Chapter Ten
Tristan
Five Years Later
I was standing in the vocal room with my headphones on looking towards the cavernous studio across the microphone at my beautiful wife and thinking about the bumpy road we took to get to this point in our lives. I was there, along for the ride, but I knew that I had Elly to thank for it all. If it wasn’t for her, I’d have been living on the streets or worse—possibly dead by then. I was five years clean and sober and here in the studio recording my third album; I had a fucking amazing life.
I smiled at Elly and looked back through the glass at the big studio with the guitar cases and cymbal boxes and music sheets lying around. The bassist and drummer from my band were in there getting ready as were the back-up singers. Being there was amazing, although it was far removed from being on stage, which I preferred. I would always crave the bright lights and the stinky smoke that puffed out of the machines—and most of all, the screaming fans—but this was the route to staying there. Cranking out those new CD’s and reeling in the fans was all part of it, and by then I was grown up enough to realize I had to do the things I didn’t like as much as the ones I did. It was so easy when I was younger to just say fuck it and let someone else worry about it. But, that was what had gotten me broke and washed up before I was really even a man.
I was also finally listening to my agent, and my wife, and thinking about doing the talk show circuit. It was like another other type of artistry; marketing was more than half the battle. I’d learned that a little late in life, but I’d learned. I didn’t care for the idea, mostly because I knew they’d want to know about my fall from fame and what happened and why. I’d never really talked about that with anyone except Elly and my therapist. I just kept telling myself that I could do it. I’d come a long way and I had a lot to be proud of.
The music writing had come along great over the years, too. The happier my life was, the easier the words came…even when they were painful words from the past. That’s what got me through it, knowing it was in my past and not a part of my present or future. I actually hoped that singing about it would help someone else get through it. I hadn’t done much in my life to help other people so far, and I guess if that’s all I did, at least it was something. Love songs come a lot easier, too, since I met Elly. I used to think it was all bullshit and it made for a crappy song. Now, I knew it’s possible, so when I write about it, there’s a touch of realism to it. That’s what Elly and I were singing, one of the love songs I’d written.
While we waited for everyone else to get ready, I remembered back to the first time I walked into that place. I’d come back to L.A. with Elly by my side after we walked out on the Fresh Voices tour. The following week, we met with Manny Diaz in his office on the thirtieth floor of a glass building in Burbank. The recording studio is on the first floor, and after we signed the contracts, he walked us down to have a look around. I was mesmerized. I’d been in a recording studio before, of course, but I’d been a kid…and a punk…and usually stoned out of my mind. It was like seeing it all for the first time or with a new pair of eyes. That day, when Manny opened the door that led from the reception to the control room, I could almost smell the music. There were pictures hung all around the room of artists that had recorded here before. They were artists that I idolized; some that I modeled my music after. There was one there of me amongst them. It was one of my proudest moments.
Along the front part of the room that faced the glass, there were boards and knobs and dials and a computer screen bigger than any television I’d ever seen. Through another door was the machine room where the big machines did their business. They made a lot of noise so they sat at the back in a sound proof room, and everything that happened between the control room and the vocal room happened through our headsets.
Through the expansive glass that surrounded the control room, I could see the recording room and the vocal room. It was the ultimate goal of a serious musician to make it there. I’d had that chance and blown it once, and at the moment Manny walked us in there, I promised myself it would never happen again. I was going to make the best of every chance I got. I had to, for my sake and the sake of the woman who had saved me.
Five years later Elly was my wife and we were recording a duet together for the album. She still didn’t get what an amazing voice she has. It was hard for me to fathom. I’ve always known that I could sing…always. When I was four years old, I knew I was going to be a star. Some people might call that arrogance, but I just call it being aware of your God-given talent and knowing how to use it to its fullest potential. As a kid, I had no idea how to do that, and I had no one with the patience and ability to teach me. Elly changed all that, and for that alone, I will be eternally grateful.
“You two ready?” Rick, the sound engineer asked us.
“Ready!” We said at once. The song was a love song, like I said. I’d written it about us and we’d only really sang it through together a few times, so I wasn’t sure how it was going to go. Elly was nervous, but she was less nervous than she was the night I convinced her to do the duet with me onstage in front of a live audience of millions of people. I smiled at her again as I thought about how she was willing to give up her job to do that for me. Sometimes I can’t believe I was selfish enough to ask her to. I guess I’m glad, I was because it all turned out so well…but however you look at it, I was a selfish ass.
I snapped out of my memories and into the mic I told the engineer to cue the band. A few seconds later the music started, and when it was time, Elly and I started singing. Every minor missed note either on our part or the part of the band or the back-up artists was caught and we’d have to start over. By the time it was perfect enough for the engineer—and Manny, who had shown up half way through—it was late afternoon and everyone was exhausted. Elly and I went out into the control room to say hello to Manny when we finished, and by that time my agent and self-proclaimed P.R. specialist, Jerry, had come in as well. He was incredible at what he did, but he was also an incredible pain in my ass.
“Tristan! Elly! That was fabulous! It was fabulous!” Jerry always used words like ‘fabulous’ and ‘top-notch’ and ‘magnificent.’ No one knew how he really felt about anything. He was so full of shit that he smelled like it sometimes, but he knew everyone in town and he could get your name out there in lights faster than anyone else, so Elly was constantly telling me to grin and bear his bullshit. I did my best.
“Thank you, Jerry,” my sweet, polite wife said.
He kissed her on each cheek and said, “I’m not even kidding Elly, you’re magnificent!”
Elly smiled and looked over at me. All it took her these days was one look at my face to know what I was thinking, and right now she knew I was thinking that as fabulous as I knew she was, this guy was still full of shit.
He turned to me then and said, “Tristan, baby!” He had his arms open, and after five years of me dodging his touch, he seemed to still believe I was going to hug him. The thought of touching a man didn’t appeal to me in the least, but the thought of touching Jerry’s soft squishy body actually repulsed me a little. I put my hand out instead and he giggled like a little girl before shaking it. Then he said, “How about The Dialogue next Monday morning?”
“What’s that?” I asked him.
“Are you kidding? Five of the hottest women in show business sit around a table and interview celebrities every morning. It’s a wildly popular show. How could you not know what it is?”
I shrugged, “I don’t watch much television.”
“Well, you should because anyone who is anyone will be talking about you in the next few months. This is going to be your most successful album yet and we’re going to make sure that everyone knows who you are, even if they never turn on the radio.”
I looked at Manny and he said, “Jerry’s the expert, Tristan. I’d listen to him if I were you.” I looked at Elly and she smiled and nodded too.
I looked back at Jerry then and said, “Alright, I’ll be there.”
“One more thing,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“You have to watch the potty mouth. No four letter words.”
“You think I can’t talk like a professional, motherfucker?” I grinned and he shook his head. His jowls wiggled back and forth as he did.
“Be good!” he said.
With another grin I said, “I always am; ask my wife.” I got elbowed in the ribs by Elly for that.