“They’re not even on this label,” Matt said. “Those losers signed with Aristocrat. How the fuck do you know all this shit?”
“We have our sources,” he said mysteriously.
Matt looked at him with open suspicion. “You motherfuckers collaborated on this shit, didn’t you? You got together with some executive cocksuckers over there at Aristocrat and put together this plan to release all these albums in a certain order based on this witch doctor speculation you all have, didn’t you?”
Crow gave a sideways smile and a little shrug. “We do have a certain degree of cooperation with competing labels when there is a mutually beneficial issue at stake,” he said. “This is one of those times. It was felt that releasing Greatest Hits first would enhance the popularity of Veteran’s debut, which would then have the rebound effect of enhancing Greatest Hits even further. Once both of those albums are well into popularity and in the current consciousness, that will be the proper time to release your album and start your tour.”
“That’s fuckin’ bullshit!” Matt shouted, feeling the need to do some violence swelling up inside of him.
“It’s not bullshit,” Crow returned. “Remember who you’re dealing with here, Matt. These decisions were made by industry professionals who have a combined experience of hundreds of years in predicting album success. They are valid.”
“Right,” Matt said. “These would be the same professionals who tried to get us to perform those fucking hacker tunes and cover tunes time and time again? The ones who tried to tell us the tunes we wrote and composed were substandard? We defied you and we got our way, remember? And who is the biggest fucking seller your label has signed in the past twenty years?”
Crow had no choice but to concede this point. “Intemperance,” he said, “by a significant margin, in fact.”
“That’s right,” he said. “And now you’re sitting there trying to tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about. You need to release my album immediately. It needs to be out before this Greatest Hits bullshit and before those sellout losers start slinging their pop-rock around. My shit can stand on its own.”
Crow was shaking his head. “The decision has already been made, Matt.”
“Well fucking un-make it!” he yelled.
“I’m sorry,” Crow said. “You’re not going to win this one. We will release your album as it was produced, but it’s going to be released at the time and in the manner of our choosing. That is in your contract, as I’m sure you well know.”
Matt refused to accept this. “You’re fucking cock-blocking me here!” he said. “I want my shit out first. That’s why I busted my ass for sixty fucking hours a week in that studio getting it done!”
“That is not going to happen, Matt,” Crow said. He then gave a shrewd look. “Unless...”
Matt glared at him. “Unless what?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Well, I’m not authorized to actually offer you this, of course, but I have a feeling that if you agreed to go back into the studio and let us engineer those tracks a little more, maybe, just maybe, the big bosses might agree to let your album out first.”
“You’re talking about overdubs again, right?”
Crow nodded. “Overdubs and some professional engineering of the tracks. We’ll put our best people on it, I can guarantee that. You’ll have to bust your ass, of course—two months is not a lot of time—but it would make your album so much more marketable, at least in the eyes of those who make these decisions.”
Matt looked up at the ceiling, angry, frustrated. It always came back to this issue with these fucks. He just wanted to put his music out there in the form that it was intended to be heard in. They wanted to dress it up like a fucking Barbie doll and package it like an aspirin tablet. He opened his mouth to say something—he wasn’t sure what, but it was going to make his previous tirades sound like a mother’s praise in comparison—and then an idea suddenly occurred to him. He closed his mouth again, taking a moment to formulate the idea a little further, to quickly polish up a few details, and then ... finally, to ask himself if he actually had the balls to suggest it.
“Matt?” Crow said hopefully. “You look like you’re pondering the thought.”
“I’m pondering all right,” he said. “Tell me something, and don’t bullshit me either. Was what you just suggested part of the plot all along, or did you just come up with that shit on your own?”
“It was not part of the plot all along,” Crow assured him. “When we signed you for this solo album, we knew the potential you held as an artist. We know that there is a significant market for your style of music. We knew you were stubborn on the issue of mixing and overdubs, but we didn’t know you were going to stonewall to the extent you have. We really do want to put a quality Matt Tisdale album out, and we think you have a diamond in the rough with what we’ve got on that master, but it needs to be polished, Matt. If you don’t let us polish it, it’s going to suck hind tit to the other Intemperance projects. That’s the simple fact. What I’m suggesting was never discussed, but I can tell you, I’m pretty sure they’ll accept the offer.”
Matt took him for his word. He was pretty good at reading Crow. Nevertheless, he shook his head. “I can’t accept that offer,” he said. “The music I laid down was meant to be heard as it is. I’m certain of that.” He paused. “But I’m willing to let you prove me wrong.”
Crow looked at him carefully. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“If Next Phase is released before these other atrocities, and if you follow through with even minimal promotion of the project, it will go gold at the very least. That’s five hundred thousand copies sold, regardless of what kind of airplay I get. Do you agree?”
Crow gave a sideways glance and a shrug. “I won’t argue with that figure,” he said. “There are certainly enough Matt Tisdale fans in the United States to sell half a million copies of your album once they know it exists and it’s for sale.”
“All right then,” Matt said. “And if the album was to go gold and no further, would National Records show a profit from that?”
“Of course they would show a profit from a gold album,” he said. “In a contract like yours, the margin between profit and loss is somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter mil, but that’s not the point.”
“I know that’s not the point,” Matt said. “The point is you want to make maximum profits. You’re a business and you have stockholders and all that bullshit. I’ve heard it a thousand times. But what I’m saying is that maybe we can have ourselves a little wager here.”
Crow raised his eyebrows. “A wager?”
“Release my album by the end of the month,” Matt said. “Release it as is and make sure it gets out before Greatest Hits and that traitor Coop’s shit. Promote it to the best of your abilities and see what happens.”
“Okay,” Crow said tiredly. “And what is the wager?”
“If it doesn’t go platinum by the end of the year, I’ll concede that you corporate fucksticks just might have a point about this engineering crap. I’ll allow my next album to be mixed and engineered under the supervision of your best people. I will allow your overdubs and all that other shit.”
Now it was Crow who was giving a look of suspicion. “You’re fucking with me, right?” he asked.
“I’m not fucking with you. I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is.”
Crow nodded thoughtfully. “An interesting offer,” he said.
“Before we go any further, there will be stipulations.”
“Such as?”
“I still compose the original tunes for that second album. I still retain creative control over the tunes that are put on the album. I still play all guitars on the album. If there’s going to be guitar overdubs on it, I’ll be the one to compose them and put them there. I still handpick any musicians who do bass or drum overdubs. And there will be no instrumental overdubs that represent an instrument that does not exist in the composition. In other words, no fucking synthesizers, no fucking piano, no fucking string sections.”