He was telling the truth, but carefully not mentioning his personal opinion. In truth, he found the tunes on Veteran’s debut CD to be more than a little formulistic. They were heavy on electric guitar and synthesizer and pounding drum beats, but with simplistic lyrics that relied heavily on the musical sophistication that had been produced by the veteran musicians. In short, they were more productions than compositions. More tunes that had been finely honed in the recording studio rather than tunes from the heart. They would sell like mad because they would be radio friendly on rock and pop stations both and would be appealing to the musically unsophisticated music consumer—which was to say that eighty or more percent of those who bought rock genre music would like it. The same people who liked acts such as The Beastie Boys and Kiss were going to love Veteran and declare them the up and coming thing. Those who were musically sophisticated, however, were going to pass them off as nothing more than another fad.
“That’s what Tim Jenkins—he’s our A&R guy at Aristocrat—keeps saying as well,” Coop said. “And those of us in the band are already spending our royalty money. We know we’re going to hit big with this shit.”
“How was it working with those guys?” Jake asked. He knew every one of Coop’s bandmates by name and reputation. All of them were former members of bands Jake had listened to and enjoyed in his late teens to early twenties. The only one he had ever actually met, however, was Mike Hamm, the bass player. Hamm had been the bass player for Earthstone prior to their breakup after their last album. Earthstone had been the band that Intemperance had opened for on their first tour—or at least they had opened for them until it became clear that the fans were buying tickets to see Intemperance primarily and National had broken up the tour to send Intemperance out as the headliner. Jake—who had considered Earthstone one of his favorite bands in his formative years—had found Hamm to be an unlikable sort when he actually got to know him. He was an aggressive and confrontational anger ball when he was drunk and coked out, which he had been most of the time out on the road.
“It was all right,” Coop said with a shrug. “Nothing like when we were all together though.”
“No?”
Coop shook his head. “No,” he said. “You thought you and Matt had fucking ego problems with each other? I’m telling you, what you two had wasn’t shit compared to Jerry Hawk and Rob Wilkes. Those two motherfuckers fight like Arabs and fuckin’ Jews over every single goddamn note on every goddamn track. It took us forever to get the tunes locked down and into format. And they don’t listen to me at all, just tell me to shut up and play my fuckin’ drums like they tell me to. Me and Steve—that’s Steve Carl, the keyboardist?”
“I know who Steve Carl is,” Jake said. “He’s a master at the synthesizer.”
“He is,” Coop agreed, “but he’s in the same boat as me. They just want us to shut up and play like we’re told while they measure each other’s fucking dicks. And we’re both so much younger than they are—fucking Hawk and Wilkes are both in their goddamn forties, you know and been playin’ for more than twenty years—that they don’t think we got anything valuable to add.” He shook his head. “It ain’t nothin’ like Intemperance man. When we got together and jammed, fucking everyone’s opinion mattered, we all had input on the tunes. We argued sometimes, hell, a lot near the end, but we always listened, you know what I’m saying?”
Jake nodded. “I know what you’re saying,” he said.
Coop’s good mood seemed to have faded a bit. “That’s what’s up with that,” he said. “I’m glad the composition and recording is over, that’s all I have to say. I’m just looking forward to hitting the road so I can start bagging groupies and getting wasted again.”
Jake brought the subject back around to more pleasant things. They spoke about their early years on the road, reminiscing about their exploits but staying away from the touchier subjects such as the drugs and alcohol before hitting the stage, the heroin addictions, the decline and eventual death of Darren, or the venomous separation from Matt. Their tacos came and they ate them. They drank three more bottles of beer apiece. They smoked cigarettes and blew the smoke out into the room (it would be another eight years before California would ban smoking in restaurants). And they laughed and felt the warmth of old friendship.
Early in the conversation, Coop asked Jake if he was working on anything musically these days and Jake deflected the question. It was easy to do with Coop. You simply had to point out a nice pair of tits or talk about how good a particular variety of cannabis was. After the fourth beer, however, Coop brought the subject up again.
“Seriously, dude,” he said. “How are things with you? I hear Matt’s got a solo album coming out soon. You been working on anything?”
Jake took a slow, long drink of his beer and then set the bottle down on the table. He picked up a chip, dipped it in salsa, and then crunched it up. Only then, did he speak. “I actually am working on something, Coop,” he said, “but we’re kinda trying to keep it quiet.”
“No shit?” Coop said happily. “I thought you might be. I ask Pauline this all the fuckin’ time, but she never gives a straight answer.”
“Pauline’s a good manager,” Jake said.
“Fuckin’ A, she is,” Coop said. “If it weren’t for her, Veteran never woulda made it to the point where we had something to release. She knows when to come in and kick some fuckin’ ass and take names. She can put Hawk and Wilkes right the fuck in their places when she has to and get them to kiss and make up.”
“Yeah,” Jake said. “She is good like that.”
“The only piece of advice those assholes ever took from me was to get with your sister as manager instead of that slimeball Shaver. I’m glad they listened to me on that, at least.”
“Yeah,” Jake said, now worried that Coop had actually forgotten what they were supposed to be talking about. “Anyway ... Pauline would be really upset if I were to tell you about our projects.”
“What projects?” Coop asked.
He licked his lip a little. “The ... uh ... projects that I’ve been working on lately? The ones I’m not supposed to talk about?”
Coop’s face lit up. “Oh yeah!” he said. “Those projects. What do you got going, dude? You coming up with some cool shit, or what?”
“Well...” Jake said hesitantly, “like I said, I’m not really supposed to talk about it. Can you keep this quiet?”
“You know it, brother,” he said. “My mouth stays fuckin’ shut when it’s inside information, you know what I’m saying?”
Jake nodded slowly. “I know what you’re saying,” he said. “All right, here goes. The fact is, me, Pauline, Nerdly, and Celia Valdez have put together an independent record company.”
“Celia Valdez?” Coop said, amazed. “That Mexican bitch from La Diferencia? The one whose brother you and Matt got in a fight with that time?”
“That’s the one,” Jake confirmed. “Although she’s from Venezuela, not Mexico. Anyway, she got released from her contract the same time we broke up Intemperance. Her and I kinda got to be friends over the past few years.”
“Oh yeah?” Coop said slyly. “You tappin’ into that shit, brother?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Jake admitted. “We’re just friends. But she is a very talented musician and her voice is probably one of the best in music right now.”
“Yeah,” Coop said, “and she got a set of titties that won’t fucking stop!”
“That too,” Jake agreed. “Anyway, we all got together and we’re working on a couple of solo albums on our label. KVA Records, we call it. We put some material together and we just secured some studio time at Blake Records up in Oregon to start recording in late September.”