Bam
I WAS IN hell. It was partially a hell of my own making… however, recognizing this didn’t make my current predicament any easier.
The muffled sounds of the customary “end of tour debauchery” thumped through the wall behind me, but I wasn’t quite done working yet. Our final show of the tour wasn’t until tomorrow night, but the band was celebrating early. It sounded like the makings of another in a long line of notorious bashes being thrown by the “Reigning Crown Princes of Southern Rock,” or whatever the press had labeled us this week.
Hadley, our manager’s saintly assistant, had worked out an arrangement with the theater to give us access to the large rehearsal room, currently being used as our own personal night club, and a small dressing room that had been set up for my scheduled interview. My eyes scanned my temporary prison, which had been furnished with two folding chairs, a small glass table, and a craft services cart containing, bottled water, beer and a basic deli platter.
Rainbow meat.
Sitting on a round, plastic platter was a familiar variety of sliced bread, bright orange triangular cheese slices, and what we not-so-affectionately called “rainbow meat.” This culinary abomination earned its name due to the fact that it took on an iridescent hue after sitting out in the open for too long. I related to the sad contents of the platter. I, too, was a piece of meat that had been out too long. Everyone in the business knew to stay away from the rainbow meat. Everyone that is, except Sheila Roberts; SPIN magazine’s writer of the year, notorious star fucker, and the very last person on earth I wanted to talk to. She was a tall bottle-blonde with the best tits her expense account would cover.
“Hi, Bam.” Sheila’s voice dripped with fake sincerity. “Thanks so much for meeting with me. I hear the tour has been amaaaahzing!”
I instantly disliked this woman. I should have been excited that SPIN wanted to do such a big piece on Roses for Anna, and that they had sent their ‘hottest’ reporter. I should have been excited that our first headlining tour had been sold out in almost every venue we played. I should have been happy about the success of last two singles. And I most definitely should have been excited the final show of the tour was tomorrow night… but I wasn’t. I was fried.
“No problem, happy to finally get to sit down with you,” I lied. I knew why she was here and what she really wanted to talk about.
Lately, the main goal of the press was to dig for information regarding my relationship with Melody Morgan, the reigning “Queen of Pop.” When I was told that SPIN wanted to do this interview with only me, without the band, I agreed, but only under one condition: “Absolutely no fucking questions about Melody.”
Those were the exact words I’d spoken to our manager when Chas informed me this interview was going to happen. He assured me that ‘Sexy Sheila’ would only be allowed to ask questions about the tour, the new album, and general band history. I didn’t fully trust him, and the band was pissed at me for doing the interview alone, but what could I do? This is what the label wanted, so this is what management wanted.
“Let’s jump right in, I’m sure you’re dying to get back to your party,” Sheila said.
That actually couldn’t have been further from the truth. The last thing I wanted was to be trapped in a room full of phonies and money men. God knows I could blow off some steam, and I’d sure as hell earned it. But how? Get drunk, bang a groupie, get into a fight? The truth was, I was bored and tired of all of it, and for the first time I was trying to put all that shit behind me and keep my cool.
“Take your time, Miss Roberts. Can I get you anything? A drink perhaps?” I offered.
“Um no, I… I’m fine, thanks.” Sheila studied me with renewed interest. “I’m sorry, I expected more of a―”
“Bad boy?” I provided.
“Well, there’s no shortage of stories regarding the exploits of Roses for Anna, but now that I’m face-to-face with the ‘Notorious B.A.M.,’ you seem a touch more gentleman than wild man.”
“Yeah, we know how to kick up a little dust from time to time, but we were raised to say ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am,’ and to always offer a lady a drink,” I said smiling slowly.
This was all true, but I also knew when to lay on the southern charm, and I hoped my politeness would keep Sheila within the proper bounds during our interview.
Sheila set her digital recorder on the small glass table between us and hit record. She took a deep breath, looked at me with a staged intensity, changed her tone to what I assumed was her best “fuck me” voice, and began, “Childhood friends rock their way from the Deep South to the top of the charts. How does it feel to be the heartthrob at the center of it all?”
I now hated this woman.
“I don’t know about being the center of anything,” I countered, shifting uncomfortably. “But yeah, Jimmy, Zeke and I have known each other since we were kids.”
“In Alabama right?”
“Yes ma’am, Elwood Alabama to be exact.” I poured on the southern accent and flashed her a sly grin. I didn’t want to be here, but I knew how to play the game. “Jimmy and I have known each other since seventh grade.”
“How did you meet?”
“Well… funny story, we met… sort of… rescuing another kid from getting the shit kicked out of him. He was a skinny little runt with thick glasses, and some eighth graders were doing their best from, shall we say ‘liberating him from his lunch money.’”
Sheila laughed.
“Jimmy and I didn’t know each other, or this kid, but we both saw what was going down from opposite sides of the cafeteria. We locked eyes, jumped in, pulled the bully off, and proceeded to teach him a lesson about picking on weaker people.”
She cocked her head. “Wow, you sounded more like a gang than friends.”
“We were worse,” I admitted. “We were a band. Jimmy and I hit it off and bonded over music right away. We loved all the same bands, mostly from the 90’s… especially RatHound. Jimmy wanted to play bass and sing like Rex Haddon and I wanted to play the drums just like Jack Henry. Hell, I wanted to be Jack Henry. I even started growing my hair like his. Jimmy thought that was cool so we started our first band. The skinny kid with the glasses became our first guitarist. He was a great player but he never could fight for shit.”
“So, Edward isn’t your original guitar player?”
“No, no, no,” I said with a chuckle. “Edward is el numero tres. He’s been with the band for almost a year now. He came in to help out with the guitar tracks on the last album and ended up sticking around. He’s great, but to be honest with you I think he’d rather be somewhere quiet with a glass of scotch and a big ol’ book about art or something.”
Sheila smiled. “When did you guys meet Zeke?”
“Junior year of high school—not that we were going to school much at this point. I’ve always loved to read, but never cared much for getting up early.” Surprisingly, I started to drop my guard a little. “We were at a backyard party and Zeke was singing for another band. Jimmy was reaching his vocal limits and really wanted to concentrate on his bass playing. We saw Zeke’s band play and, truth be told, we didn’t like him much, but he had a PA system and a lot of confidence. He also said he could get us fake IDs, so naturally he was in the band.”
“Was Zeke already a great singer back then?”
“Zeke?” I laughed. “He didn’t sing so much as he… drunkenly yelled, with a lot of enthusiasm. He got good pretty quick, though… once he figured out the girls paid more attention to him when he actually sang well.”
I started to relax a little more. Maybe I had been too hard on Sheila. Maybe she really was here to talk about the band and not all the recent TMZ bullshit. Maybe SPIN magazine wasn’t interested in digging for dirt.
She continued, “Growing up in small town Alabama, did you ever think you’d end up writing hit singles, selling out shows across the country, and dating pop stars?”
And here she goes pulling out her shovel.
“Um, yeah… I guess we had pretty big dreams right way… but uh…” I stumbled on my words. She had shifted the weight of the conversation just enough to trip me up. “We’re really happy to have gotten here, together.” I tried to recover and hoped the interview wasn’t going in the direction I’d feared.
“That’s great,” she said, flatly.
I got the impression this wasn’t the answer she was looking for. She more than likely wanted me to take all the credit for writing our last two singles and successfully spearheading our first tour as a headlining act. I could see her mentally shifting gears before she started the next line of questioning.
“So it’s been a few months since your very public split with Melody Morgan, how are you doing?” she asked with obvious fake concern.
I stiffened.
“I’m doing great. Everything is cool. Thanks,” I responded, as dryly as possible, hoping she would hop off this trail as fast as she hopped on.
“Given the high level of her celebrity status, was it tough for you to be romantically attached to the current ‘queen of pop,’ or was the additional publicity good for you and the band?”
“Um, well, neither. I try my best to keep my personal life and band life separate, ya know?” I once again tried to politely steer her back on course, but I was quickly losing my patience.
“Have you spoken to Melody lately and is it hard for you to hear your hit duet on the radio playing every hour, on the hour?”
“Well, I don’t really listen to the radio, and we’ve been really busy working on our new album, and the tour—”
“It’s just that it seemed like the whole world was really rooting for pop star and the rocker to make it the distance, and you seemed so in love,” she continued.
Sonofabitch! This woman is relentless.
It was obvious she wasn’t going to let this go and had no intention of talking about the band, our music, or our album… she really only wanted dirt. Gossip has become the biggest money maker in the entertainment industry, and this so called “journalist” wanted to make a name for herself through the flaming wreckage of my last relationship.
“Well, like I said, I don’t talk about my private life, and have been focusing on our new album and this tour, so maybe we could just talk about that.” I was now officially done being polite. I had been very clear with Chas about not answering questions about Melody and I couldn’t believe the nerve of this so-called-journalist.
“Yes, of course. I absolutely want to talk about the new album, let’s do that,” she continued. “Did your recent breakup influence your songwriting on the new album?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, I was on my feet. I was ready to tell her that the interview was officially over, and that she could kiss my ass, but at that very moment, Jimmy came bounding through the door.
“Hey Baaaaaam, you’re missing the party, maaaaaan!” Jimmy yelled through his ear to ear grin. Each of his hands contained an empty beer bottle, held high above his head. He was clearly wasted, which was nothing new these days. “Come join the festivities, brother.”
I seized this opportunity to make my exit.
“You know what, Sheila? Jimmy’s right, I really should get back to the party. Thanks for your time, we’ll have to do this again sometime really soon.” Before Sheila could manage to get another word out of her shocked face, I had grabbed Jimmy by the arm and exited the room.
“Hey man, what the hell!” Jimmy protested.
I pushed through the double doors leading into our party suite. I deposited Jimmy on the nearest couch, between two of our road crew, relieving him of his two empty bottles, and grabbing a fresh longneck from a nearby bar tray.
“Well, that’s more like it,” Jimmy said and took a pull from the bottle.
I scanned the sea of faces and red plastic cups for Chas Chambers, the band’s manager, the architect of the SPIN interview and the current object of my full wrath. At 6’ 8”, Chas was easy to pick out of a crowd. He was a massive man, who had been a champion bare knuckle boxer in his native Manchester, England, before going into the business of band management. His fighting background had served him well in the business and as much as I couldn’t stand him, I couldn’t argue that he got things done. Zeke had insisted that we hire him as the band’s manager two years ago. Until then, I had managed the band, but Zeke felt like this gave me “too much power” and so made an ultimatum; hire Chas, or Zeke would quit.
I should have let Zeke fuckin’ quit.