"And I'm sorry I embarrassed you in front of everyone," Jake said. "That really was not my intention. I was doing what I thought I had to do. He was trying to screw us, Matt, and I didn't want to start off my music career by being played for a fool. Remember, we agreed to stick to our guns on this twenty percent thing. You were the one who folded without a fight, not me. Why did you do that? Why weren't you supporting me?"
Matt looked disgusted with himself now. He took another drag and then angrily snuffed out his cigarette. "I thought we were gonna lose him if we pushed. It seemed like he was looking for any reason to kick us loose."
"But he didn't," Jake said. "He was the one who caved in. Oh sure, he got his little one percent above standard so he can tell himself he still screwed us, but he caved in nonetheless. Just like I thought he would."
"How did you know?"
"A little deductive reasoning," Jake said. "Everything that happened seemed kind of contrived to me when I put it all together."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, he told us that he was in Heritage on business and that he just happened across our gig in the paper and decided to check it out. That sounds plausible but it really isn't. Did you ever stop to wonder just what sort of business a man like Shaver might have in Heritage?"
It was obvious Matt hadn't. Jake could see it in his face.
"He's a musical agent," Jake said. "There is no music industry in Heritage. There is no recording studio here, no famous band that's moved beyond here. There is no business he could doing here. So, why do you think he's here?"
"You saying he was here specifically to see us play? To sign us up?"
Jake nodded. "That's the only explanation that makes sense. He came here to sign us up. I think that almost everything about our encounters with him and his little woman there has been manufactured and rehearsed in advance. The limo driver was a big clue. I don't care what a limo driver personally thinks of the people he's driving, he wouldn't treat them the way we were treated unless he'd been told to. I mean, the dude was eating a sandwich behind the wheel. He was insulting us. But on the ride back, he was nice as could be."
"Yeah," Matt allowed.
"I think Shaver told that driver to be rude to us so we'd come up there feeling like losers, like an inconvenience."
"I don't know about that, man. You're starting to sound a little like Coop."
"Maybe," Jake said. "But sometimes paranoid suspicions are correct ones. For instance, there was that whole bit with Shaver being on the phone when we got up there. I don't think he was really talking to anyone at all."
"What?"
"When he called the front desk to get the copies of the contract made, I was able to hear the desk clerk's voice coming out of the speaker. It was low and tinny and I couldn't make out any of the actual words, but I could hear him, and that was with a conversation going on between Darren and Coop about how fuckin nice the hooch was."
"You're right," Matt said, now that he thought about it.
"But when he was talking to that Gary character when we first came in, I didn't hear shit. Not even a peep."
"Why would he make up a phone conversation?" Matt asked.
"To intimidate us," Jake said. "To try to make us believe that his time is valuable and that he was just barely squeezing us in and that, therefore, we should grateful that he was only asking for thirty percent."
"Shit," Matt said, shaking his head in wonder, his anger mostly forgotten.
"He gave us booze and coke when we got up there. Really good coke."
"You got that shit right," Matt said. "I can still feel it a little bit now."
"That was to break down any resistance we might have had. We need to make a vow not to get fucked up during any contract negotiations in the future. Seriously. Anyway, it backfired on him. The coke made me bold and confident. That's what gave me the courage to stand up to him like that. If I would've been straight I never would've done that."
Matt wasn't sure what to say to that. He was feeling a bit overwhelmed.
"You know what the biggest kicker here is though?" Jake asked.
"What's that?"
"The recording studio time. He doesn't have any fucking contacts up here. Those people who run that studio don't have any idea who he even is. And even if they did, there's no way in hell they would give away twenty-seven hundred bucks worth of studio time just to stay on his good side. After all, what could he do for them? What advantage would there be for a studio that makes commercials to do a twenty-seven hundred dollar favor for a talent agent?"
"So what are you saying?" Matt asked.
"He paid for that studio time himself. That's how bad he wants to sign us. That's how confident he is in our music. He heard that demo tape we made and read that resume you put together and he knows how good we are and that people will love us. He knows that, Matt. Especially after he saw us play. He would've taken ten percent if we would've pushed him for it. He just wanted to try to keep the shoe on his foot and get a bigger chunk of us for the future."
Matt had to admit that what Jake was saying made sense.
"Look, man," Jake told him. "We need to make peace with this and come to an understanding, okay? I'm not trying to take over leading this band. I have no fuckin interest in that. But I also know I'm an integral part of this band. You yourself pointed that out last night. I'll let you call the shots. I have no problem with that. But if you're making a bad decision-and you were making a fucking horrible one in there with Shaver-I'm gonna let you know that, and if it means we butt heads, then we butt heads. If it means I need to step in and assert myself, then I'll do it. That's just the way it is. This is my ass, my future we're talking about here too. Do you dig?"
It took a long time before Matt answered. His face contorted into a variety of different positions as he grappled with anger and other negative emotions. Finally, he nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I dig."
"Still friends?" Jake asked, holding out his hand.
Matt scoffed. "Like I was ever friends with a dick smoker like you," he said, slapping his hand down into Jake's.
They shook warmly and then went back up to the house. There was just enough left of the joint Darren had rolled to put them into the celebratory mood.
Glockman Studios was located in the Del Paso Heights section of Sacramento, a neighborhood that was arguably the worst in the entire region. The parking lot of the establishment was surrounded by chain link topped with razor wire. The back of the studio itself looked out over a drainage canal filled with old shopping carts, old tires, and other bits of unidentifiable urban debris. The street outside was suffering a terminal infection of potholes. But inside the studio, all was clean, sterile, and professional.
Over the next three and a half weeks Intemperance used fifty-eight of the sixty hours they had been allotted, recording six of their best tunes-three of Jake's and three of Matt's, as requested. They made the ninety-mile trip from Heritage twice a week, on Mondays and Tuesdays, and worked under the direction of Brad Grotten, one of the sound engineers.
Brad was a skinny, chain-smoking, shorthaired man of thirty-six. He wore long sleeved, button-up shirts with pocket protectors. He seemed ecstatic to have actual rock and roll music to work on instead of advertisement tracks and he gave them his very best for the time he had available to them. He recorded each instrument individually, often making them repeat the song over and over again, dozens of times, until he felt the sound was correct. He recorded the drums first, then the bass, then Jake's rhythm guitar, then Matt's lead, then Bill's piano. He then recorded the back-up singing. Jake's lead singing came last and was the cause of the most numerous re-takes because Brad wanted the exact mix of tempo, pitch, and timbre for the recording. When this was all done, he would mix each individual track, adjusting volume and tone until everything blended together. He then reformatted the entire thing onto a single duel-track stereo magnetic reel-to-reel tape-which he called the "master recording". Once a tune made it to the master, they would start the entire process over with the next tune.