Jim looked at Jake. “How much do you think we’ll sell?” he asked.
“I am absolutely confident that, as long as who we contract with keeps their end of the bargain and promotes you properly, you will at least go Platinum. That is one million copies sold.”
“One million copies ... times ninety cents per copy...” Jim struggled to do the math in his head.
Nerdly helped him out. “The band would pull in nine hundred thousand dollars if you went Platinum,” he said. “If you divided that evenly among the five of you, that would be one hundred and eighty thousand dollars each.”
This definitely got their attention. “One hundred and eighty thousand dollars?” Jim said. “Holy shit!”
“That’s three hundred and sixty thousand for the two of us!” Marcie exclaimed.
Jake smiled as he saw their excitement. Though, to him, they were talking chump change amounts, to a group of middle-class school teachers, this was like winning the lottery. He did need to bust their bubble just a little bit, however. “One thing you need to take into account, guys,” he told them, “is that this money is pre-tax. We’re not like a regular employer who will take your taxes out each check. Your quarterly royalty checks will arrive in their full amount. You will be responsible for figuring and paying taxes on the income.”
“I would suggest you get a good accountant immediately,” Nerdly said. “Assuming you accept our proposal, that is.”
“Oh ... yeah, of course,” Jim said. “But what about an agent? When I was with Courage, we had an agent who helped us negotiate things and watched out for us.”
“And what did your agent charge you for this service?” Pauline asked.
“Twenty percent, right off the top,” Jim said.
“You’re free to get an agent if you think you need one,” Pauline told her. “Far be it from me to discourage that, since I was Intemperance’s agent until they broke up and that is how I made my first million. For a band in your position, however, the primary purpose of having an agent is to be heard and to secure a record contract in the first place. We have already offered you a record contract that is far more generous than any agent could have dreamed of securing for you. If you want to pay someone twenty percent of what you make when you have already accomplished what he or she might have done, you go right ahead.”
“Oh ... well ... I guess that makes sense,” Jim said.
“There’s another reason to have an agent,” Stephanie said. “They can look over the contract you offer before we sign and make sure ... you know ... that everything is on the up and up. Not that we don’t trust you ... but ... you know...”
“I know where you’re coming from,” Pauline said. “We’re a group of Hollywood music people who just swept in here from out of nowhere and are offering you a contract that seems too good to be true. I would hope that you would have someone look it over before you signed it. Instead of getting an agent and committing to that twenty percent, however, I would suggest you dig up a lawyer that specializes in entertainment contracts and pay he or she to review it for you. You can probably find such a creature in New York, although I will admonish you to be careful that the lawyer doesn’t try to take advantage of you in some way. In any case, you and the lawyer will find that the contract we’re proposing will be written in plain language that spells out the terms we just proposed and has no hidden clauses. That is not the way we do business, but you’re certainly welcome and encouraged to confirm that.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Marcie said slowly, after thinking this over for a moment.
“Like we’ve been saying,” Jake said. “We’re not here to screw you. We’re here because we like your music and we think there’s some potential to make some money off of it. This contract we’re proposing, unlike the first one we signed as Intemperance, is only for one album. In addition, you get to retain the rights to your music in all ways other than we reserve the right to exclusively sell the CD for ten years. If you all want to sign up with another label after the first album, you’re free to do so and you’re free to perform any music on that CD at any time, at least as far as we’re concerned. Because of this, we are not offering songwriting royalties to the songwriters like a standard contract. You’re free to market and sell the rights to your music to anyone you please for extra money and we’ll stay out of it. Jim, if you want to let the Ford motor company use your song in a commercial, that’s your business. Marcie, if you want to let them use one of your songs as part of the score in a Hollywood chick-flick, you can do it. And Stephanie, if you want to lay down one of your tracks to help Subaru sell some more of those Foresters to their target demographic, fuckin’ go for it. We won’t care because that’s your business.”
“And on the other side of that coin,” Pauline said, “if you are appalled by the thought of your music being used to sell cars or shampoo or beer or soda, like I know Jake is, that too is in your business. KVA cannot sell those rights to Pepsi or Budweiser or Subaru because we do not own the rights ourselves.”
“All right,” Stephanie said. “I’m really starting to warm up to this proposal. I still got this nagging feeling of ‘too good to be true’, but I understand that’s just my natural cynicism of the world.”
“Understandable,” Pauline said.
“Tell me about the recording process,” Stephanie said next. “How would it work? You say we can do it over the summer break?”
“Yes, assuming Obie is on board with the studio time,” Jake said.
“He’ll be on board,” Pauline said. “Otherwise, I’ll be forced to cut him off.”
“That’s playing dirty,” Jake said.
“You do what you gotta do in this business,” she said. “Anyway, let’s assume the studio time is a done deal. I’ll handle it.”
“Right,” Jake said. “Making the assumption.” He turned back to Brainwash. “We’ll need you to rehearse up at least fifteen of your best tunes before summer break starts. We’ll want a relatively equal mix of Jim songs, Marcie songs, and Stephanie songs. We’ll want a couple of ballads and a couple of your hard drivers. I’m going to strongly suggest that you include that tune you just closed out your set with. I think that will be the breakout tune for you, the one that makes people notice you.”
“People do love that one,” Jim said.
“And I never get tired of playing it,” Marcie added.
“In any case, have all that shit ready to go when the school year ends,” Jake said. “Then we’ll ship all of your instruments and equipment out to Oregon by truck. We’ll fly you all out to North Bend—first class of course since we know how to take care of the talent—and put you up in a rental house for the duration.”
“What about our kids?” Marcie asked.
“Bring them with you,” Jake said. “They can stay in the house. We’ll hire a nanny of some sort to keep everyone watched and fed and safe while you’re all recording. How many kids are we talking here, and what ages?”
“Five and three from us,” Jim said.
“Mine will probably stay with his other mom,” Stephanie said. “Although he might come out to visit here and there.”
“Fair enough,” Jake said. He turned to the rhythm section. “And you two?”
“Well ... I have a six year old and an eight year old,” Jeremy said. “But what about my wife?”
“Bring her along,” Jake said. “Maybe she can be the nanny? Hell, we’ll even pay her.”
“She works,” Jeremy said.
“Doing what?” asked Pauline.
“Uh ... a retail job,” he said. “She sells appliances at Sears.”
“Does she like doing that?” Pauline asked.
“No, she hates it with a passion.”
“Well,” Jake said, “I’m not going to tell you what she should do, but I know what I would do if I had a job I hated and my husband was being given an opportunity and someone was offering to pay me for childcare duties at a rate that would probably be equivalent to what I was being paid for selling appliances.”