica," Jake said. "You captured the essence of my song perfectly."

Even Darren agreed that it rocked, although he complained that there wasn't enough footage of him and his bass.

When they screened it for Crow and Doolittle, however, they only grunted.

"I guess it'll do," Crow said.

"Yes," agreed Doolittle. "It's better than nothing, but will you let Mr. Rutger produce the video for Service Me when the time comes?"

"No," said Matt. "I want this fine-ass filming bitch here to do all the videos for my songs as well. She fuckin' rocks."

Erica beamed at his praise. The two executives rolled their eyes upward but didn't disagree. After all, the alternative was no video at all.

Tour planning began two days before the first single from Balance Of Power was released. The band and National butted heads in the first ten minutes.

"What the fuck is this shit?" asked Matt as he looked at the first piece of paperwork that had been handed to him.

"It's the tour schedule," Crow said. "Is there something wrong with it?"

"We're starting on the west coast," Matt said. "That's all cool. It means we won't have to drive all the way across the fuckin' country just to hit the first date, but Heritage isn't on this list."

"We're anticipating much greater response to this album than the last," Crow said. "That means you'll be playing top venues on the tour. Heritage doesn't have a large enough arena to justify stopping there."

"Heritage is our home town," Jake said. "We have to play there."

"The Heritage fans can come to one of the shows in Sacramento," Crow said. "We're doing two of them there and its only sixty miles away."

"We will do a show in Heritage or we won't do any shows anywhere," Jake said. He pushed the piece of paper back across the table. "It's our home town and the people who live there are the ones who made us what we were when we first signed. We will not skip them on any tour, ever. Add Heritage in."

"Preferably first," Matt added. "I think they should get that benefit."

Crow fumed and blanched and gritted his teeth for a few moments but he finally took the paper. "I'll see what I can do," he finally said. "Now let's go over the rest of the production."

They did, and the band didn't like what they heard. National was proposing an extravagant production that involved multiple pyrotechnics, six separate laser shows, and a harness and pulley arrangement that would make Jake fly across the audience for the closing number. In addition, the wardrobe department had them dressed in the same leather clothing they'd hated so much on the first tour.

"No, no, no!" Matt said. "We ain't doing none of this shit!"

"None of what shit?" Crow cried.

"None of the lasers, none of the pulleys, none of the fuckin' leather, none of the pyrotechnics," he said.

"Especially none of the pyrotechnics," Darren added with a shudder.

"This is standard industry production!" Crow cried. "Your fans expect to see you in leather! They expect to see lasers and explosions! You can't pull that off on the last tour and then not do it one better on the next!"