Bandfic: Snapshots from a Possible Future (The End)
Title: Snapshots from a Possible Future [37-40] [Complete!]
Author: tigs
Characters: Patrick, Spencer, Frank
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own.
37. The Album
It’s fucking weird, is what it is, because Patrick’s used to doing this whole writing songs thing a certain way, you know? He’s used to working with Pete in hotel rooms halfway around the world, guitars balanced on their knees, the two of them sitting on bedspreads with patterns lurid enough that the ink smudges they end up leaving behind blend right in.
Or more recently, when he’s been composing songs for other bands, he’s grown accustomed to working in his basement, sitting at the drum stool, or on one of the bean bag chairs, or even just on the floor, letting the notes trickle out in fits and starts, until he’s too far along to think about turning back.
The one constant, though, is that *he* has always been the one to bring the words and notes together. That is what he does; it’s who he is.
*This*, though.
See, *this* is Frank and Adam sitting across the room from him, guitars balanced on *their* knees, playing something that could very well end up being one of their group’s songs, and it’s something that Patrick has had no hand in creating whatsoever. *This* is Frank clapping the kid on the shoulder when they’re done, even as he looks over at Patrick and Spencer, saying, “Fucking awesome, right?”
And it is.
The thing is, though…
The thing is, Patrick almost wishes that it wasn’t.
He almost wishes that he could say that it needed x, y, or z. That the bridge needed work, or that the chorus didn’t mesh at all, or a hundred other things, because then they could take a step back towards his comfort zone, where he and Pete were the ones to get the music started, the rest of the guys coming in to flesh the songs out. He wouldn’t be sitting here, feeling like… this.
But Frank’s had just as much experience writing with a band as Patrick’s had, maybe more, and he’s learned all of those tricks that Patrick learned too, and the lyrics that Adam came up with are catchy, about showing the people that left you behind that they were fucking idiots-yeah, the kid is totally channeling there-and the words are put together in a way that Patrick never would have considered, and… And it works.
It really fucking works.
So, just a breath after Frank finishes asking the question, Patrick says, “Fuck yeah it’s awesome,” and Adam ducks his head, hair flopping down like a curtain he’s trying to hide behind. Patrick’s pretty sure that he can still see Adam’s flush through the orange and black streaks of his bangs, though.
*
And, see, song number three isn’t Patrick’s either, and it isn’t Frank and AJ’s, and it’s not Spencer coming to their practice the next week with a song set entirely to drums or something like that.
No, it’s all of theirs, because while Spencer’s the one who has a line of chorus-very Beach Boys-esque, which is so totally Spencer it fucking hurts-Frank is the one to start developing verses. His enthusiasm is contagious, because pretty soon Patrick and Adam are talking over each other, sharing their ideas, and the next thing Patrick knows, they’ve got the basic outline of a song. They’ve got a chorus and three verses that are more done than not and they’re all laughing, trying to set them to different musical styles: country, death metal, bubblegum pop.
It’s around the time that Frank and Adam start leaping around Patrick’s basement, head banging as hard as they can while still playing, that Patrick realizes they’re probably done for the night.
*
So that’s song number three, and as he looks at the finished product, all Patrick can remember is an interview (or five) where he’d said things like: *I can’t even imagine trying to write with the whole band-that would take for-fucking-ever, you know?*
But.
And okay, song number four is one that he and Adam write the words to-pure pop this time around, churned out over three lunches at the studio-and Spencer’s the one to develop the musical hook, picking out the notes on Patrick’s piano. It’s got that show tune musicality that Panic perfected.
And song number five is a mesh of Frank’s scream-o roots with a bit of Patrick’s R&B stylings. It’s a duet-has to be, because there’s no way Patrick’s going to be able to make his voice do the things that Frank’s can do, not without knocking himself out of commission for several days. And-
Yeah.
*
And so, four weeks into this apparent ‘album writing process,’ Patrick’s finally starting to get used to this brand new world, where the writing really *is* a whole band activity. Which, of course, is when Frank shows up at Patrick’s with a sheepish look on his face. As sheepish a look as Frank ever gets, anyway.
Before Patrick can ask what’s going on though, Frank hands him a folded sheet of paper on which Patrick can see scrawled words in a familiar handwriting.
“Fuck,” Frank says, shaking his head. He runs his fingers over his purple tinged faux-hawk. “Gerard, you know. He said if we were accepting material, you know?”
And see, this is one thing Patrick hasn’t done before.
He has never, ever sung a song on one of his albums that he (or his band mates, he guesses now) didn’t write. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that; some of his favorite people in LA are songwriters, people who much prefer to stay behind the scenes. He’s certainly worked with singers who’ve sung albums full of songs written especially for them. Hell, it’s not like *he* hasn’t written songs for other people! That’s just… never been for him, or any of the groups on Pete’s label, the ones he cut his production teeth working with.
“Not that we have to use it,” Frank says. The thing about Gerard, though, is that he’s really fucking talented, and he’s a good judge of what will work and what’ll be appropriate, and, well.
Reading the words, Patrick is already hearing kernels of a melody around the edges of his thoughts.
So that’s song number six.
*
And once word makes it’s way through their group of friends that they accepted a song from Gerard, they start to get more submissions. First Patrick gets an email from Ryland and Gabe, the attached song entitled ‘A Very Serious Song Which Patrick Must Sing.’ Then Travis writes him a rap, and William and Alex the Singer write half a song on napkins from a Denny’s in the middle of Nebraska, where they’re in the middle of a tour of folk art festivals.
Most of them are jokes, words that are fun to sing through once, laughing too hard to actually be on key.
Ryan’s song isn’t a joke, though.
No, the Monday of the seventh week since they began to write this album in earnest, Ryan Ross shows up at the studio with a yellow mailing envelope in hand, one that’s addressed to Patrick.
“I had some ideas,” he says, like that explains it all, and maybe it does.
Patrick starts to open the envelope right there, but Ryan shakes his head and says, “No, no. I just-fuck. If you want to use any of it, you know? You can. Spence should, ha, be able to read my writing. Probably.”
He shuts the door behind him when he leaves, at which point Patrick really does open the envelope.
There are five sheets of paper, classic Ryan Ross, literary and dense, words trailing away into images that are not things Patrick would ever come up with on his own, not even after having known Pete for almost two decades.
And it’s not something that Patrick would ever actually think of singing himself. But, it is something that Spencer would have helped write music for in the past, something that’s part of his style, and this band-
This band really is about more than the four of them. It’s their histories, their roots, a trip into complete self-indulgence, which is why Patrick will get his rap song, why Frank will get to scream. It’s why there will be trips into the recesses of Gerard’s mind, why Ryan’s song will be number seven in their arsenal, why there will be a veer into the traditional alt rock sound that saturated the airwaves for too many years, because that’s what Adam grew up on.
Because they, as a band, don’t have a sound, per se. They don’t have a box they fit into. And really? Patrick’s pretty sure that he likes it that way.
38. The Studio (II)
So, um.
So Patrick is actually sort of nervous. Just a little bit. Just enough to wake him up at six o’clock in the morning and keep him staring at the fucking ceiling until his alarm goes off at eight, repeatedly telling himself that he is not, in fact, nervous, because it’s not like he doesn’t spend every fucking day of his life in a studio or anything like that.
Still, he gets up when his alarm goes off instead of slamming the snooze button three times like he usually does. He eats a banana, drinks a cup of coffee. He picks his clothes up off the floor, tossing them in the hamper, and starts his dishwasher. He sits down and turns on the TV, some morning show, something he has no interest in listening to, and he tries not to fidget.
He’s relieved when the clock on the TV flips to 9:00, because 9:00 means that he can leave and tell himself (or anyone who asks why he’s there early) that he wanted to give himself plenty of time, just in case there was traffic. Because no one wants to be late on the first day of recording, right?
Right.
Which, he’s pretty sure later, is when he jinxes himself, because it takes him an *hour and a half* to go about ten miles. There’s an accident somewhere, nowhere he’s even close to, but oh fuck, he’s feeling the effects.
So, he’s late. He rushes into the studio red-faced and saying, “Fuck, fuck, sorry,” and of course the rest of his band is already there, so they laugh at him. Because that’s the sort of thing that they do. And it’s only after he’s had a chance to catch his breath, put his stuff down, that he takes a moment to look around.
The studio waiting area is a nice one: roomy, framed tour posters from the ‘60s hanging on the walls, a potted leafy something or other taking over one of the corners. He’s worked in similar spaces over the years-he wants to say thousands, but he knows that that would be an extreme exaggeration-and it feels comfortable. In a way. In the way that any studio that’s *not* Patrick’s can feel comfortable these days.
Rob comes out to meet them about a minute after Patrick shows up, and then he’s showing them the way back to the practice spaces, which, okay, *does* feel weird. It’s been a long time since Patrick has spent a significant amount of time in a part of the studio other than the sound booth.
He follows Rob and Spencer down the hall, though, with Frank and Adam trailing behind. Frank is babbling away, his tone of voice probably intended to provoke the kid into some sort of response, but AJ seems to be far more focused on trying to absorb *everything*.
Patrick remembers those days.
Those were good days, if Patrick does say so himself. He’s pretty sure that Pete, Joe, and Andy would all probably agree.
So, they go into the practice room, and Patrick knows this, too. The mandatory sit-down with the producer when all you want to do is get behind the instruments and fucking play, to get this fucking party started. Patrick thinks that he should probably appreciate Rob’s position more, given what Patrick does for a living now, but, well, it’s really fucking easy to slip back into the musician mentality. Rob really *does* need to know what their vision for the album is, though. He needs to know how they plan to create flow between the divergent musical genres.
So, they talk and Rob listens, and then Rob talks and they listen, and it takes fucking hours, or feels like it does, before they finally get to break out the instruments, to show Rob what they’re bringing him to work with. Of course, he already knows some of it. Patrick only knows of Rob by his (good) reputation, but Pete’s worked with him before, with other bands. He wouldn’t have sent Patrick to him if Rob wasn’t the absolute best person for the job.
There’s a light in Rob’s eyes after they’re done playing through the 12 songs that they’ve chosen to put on the album and it’s a look that Patrick recognizes: anticipation. Yes, he can work with this. Yes, he can make this happen. It’s rather gratifying to see, actually, because the only people outside of the four of them who’ve heard more than a song or two-namely, Pete, Jamia, and Ryan-can’t be considered objective in any way, shape, or form. Oh, Patrick trusts them to give honest opinions, but even they would acknowledge that they’re more than a little biased.
And so, when Patrick gets home that day, the ten miles only taking half an hour this time, he actually feels good about this whole thing. Better than he has yet, actually, now that it finally seems to have moved beyond the cusp of possibility and firmly into reality.
*
Patrick remembers how years ago, when they were recording Folie a Deux, Pete pretty much had to learn evasive driving tactics to lose the paparazzi before he came anywhere within five miles of the studio they were working in. Patrick really, really doesn’t miss those days. At all.
It’s really nice to be able to leave his house at 9:30 and be there by ten. It’s nice to be able to go out for lunch and not have to worry that there are going to be photographers lurking near by, ready to leak the news to the world that Reason #437 is in the studio, recording. That the rumored album, the one that Pete Wentz has mentioned wanting in more than a few interviews-albeit, not since Patrick told him that he actually was going to get his wish-is actually going to happen.
And, okay, there are parts about recording that Patrick hasn’t missed at all. The repetitiveness, for instance. How the person in the sound booth has the power to ask you to do the song again. And again. And fuck you, Rob, fucking *again*. Even when you’re about eighty steps beyond tired and you’re edging towards that place where you never want to talk, much less sing, ever again.
On the other hand, it feels more than a little bit like coming home, to be in the studio, singing. To be able to look to someone else for feedback rather than be the one that’s expected to give it. And it feels more natural as the week goes on.
The thing that makes this whole experience different is that there are no deadlines that they’re working on. They haven’t paid for three weeks of studio space and three weeks only, and they have to be done by five o’clock on day 21 or their record company is going to come yell at them. And it’s not like Pete is going to send them back to the studio if he doesn’t like the results of their labor. Not when he spent seven weeks asking for “more, more, come on, Stump, you can’t fucking leave me hanging like this, dude. It’s fucking cruel and unusual punishment. Fuck you.”
So, it’s more relaxed.
*
For instance, the day that Patrick goes to record his almost-rap?
Adam sneaks into the sound booth and starts beat boxing. At least that’s what Patrick assumes he’s doing, given that he has his hand cupped over his mouth, and seems to be doing an Eminem-style dance, with occasional raising-the-roof hand gestures thrown in. Patrick manages to get through most of his song without laughing. He has less luck on the second run-through, when Spencer and Frank join Adam, trying to act even more gangsta, and-
Yeah.
The third time Patrick tries the song, Rob suggests that he think about turning around to face the wall. Possibly. Unless Patrick has plans to usher in a new era of laugh-backed hip-hop?
He nails take number four. Then has to do it five more times, before Rob is satisfied that they’ve got enough footage to mix together.
*
And then there’s the time when Frank decides it’d be really awesome to switch out the demo of Ryan’s song that Adam uses as a cue while recording his own parts with the soundtrack to the *Lion King*. So, when Adam gets ready to play his sparse, un-Disney-influenced chords, he instead gets ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight?’
And Adam, proving that he really does belong in this group with the rest of them, immediately switches gears and starts to play along. While singing in a slightly off-key, mournful voice.
*
And then there’s the time during week three when they’re working on song number nine. Spencer and Adam may have been the ones to get the lyrics together, but while writing the music, it somehow became Patrick’s baby, with more focus on the instrumentation than anything else he-or they-have written recently.
While Patrick has a very clear idea of how exactly this song is supposed to sound in his head, though, it’s just not coming together the way he wants it to. And then he’s the one to ask everyone else to do their parts fifteen times, and he does the vocal parts another few times on top of that. And Rob keeps putting it together, keeps tweaking it, but it’s just not *right*.
By the time they finally leave at two o’clock the next morning, Patrick wants to punch something, and he’s pretty sure that the rest of the guys want to punch him, and he hasn’t missed this part either. Because it doesn’t seem to matter how not-stressed, how organic the process has been overall, it wouldn’t be a recording session without the members of the group getting so mad at each other they never want to talk to each other again.
But while Patrick goes to bed so frustrated that he’s literally shaking with it-and that he *does* remember from albums past-he’s forgotten the middle of the night epiphanies that usually follow. This one happens at 5:30, when he’s got Adam’s part running through his head. On one of the takes he’d taken the chord change up instead of down, a riff on the original, and maybe that’s what’s been missing, the unexpected chord change, and if they went with that, and Frank and Patrick followed suit with their guitar chords, they could-
He stops for coffee on the way into the studio, enough for his guys, Rob, the sound techs that had to listen to them go at each other the day before. Patrick will never apologize for being a perfectionist, not when that is the reason he’s as good at what he does as he is, but he still sounds a little hesitant to his own ears when he says, “So, I’m sure that after yesterday none of you ever want to fucking hear this song again, but I had a thought-“
His group mates would have been well within their rights to roll their eyes at him, or threaten to kick him out of the studio, because they must have heard that line come out of his mouth about 25 times the day before. They don’t, though, and when Patrick explains what he’s thinking, they nod and give it a try.
It may take them another four takes to get it, and it may not be what Patrick was originally thinking, but in the end, he’s also pretty sure that this is better.
*
And then there’s the time that Frank and Spencer are just playing around in the studio, wasting time while Patrick lays down his guitar tracks. He’s getting ready to go through them again, *again*, when Adam sticks his head into the room and says, “Sorry, sorry, but you’ve really got to hear this.”
So, Patrick follows him into the sound booth and nods for Rob to switch the speaker in the practice room on, and-
--and it’s fucking-
Frank and Spencer are just jamming. It’s obvious that there’s no real sense as to where the music’s going, but it’s one of those musical creations that only happens when the people that are playing know each other’s styles well enough to be able to make the leader indistinguishable from the follower, to be able to transfer control of the song seamlessly.
Patrick is glad to look down and see that the red record light on the soundboard is lit. He doesn’t know when it was pressed, whether it was Rob or Adam, but he wants this. He wants a recording of this-to use sometime, or build off of in the future.
And so he, Adam, and Rob just listen, until Spencer finally looks up from his drums for long enough to see that they’re being watched. At which point he trails off, Frank only a beat behind him. Frank sticks his tongue out at them, says, “You done with your parts already, Stump?”
Rob looks over his shoulder at Patrick. He switches on his mic so that Frank and Spencer can hear him, too. “I think you’ve got your intro. Or possibly an interlude? You *know* that has to be on the album.”
He’s right. It does.
*
And then one day, four weeks and three days after their first in-studio meeting with Rob, they’re done.
They’re working on song number 12, which is actually song number one, the one they performed on Diva Night, when they just weren’t ready to leave the stage yet. It will eventually be track number three on the album, and it goes smoothly-three takes of the drums, four of the bass and guitars, five of Patrick’s vocals. And this is what Patrick’s been wanting, right? To not have to repeat everything until he’s sick of it.
But when Rob nods and says, “Okay then. I think that’s it!” Patrick’s not ready for it. He’s not ready for this to be over, because having it be over means that they’re ready for the next step: admitting that the album is done. That it’s ready to go. That the rest of the world will know this is no longer quite as just-for-fun as it’s been in the past. And Patrick’s not sure that he’s fucking ready for that.
But they’re done, and it’s up to Rob to get everything polished now, and when they leave the studio-at 4:30 in the afternoon-none of them are quite sure what to do with themselves.
So they do the only logical thing: drive the hour and a half to Riverside, so they can eat tacos at Eduardo’s. They go through four bowls of chips and salsa and pick up a case of shitty beer at the liquor store a few blocks from Frank’s house, and then they proceed to get happy-drunk in Frank’s backyard, laughing and talking until Jamia tells them to move the party inside so the neighbors can get some sleep. It’s close to three in the morning, just as Patrick’s getting ready to pass out on Frank’s couch, that he texts Pete.
He writes: *done*
It takes approximately thirty seconds for Pete to call Patrick back.
“Dude,” Pete says, and Patrick says, “Yeah.”
Because he can’t really think of anything else to say.
Possibly because there *is* nothing else for him to say.
39. The End
Under Pete’s direction, DecayDance has become nearly legendary in it’s album promotion gimmicks. There have been the puzzles scattered across the Internet, the mix-tape albums, the secret code that the TAI and Gym Class Heroes guys ended up creating to announce their joint venture back in ’12. Pete’s created scavenger hunts, virtual, real, and those that have required people breaking out the GPS to get to the necessary destinations.
Patrick’s also pretty sure that Pete’s already devising a subtle hint driven campaign to announce this new CD. He hasn’t mentioned anything to Patrick, but he’s Pete. He doesn’t have to.
Patrick isn’t Pete, though. And this-
Reason No. 437 isn’t a big-name band. They don’t have any platinum records (although between them, they’ve certainly sold more than their fair share) and beyond the curiosity factor, he can’t see many reasons for the rest of the world to care.
So the announcement comes at it’s own time, which happens to be as they’re playing a show at the Seraglio, a little place out in Riverside, little more than a stage and a floor and a bar at the back.
There are more feather boas this time around-apparently it’s becoming the thing to throw on the stage at their concerts-and Frank and Adam each asked for one before they were two songs into the set. Patrick’s waiting awhile; he’s too warm and sweaty already, and the thought of having fake feathers around his neck for anything longer than their last song is enough to make him shudder.
Particularly because they’re having a Ska-influenced night, for which throwing yourself around the stage (and floor) is practically mandatory. Frank and AJ have already had one collision back near the drums, and Patrick’s had to stop the show for a few minutes twice, to break the momentum of the crowd on the floor. The venue’s not big enough to have more than two security guards and the people up near the stage are getting just a little bit too into things.
But they start off with the ‘The Impression That I Get’ by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and they play some Sublime in the middle, and they finish up with Reel Big Fish’s ‘Sell Out’ and-
It’s only appropriate, Patrick thinks, after he sings, “The record company’s going to give me lots of money, and everything’s going to be all right,” to say, “So, um.” He looks at the rest of his guys, and they know him well enough to know what he’s going to say. Spencer nods, and Frank grins, and Adam bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, just a little.
“So, we’re going to do one more song for you,” Patrick says. “This one’s off of our upcoming album, yet to be titled-“
“I told you months ago,” Frank interrupts. “We’re calling it ‘Still Falling for that Disco Romance.’”
“-*yet to be titled*,” Patrick says again, more loudly, talking over Frank, which causes Frank to flip him off. “But already recorded-“
And there’s some shouting then. More than a few screams.
“-which will be available for purchase at some point in the near future, and, well, we hope you enjoy.”
Judging by the screams they get when they finish the song, Patrick’s pretty sure that they do.
*
It is possible that Patrick’s learned his lesson, or that Pete has finally managed to train him, or that he realizes that this really *is* Pete’s business, because about three minutes after they leave the venue, Patrick’s on the phone.
Pete mumbles his hello, sounding like he was asleep. Patrick feels badly about waking him, but not badly enough to want to deal with a pissed off Pete calling him at 4 o’clock in the morning instead, bitching him out for not making sure that Pete knew this very important news as soon as it was news.
“So, I announced the album tonight,” Patrick says, without preamble.
He hears Pete’s breath catch on the other end of the phone line. Then he sigh-laughs, and Patrick can just picture him shaking his head. “Fuck, Stump,” he says. “I had fucking *plans*, you know. They involved secret shows, media invites. We were going to make a *splash*.”
“I opted for the ripple,” Patrick says. “People waved their boas in appreciation.”
It takes a moment, but Pete finally says, “We are so making boas part of your official merch on your tour,” at which point Patrick is pretty sure that he’s forgiven.
*
He knows it when he gets home and sees a new post on Pete’s blog:
*the word is out. look4 the new Reason#437 album, comng from dd recrds soon. then u 2 can listin on rpt for dayzat a time.*
There are 42 comments when Patrick goes to bed. There are 367 when he gets up in the morning. He doesn’t read any of them.
*
So, he knows that he’s forgiven, except for the part where payback is a bitch, because it’s not even 24 hours later that Patrick gets an email with a list of media requests, everyone from Rolling Stone to Ryan Seacrest to the Today Show-
“The Today Show?” Adam asks, eyes going wide in a way they haven’t for months. Like he’s just remembering who exactly he’s in a group with. And it’s not just a guy that he met at work and all of that guy’s friends.
“We’re a fucking super group,” Frank says. “Although a slightly less random one than a few of the others from recent years. Who knows: we could end up being the new Traveling Wilburys.”
“That’s sacrilege,” Spencer says.
“Also, you know that *they* didn’t get their start playing covers in fucking George Harrison’s basement,” Patrick says.
--and that is how, three weeks later, they end up having breakfast with a reporter from *Spin* on Monday, lunch at Patrick’s studio with another from *Alternative Press* on Tuesday, and have a reporter from *Rolling Stone* following them around Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Honestly, Patrick is still used to this. He’s worked with enough big name bands that he gets more than a few interview requests. Usually they’re phone interviews, though. Background information on past or upcoming albums. Generic quotes about how it was his privilege to work with the group, really, no really, and how big their new sound is going to be. It’s been a long time since the article’s been focused on him, though.
And really, the first breakfast is fine. The reporter asks the questions Patrick is expecting: How did their group get together? Have they remained friends all this time? Now Adam, how’d you get lucky enough to get in on this? What’s your background? Why covers?
They talk about Pete’s party, just a little over a year ago now, and how Patrick and Spencer had reconnected there. They talk about Frank moving to Riverside to help Jamia get her new shop started. They talk about jamming in Patrick’s basement, about the first charity show, about Patrick’s total stubborn oblivion.
Even the lunch is fine, although they pretty much have the exact same conversation with this reporter that they had with the first one.
It’s when the reporter from Rolling Stone comes to stay that Spencer finally loses it. Not in front of the reporter, thank fuck, or their first headlines probably would have been about them being ego-driven stars just looking for another way to make money, ten years after their glory days.
Still, when Spencer brings the reporter back to Patrick’s studio from a drive around the Los Angeles hills, he steps into Patrick’s office, closes the door, and mouths, “Save me.”
“Why?” Patrick asks, and Spencer walks across the floor to sit in the chair in front of Patrick’s desk.
“She’s sneaky,” Spencer says. Then he shakes his head and pinches at the bridge of his nose, laughing at himself. “She lulls you into false sense of security and the next thing you know, you’re telling her your life story. And the life stories of all of your guys. And she just-“ He trails off.
“Yeah,” Patrick says. Because Rolling Stone always does those sorts of stories. The in depth ones, always looking for the chinks in your armor, that sign that maybe you don’t really love this life as much as you should, that hidden story that maybe none of the other magazines were able to get out of you.
The reporter is with Adam now-and suddenly Patrick’s wondering if that was such a bright idea, scheduling the kid’s individual interview before Patrick had had a chance to do his own-but Patrick had thought he’d probably be a better choice to entertain the reporter for dinner. Frank gets to give her a tour of The Ragged Nest in the morning.
Indeed, when Adam drops the reporter off at Patrick’s office an hour and a half later, he looks a little shell-shocked. And maybe, Patrick thinks, that is the reason that Spencer had stuck around after his own interview, instead of taking out of there as soon as he was free from the reporter’s clutches; maybe he’d seen this coming.
So, basically, Patrick’s feeling more than a tickle of dread when he and the reporter leave for dinner. She asks where he wants to go, and he’s pretty sure that she’s expecting him to mention some trendy LA place, someplace that you pretty much have to be famous to get into at all.
He drives them to the bistro that he and Ryan used to meet at for lunch semi-regularly, although that routine has tapered off considerably now that they aren’t the only two DecayDance alumni in the LA area any longer. The restaurant’s menu has a little more depth at dinner than during the lunchtime rush, and Patrick opts for a vegetarian Panini instead of his regular salad.
And Spencer’s right: she is sneaky. She starts subtly, talking about the restaurant, how she’s never been here before. Does Patrick come here often? Oh, so he and Ryan used to meet for lunch? How many of Ryan’s bands has Patrick produced again? And what does Ryan think of Patrick and Spencer working in a band together? Oh, he wrote one of the songs for the album? Who else wrote songs for the album? Wow, that’s quite a lineup! So all of your band mates have been supportive of this venture?
Patrick was rarely the talker in Fall Out Boy-he usually tried to leave that to Pete and Joe-but wow, he just keeps talking tonight. He doesn’t say more than he means to say, but it’s probably closer than he’d like to admit. And the reporter is charming throughout, genuinely interested in what he has to say, never seems to be *looking* for the story.
She smiles as Patrick drops her off at her hotel, thanks him for a lovely evening. Patrick drives two blocks before pulling over in a 7-11 parking lot so that he can call Frank.
“Yo,” Frank says. “You survive?”
“Barely,” Patrick says. “I just wanted to give you a heads up that you’ll need to watch out. She’s deadly.”
“So Spencer and AJ said,” Frank says. “Although I don’t really think the kid has enough experience to judge yet. He said she got him talking about his old band.”
Patrick raises his eyebrow at that. He knows the basics of what happened with Adam’s previous band, after all. How they’d gone on tour, how they’d had their EP, and then-
“His previous band mates are fuckwads,” Frank says, with enough vehemence that Patrick thinks he’s now heard more of the story than Patrick has. “But if they weren’t, he probably wouldn’t have ended up in your studio, needing a job, so maybe we should send them a fruit basket or something? Or possibly an autographed copy of our CD?”
“Or both,” Patrick says, which makes Frank laugh. “I like the way you think, Stump!”
*
So, it’s a mini-blitz, those media outlets that don’t want to get accused of ignoring their band if they actually do end up becoming something more than a novelty act, and then it quiets down again.
Only in that way, though, because the next week, Pete sends him a list of venues that he’s lined up for them to play at. Three months on the road, 52 shows, and Patrick would say, ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!’ except that, well. The thought of getting back out on the road, seeing the country through bus windows, well.
It’s actually sort of exciting, is what it is. And 52 shows in 90-something days is a lot lighter schedule than he used to do. Also, Pete and Ryan conspired to get them support from The Aqua Angels and The Atomic Turtles, and members of both of the bands keep dropping by Patrick’s studio to tell him how excited they are for this, no seriously, Patrick can’t even imagine. Which, actually, he can.
Especially when he gets word of the first sold out show, the one in Pennsylvania of all places. It took a day and a half. The second show comes two days later, in Nebraska. And then it’s a deluge of news, as if people suddenly realized they might not have a chance to get a ticket if they didn’t get one *now*.
On the afternoon they hear about the 30th sold out show, they’re meeting for practice at The Gateway, so that they can get used to the size of stage that they’re going to be playing on for the next three months.
“What the fuck,” Patrick says, when Pete texts him the news. “No, seriously. We’ve put all of what, *one* of our own songs out there? People have only heard us play covers!”
“Which we are obviously fucking awesome at,” Frank says.
“But still!” Patrick says. Because, really.
*
And then they’re a week out from the album release, and the magazine articles start hitting the newsstands. They don’t get the cover on *Rolling Stone* or *Spin*, but they do get a small picture box on the cover of *Alternative Press*, with the caption, ‘The Summer Tour You’ve Got To See To Believe!’
By the time Patrick opens the first magazine, he’s already tensed up, waiting for the first glaring inaccuracy to appear in print, somehow sure that they’re going to be painted in an unflattering light, as pathetic stars trying to reclaim their former glory. He sees Spencer and Frank looking just as tense, just as ready to slam the magazines shut and spend the next hour laughing off the stories, until Pete posts a cryptically outraged blog post about how the media just doesn’t know a good thing when it sees it.
When he looks at Adam, though, he sees the rapt look on the kid’s face, the too-wide eyes, like he just can’t quite believe what he’s reading. And Patrick does understand that. His name, in print. His picture listed as being someone to watch. The fact that people would buy magazines just to read about him, his band. It still occasionally seems unbelievable.
It’s only a moment later, though, that Adam’s eyes narrow into something of a cringe and Patrick immediately looks to see what magazine he’s looking at. Rolling Stone, of course. So Patrick opens that one, flips to the marked page.
Despite the fact that they didn’t get the cover, they did get a five-page picture and article combo. And apparently a box, all about Adam. Where he tells about his old band, The Still Wanderers. About how they’d grown up together, playing music in his friend’s grandmother’s garage. About everything Patrick had known already, and then about how they’d come back triumphant from their summer tour only for the other three members of the band to tell Adam that his presence was no longer needed, that they wanted to take their music in a different direction than Adam supported. Which, Patrick guesses, is what Adam always meant when he said things like, “and now here I am.”
“Fuckwads,” Frank says again, quietly, as if knowing exactly what Patrick is thinking, and Patrick nods. But maybe Patrick should be thanking them? Because Frank is right: if they hadn’t been fuckwads, they might have kept Adam, and if they’d kept Adam, he probably wouldn’t have ended up in Patrick’s studio, or in this band, and Patrick and Frank might never have moved beyond fucking around on guitars in Patrick’s basement.
Patrick might have spent most of a six-month period fighting against acknowledging he was actually in a new band, but sitting here, now, with this group, a CD and a tour on the horizon, he really doesn’t want to be anywhere else.
And maybe that’s the ending that he’s been building towards, all this time.
40. The Beginning
Except for, you know, how it’s *not* the end, because the CD is coming out and one week after that little milestone, they’ve got their national tour kicking off in LA. Also, Patrick still has to finish up everything at the studio so that he can take an extended leave of absence, and then there’s the fact that he’s pretty much forgotten how to pack for three months on a bus. They’ve got two for this trip--one for Patrick and Spencer, one for Frank and Adam--but half a bus is still smaller than Patrick cares to remember.
And also, you know, on top of everything else, they have to practice.
By the end of Fall Out Boy’s run, Patrick had pretty much been able to play all of their songs in his sleep. Not so for Reason No. 437.
The songs are all new, even the covers that they’re doing. Also, the show that they’re putting together now just *feels* different than the little ones they’ve been playing for the last several months. Probably because they know people are paying more than a cover charge to get in. Also, they actually have a stage that they need to *set up*. They have techs that need to learn the ins and outs of their instruments. They have transitions to perfect.
Five days out, Patrick thinks they might actually make it; two days out, he’s sure that they won’t. The day of the first show, company starts descend. Because of course *no one* is going to miss this performance.
Pete and Joe are the first to arrive, flying in from Chicago at some god-awful hour in the morning. Pete excuses Patrick from picking him up at the airport, but that’s small comfort, as they show up at Patrick’s house at an hour that Patrick still prefers to believe doesn’t exist.
Pete, being Pete, ignores Patrick’s bleary grumpiness and just fucking *hugs* Patrick until Patrick croaks and says, “Air. I need fucking *air*, Wentz.” Pete reluctantly disengages himself, but then it’s Joe’s turn, and he slaps Patrick’s back hard enough that Patrick’s pretty sure there’s going to be a bruise there the next day.
“Dude,” Joe says, shaking his head when he finally pulls back from his own hug, wiping a fake tear away, probably pretending he’s a proud parent or some such shit.
“Dude?” Patrick says.
“Dude,” Joe says.
Originally, Patrick had tried to discourage Pete and Joe from coming in so early, but it’s only an hour later that he decides that he’s glad they’re there, because they totally take over airport duty, letting Patrick, Frank, and Spencer do their final run-throughs of the show without having to worry about keeping everyone entertained.
Of course, that also means that by the time they’re done with their final tweaks, the very small Gateway green room is full of former band mates, waiting to pounce on them. Fall Out Boy had always liked to have an active green room, to be able to hang out with their friends until it was time to get down to serious performing business. This, though, feels a little more overwhelming.
In the middle of the room, Brendon’s talking to Gerard. Off to one side, Ray, Joe, and Andy are doing something that involves head banging. Bob and Ryan are talking very seriously in the corner. And the kids in the Aqua Angels and the Atomic Turtles-because of course they’re there, too-are just fucking eating it up.
There’s a moment of silence as they all come in, and then their respective former band mates are crowding around them, hugging them, shouting greetings, all so fucking excited to be here with them.
And so it goes.
It’s about an hour and a half before they’re supposed to take the stage, about ten minutes before Patrick needs to begin his vocal warm-ups, that Pete comes over to where Patrick’s been sitting on the couch, talking to Bob, and plops down next to him. He drops his arm over Patrick’s shoulders, then pulls him into a quick hug. They sit there silently for a few moments and then Pete says, “Look at this. Your band, man.”
And Patrick looks: Adam’s hanging out with the kids in the Aqua Angels, making the sort of hand motions that make Patrick think they’re probably discussing cowbells. He sees Frank riding around the room on Ray’s back, high-pitched laughter audible even over everyone else’s voices. He sees Spencer getting attacked by Ryan and Brendon with makeup brushes while Jon stands off to the side and laughs.
As Patrick watches, Spencer looks over at him, catches his eye, smiles. Patrick grins back.
“Yeah,” Patrick says finally, softly. “My band.”
End.
Author: tigs
Characters: Patrick, Spencer, Frank
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own.
37. The Album
It’s fucking weird, is what it is, because Patrick’s used to doing this whole writing songs thing a certain way, you know? He’s used to working with Pete in hotel rooms halfway around the world, guitars balanced on their knees, the two of them sitting on bedspreads with patterns lurid enough that the ink smudges they end up leaving behind blend right in.
Or more recently, when he’s been composing songs for other bands, he’s grown accustomed to working in his basement, sitting at the drum stool, or on one of the bean bag chairs, or even just on the floor, letting the notes trickle out in fits and starts, until he’s too far along to think about turning back.
The one constant, though, is that *he* has always been the one to bring the words and notes together. That is what he does; it’s who he is.
*This*, though.
See, *this* is Frank and Adam sitting across the room from him, guitars balanced on *their* knees, playing something that could very well end up being one of their group’s songs, and it’s something that Patrick has had no hand in creating whatsoever. *This* is Frank clapping the kid on the shoulder when they’re done, even as he looks over at Patrick and Spencer, saying, “Fucking awesome, right?”
And it is.
The thing is, though…
The thing is, Patrick almost wishes that it wasn’t.
He almost wishes that he could say that it needed x, y, or z. That the bridge needed work, or that the chorus didn’t mesh at all, or a hundred other things, because then they could take a step back towards his comfort zone, where he and Pete were the ones to get the music started, the rest of the guys coming in to flesh the songs out. He wouldn’t be sitting here, feeling like… this.
But Frank’s had just as much experience writing with a band as Patrick’s had, maybe more, and he’s learned all of those tricks that Patrick learned too, and the lyrics that Adam came up with are catchy, about showing the people that left you behind that they were fucking idiots-yeah, the kid is totally channeling there-and the words are put together in a way that Patrick never would have considered, and… And it works.
It really fucking works.
So, just a breath after Frank finishes asking the question, Patrick says, “Fuck yeah it’s awesome,” and Adam ducks his head, hair flopping down like a curtain he’s trying to hide behind. Patrick’s pretty sure that he can still see Adam’s flush through the orange and black streaks of his bangs, though.
*
And, see, song number three isn’t Patrick’s either, and it isn’t Frank and AJ’s, and it’s not Spencer coming to their practice the next week with a song set entirely to drums or something like that.
No, it’s all of theirs, because while Spencer’s the one who has a line of chorus-very Beach Boys-esque, which is so totally Spencer it fucking hurts-Frank is the one to start developing verses. His enthusiasm is contagious, because pretty soon Patrick and Adam are talking over each other, sharing their ideas, and the next thing Patrick knows, they’ve got the basic outline of a song. They’ve got a chorus and three verses that are more done than not and they’re all laughing, trying to set them to different musical styles: country, death metal, bubblegum pop.
It’s around the time that Frank and Adam start leaping around Patrick’s basement, head banging as hard as they can while still playing, that Patrick realizes they’re probably done for the night.
*
So that’s song number three, and as he looks at the finished product, all Patrick can remember is an interview (or five) where he’d said things like: *I can’t even imagine trying to write with the whole band-that would take for-fucking-ever, you know?*
But.
And okay, song number four is one that he and Adam write the words to-pure pop this time around, churned out over three lunches at the studio-and Spencer’s the one to develop the musical hook, picking out the notes on Patrick’s piano. It’s got that show tune musicality that Panic perfected.
And song number five is a mesh of Frank’s scream-o roots with a bit of Patrick’s R&B stylings. It’s a duet-has to be, because there’s no way Patrick’s going to be able to make his voice do the things that Frank’s can do, not without knocking himself out of commission for several days. And-
Yeah.
*
And so, four weeks into this apparent ‘album writing process,’ Patrick’s finally starting to get used to this brand new world, where the writing really *is* a whole band activity. Which, of course, is when Frank shows up at Patrick’s with a sheepish look on his face. As sheepish a look as Frank ever gets, anyway.
Before Patrick can ask what’s going on though, Frank hands him a folded sheet of paper on which Patrick can see scrawled words in a familiar handwriting.
“Fuck,” Frank says, shaking his head. He runs his fingers over his purple tinged faux-hawk. “Gerard, you know. He said if we were accepting material, you know?”
And see, this is one thing Patrick hasn’t done before.
He has never, ever sung a song on one of his albums that he (or his band mates, he guesses now) didn’t write. Not that there’s anything wrong with doing that; some of his favorite people in LA are songwriters, people who much prefer to stay behind the scenes. He’s certainly worked with singers who’ve sung albums full of songs written especially for them. Hell, it’s not like *he* hasn’t written songs for other people! That’s just… never been for him, or any of the groups on Pete’s label, the ones he cut his production teeth working with.
“Not that we have to use it,” Frank says. The thing about Gerard, though, is that he’s really fucking talented, and he’s a good judge of what will work and what’ll be appropriate, and, well.
Reading the words, Patrick is already hearing kernels of a melody around the edges of his thoughts.
So that’s song number six.
*
And once word makes it’s way through their group of friends that they accepted a song from Gerard, they start to get more submissions. First Patrick gets an email from Ryland and Gabe, the attached song entitled ‘A Very Serious Song Which Patrick Must Sing.’ Then Travis writes him a rap, and William and Alex the Singer write half a song on napkins from a Denny’s in the middle of Nebraska, where they’re in the middle of a tour of folk art festivals.
Most of them are jokes, words that are fun to sing through once, laughing too hard to actually be on key.
Ryan’s song isn’t a joke, though.
No, the Monday of the seventh week since they began to write this album in earnest, Ryan Ross shows up at the studio with a yellow mailing envelope in hand, one that’s addressed to Patrick.
“I had some ideas,” he says, like that explains it all, and maybe it does.
Patrick starts to open the envelope right there, but Ryan shakes his head and says, “No, no. I just-fuck. If you want to use any of it, you know? You can. Spence should, ha, be able to read my writing. Probably.”
He shuts the door behind him when he leaves, at which point Patrick really does open the envelope.
There are five sheets of paper, classic Ryan Ross, literary and dense, words trailing away into images that are not things Patrick would ever come up with on his own, not even after having known Pete for almost two decades.
And it’s not something that Patrick would ever actually think of singing himself. But, it is something that Spencer would have helped write music for in the past, something that’s part of his style, and this band-
This band really is about more than the four of them. It’s their histories, their roots, a trip into complete self-indulgence, which is why Patrick will get his rap song, why Frank will get to scream. It’s why there will be trips into the recesses of Gerard’s mind, why Ryan’s song will be number seven in their arsenal, why there will be a veer into the traditional alt rock sound that saturated the airwaves for too many years, because that’s what Adam grew up on.
Because they, as a band, don’t have a sound, per se. They don’t have a box they fit into. And really? Patrick’s pretty sure that he likes it that way.
38. The Studio (II)
So, um.
So Patrick is actually sort of nervous. Just a little bit. Just enough to wake him up at six o’clock in the morning and keep him staring at the fucking ceiling until his alarm goes off at eight, repeatedly telling himself that he is not, in fact, nervous, because it’s not like he doesn’t spend every fucking day of his life in a studio or anything like that.
Still, he gets up when his alarm goes off instead of slamming the snooze button three times like he usually does. He eats a banana, drinks a cup of coffee. He picks his clothes up off the floor, tossing them in the hamper, and starts his dishwasher. He sits down and turns on the TV, some morning show, something he has no interest in listening to, and he tries not to fidget.
He’s relieved when the clock on the TV flips to 9:00, because 9:00 means that he can leave and tell himself (or anyone who asks why he’s there early) that he wanted to give himself plenty of time, just in case there was traffic. Because no one wants to be late on the first day of recording, right?
Right.
Which, he’s pretty sure later, is when he jinxes himself, because it takes him an *hour and a half* to go about ten miles. There’s an accident somewhere, nowhere he’s even close to, but oh fuck, he’s feeling the effects.
So, he’s late. He rushes into the studio red-faced and saying, “Fuck, fuck, sorry,” and of course the rest of his band is already there, so they laugh at him. Because that’s the sort of thing that they do. And it’s only after he’s had a chance to catch his breath, put his stuff down, that he takes a moment to look around.
The studio waiting area is a nice one: roomy, framed tour posters from the ‘60s hanging on the walls, a potted leafy something or other taking over one of the corners. He’s worked in similar spaces over the years-he wants to say thousands, but he knows that that would be an extreme exaggeration-and it feels comfortable. In a way. In the way that any studio that’s *not* Patrick’s can feel comfortable these days.
Rob comes out to meet them about a minute after Patrick shows up, and then he’s showing them the way back to the practice spaces, which, okay, *does* feel weird. It’s been a long time since Patrick has spent a significant amount of time in a part of the studio other than the sound booth.
He follows Rob and Spencer down the hall, though, with Frank and Adam trailing behind. Frank is babbling away, his tone of voice probably intended to provoke the kid into some sort of response, but AJ seems to be far more focused on trying to absorb *everything*.
Patrick remembers those days.
Those were good days, if Patrick does say so himself. He’s pretty sure that Pete, Joe, and Andy would all probably agree.
So, they go into the practice room, and Patrick knows this, too. The mandatory sit-down with the producer when all you want to do is get behind the instruments and fucking play, to get this fucking party started. Patrick thinks that he should probably appreciate Rob’s position more, given what Patrick does for a living now, but, well, it’s really fucking easy to slip back into the musician mentality. Rob really *does* need to know what their vision for the album is, though. He needs to know how they plan to create flow between the divergent musical genres.
So, they talk and Rob listens, and then Rob talks and they listen, and it takes fucking hours, or feels like it does, before they finally get to break out the instruments, to show Rob what they’re bringing him to work with. Of course, he already knows some of it. Patrick only knows of Rob by his (good) reputation, but Pete’s worked with him before, with other bands. He wouldn’t have sent Patrick to him if Rob wasn’t the absolute best person for the job.
There’s a light in Rob’s eyes after they’re done playing through the 12 songs that they’ve chosen to put on the album and it’s a look that Patrick recognizes: anticipation. Yes, he can work with this. Yes, he can make this happen. It’s rather gratifying to see, actually, because the only people outside of the four of them who’ve heard more than a song or two-namely, Pete, Jamia, and Ryan-can’t be considered objective in any way, shape, or form. Oh, Patrick trusts them to give honest opinions, but even they would acknowledge that they’re more than a little biased.
And so, when Patrick gets home that day, the ten miles only taking half an hour this time, he actually feels good about this whole thing. Better than he has yet, actually, now that it finally seems to have moved beyond the cusp of possibility and firmly into reality.
*
Patrick remembers how years ago, when they were recording Folie a Deux, Pete pretty much had to learn evasive driving tactics to lose the paparazzi before he came anywhere within five miles of the studio they were working in. Patrick really, really doesn’t miss those days. At all.
It’s really nice to be able to leave his house at 9:30 and be there by ten. It’s nice to be able to go out for lunch and not have to worry that there are going to be photographers lurking near by, ready to leak the news to the world that Reason #437 is in the studio, recording. That the rumored album, the one that Pete Wentz has mentioned wanting in more than a few interviews-albeit, not since Patrick told him that he actually was going to get his wish-is actually going to happen.
And, okay, there are parts about recording that Patrick hasn’t missed at all. The repetitiveness, for instance. How the person in the sound booth has the power to ask you to do the song again. And again. And fuck you, Rob, fucking *again*. Even when you’re about eighty steps beyond tired and you’re edging towards that place where you never want to talk, much less sing, ever again.
On the other hand, it feels more than a little bit like coming home, to be in the studio, singing. To be able to look to someone else for feedback rather than be the one that’s expected to give it. And it feels more natural as the week goes on.
The thing that makes this whole experience different is that there are no deadlines that they’re working on. They haven’t paid for three weeks of studio space and three weeks only, and they have to be done by five o’clock on day 21 or their record company is going to come yell at them. And it’s not like Pete is going to send them back to the studio if he doesn’t like the results of their labor. Not when he spent seven weeks asking for “more, more, come on, Stump, you can’t fucking leave me hanging like this, dude. It’s fucking cruel and unusual punishment. Fuck you.”
So, it’s more relaxed.
*
For instance, the day that Patrick goes to record his almost-rap?
Adam sneaks into the sound booth and starts beat boxing. At least that’s what Patrick assumes he’s doing, given that he has his hand cupped over his mouth, and seems to be doing an Eminem-style dance, with occasional raising-the-roof hand gestures thrown in. Patrick manages to get through most of his song without laughing. He has less luck on the second run-through, when Spencer and Frank join Adam, trying to act even more gangsta, and-
Yeah.
The third time Patrick tries the song, Rob suggests that he think about turning around to face the wall. Possibly. Unless Patrick has plans to usher in a new era of laugh-backed hip-hop?
He nails take number four. Then has to do it five more times, before Rob is satisfied that they’ve got enough footage to mix together.
*
And then there’s the time when Frank decides it’d be really awesome to switch out the demo of Ryan’s song that Adam uses as a cue while recording his own parts with the soundtrack to the *Lion King*. So, when Adam gets ready to play his sparse, un-Disney-influenced chords, he instead gets ‘Can You Feel The Love Tonight?’
And Adam, proving that he really does belong in this group with the rest of them, immediately switches gears and starts to play along. While singing in a slightly off-key, mournful voice.
*
And then there’s the time during week three when they’re working on song number nine. Spencer and Adam may have been the ones to get the lyrics together, but while writing the music, it somehow became Patrick’s baby, with more focus on the instrumentation than anything else he-or they-have written recently.
While Patrick has a very clear idea of how exactly this song is supposed to sound in his head, though, it’s just not coming together the way he wants it to. And then he’s the one to ask everyone else to do their parts fifteen times, and he does the vocal parts another few times on top of that. And Rob keeps putting it together, keeps tweaking it, but it’s just not *right*.
By the time they finally leave at two o’clock the next morning, Patrick wants to punch something, and he’s pretty sure that the rest of the guys want to punch him, and he hasn’t missed this part either. Because it doesn’t seem to matter how not-stressed, how organic the process has been overall, it wouldn’t be a recording session without the members of the group getting so mad at each other they never want to talk to each other again.
But while Patrick goes to bed so frustrated that he’s literally shaking with it-and that he *does* remember from albums past-he’s forgotten the middle of the night epiphanies that usually follow. This one happens at 5:30, when he’s got Adam’s part running through his head. On one of the takes he’d taken the chord change up instead of down, a riff on the original, and maybe that’s what’s been missing, the unexpected chord change, and if they went with that, and Frank and Patrick followed suit with their guitar chords, they could-
He stops for coffee on the way into the studio, enough for his guys, Rob, the sound techs that had to listen to them go at each other the day before. Patrick will never apologize for being a perfectionist, not when that is the reason he’s as good at what he does as he is, but he still sounds a little hesitant to his own ears when he says, “So, I’m sure that after yesterday none of you ever want to fucking hear this song again, but I had a thought-“
His group mates would have been well within their rights to roll their eyes at him, or threaten to kick him out of the studio, because they must have heard that line come out of his mouth about 25 times the day before. They don’t, though, and when Patrick explains what he’s thinking, they nod and give it a try.
It may take them another four takes to get it, and it may not be what Patrick was originally thinking, but in the end, he’s also pretty sure that this is better.
*
And then there’s the time that Frank and Spencer are just playing around in the studio, wasting time while Patrick lays down his guitar tracks. He’s getting ready to go through them again, *again*, when Adam sticks his head into the room and says, “Sorry, sorry, but you’ve really got to hear this.”
So, Patrick follows him into the sound booth and nods for Rob to switch the speaker in the practice room on, and-
--and it’s fucking-
Frank and Spencer are just jamming. It’s obvious that there’s no real sense as to where the music’s going, but it’s one of those musical creations that only happens when the people that are playing know each other’s styles well enough to be able to make the leader indistinguishable from the follower, to be able to transfer control of the song seamlessly.
Patrick is glad to look down and see that the red record light on the soundboard is lit. He doesn’t know when it was pressed, whether it was Rob or Adam, but he wants this. He wants a recording of this-to use sometime, or build off of in the future.
And so he, Adam, and Rob just listen, until Spencer finally looks up from his drums for long enough to see that they’re being watched. At which point he trails off, Frank only a beat behind him. Frank sticks his tongue out at them, says, “You done with your parts already, Stump?”
Rob looks over his shoulder at Patrick. He switches on his mic so that Frank and Spencer can hear him, too. “I think you’ve got your intro. Or possibly an interlude? You *know* that has to be on the album.”
He’s right. It does.
*
And then one day, four weeks and three days after their first in-studio meeting with Rob, they’re done.
They’re working on song number 12, which is actually song number one, the one they performed on Diva Night, when they just weren’t ready to leave the stage yet. It will eventually be track number three on the album, and it goes smoothly-three takes of the drums, four of the bass and guitars, five of Patrick’s vocals. And this is what Patrick’s been wanting, right? To not have to repeat everything until he’s sick of it.
But when Rob nods and says, “Okay then. I think that’s it!” Patrick’s not ready for it. He’s not ready for this to be over, because having it be over means that they’re ready for the next step: admitting that the album is done. That it’s ready to go. That the rest of the world will know this is no longer quite as just-for-fun as it’s been in the past. And Patrick’s not sure that he’s fucking ready for that.
But they’re done, and it’s up to Rob to get everything polished now, and when they leave the studio-at 4:30 in the afternoon-none of them are quite sure what to do with themselves.
So they do the only logical thing: drive the hour and a half to Riverside, so they can eat tacos at Eduardo’s. They go through four bowls of chips and salsa and pick up a case of shitty beer at the liquor store a few blocks from Frank’s house, and then they proceed to get happy-drunk in Frank’s backyard, laughing and talking until Jamia tells them to move the party inside so the neighbors can get some sleep. It’s close to three in the morning, just as Patrick’s getting ready to pass out on Frank’s couch, that he texts Pete.
He writes: *done*
It takes approximately thirty seconds for Pete to call Patrick back.
“Dude,” Pete says, and Patrick says, “Yeah.”
Because he can’t really think of anything else to say.
Possibly because there *is* nothing else for him to say.
39. The End
Under Pete’s direction, DecayDance has become nearly legendary in it’s album promotion gimmicks. There have been the puzzles scattered across the Internet, the mix-tape albums, the secret code that the TAI and Gym Class Heroes guys ended up creating to announce their joint venture back in ’12. Pete’s created scavenger hunts, virtual, real, and those that have required people breaking out the GPS to get to the necessary destinations.
Patrick’s also pretty sure that Pete’s already devising a subtle hint driven campaign to announce this new CD. He hasn’t mentioned anything to Patrick, but he’s Pete. He doesn’t have to.
Patrick isn’t Pete, though. And this-
Reason No. 437 isn’t a big-name band. They don’t have any platinum records (although between them, they’ve certainly sold more than their fair share) and beyond the curiosity factor, he can’t see many reasons for the rest of the world to care.
So the announcement comes at it’s own time, which happens to be as they’re playing a show at the Seraglio, a little place out in Riverside, little more than a stage and a floor and a bar at the back.
There are more feather boas this time around-apparently it’s becoming the thing to throw on the stage at their concerts-and Frank and Adam each asked for one before they were two songs into the set. Patrick’s waiting awhile; he’s too warm and sweaty already, and the thought of having fake feathers around his neck for anything longer than their last song is enough to make him shudder.
Particularly because they’re having a Ska-influenced night, for which throwing yourself around the stage (and floor) is practically mandatory. Frank and AJ have already had one collision back near the drums, and Patrick’s had to stop the show for a few minutes twice, to break the momentum of the crowd on the floor. The venue’s not big enough to have more than two security guards and the people up near the stage are getting just a little bit too into things.
But they start off with the ‘The Impression That I Get’ by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones and they play some Sublime in the middle, and they finish up with Reel Big Fish’s ‘Sell Out’ and-
It’s only appropriate, Patrick thinks, after he sings, “The record company’s going to give me lots of money, and everything’s going to be all right,” to say, “So, um.” He looks at the rest of his guys, and they know him well enough to know what he’s going to say. Spencer nods, and Frank grins, and Adam bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, just a little.
“So, we’re going to do one more song for you,” Patrick says. “This one’s off of our upcoming album, yet to be titled-“
“I told you months ago,” Frank interrupts. “We’re calling it ‘Still Falling for that Disco Romance.’”
“-*yet to be titled*,” Patrick says again, more loudly, talking over Frank, which causes Frank to flip him off. “But already recorded-“
And there’s some shouting then. More than a few screams.
“-which will be available for purchase at some point in the near future, and, well, we hope you enjoy.”
Judging by the screams they get when they finish the song, Patrick’s pretty sure that they do.
*
It is possible that Patrick’s learned his lesson, or that Pete has finally managed to train him, or that he realizes that this really *is* Pete’s business, because about three minutes after they leave the venue, Patrick’s on the phone.
Pete mumbles his hello, sounding like he was asleep. Patrick feels badly about waking him, but not badly enough to want to deal with a pissed off Pete calling him at 4 o’clock in the morning instead, bitching him out for not making sure that Pete knew this very important news as soon as it was news.
“So, I announced the album tonight,” Patrick says, without preamble.
He hears Pete’s breath catch on the other end of the phone line. Then he sigh-laughs, and Patrick can just picture him shaking his head. “Fuck, Stump,” he says. “I had fucking *plans*, you know. They involved secret shows, media invites. We were going to make a *splash*.”
“I opted for the ripple,” Patrick says. “People waved their boas in appreciation.”
It takes a moment, but Pete finally says, “We are so making boas part of your official merch on your tour,” at which point Patrick is pretty sure that he’s forgiven.
*
He knows it when he gets home and sees a new post on Pete’s blog:
*the word is out. look4 the new Reason#437 album, comng from dd recrds soon. then u 2 can listin on rpt for dayzat a time.*
There are 42 comments when Patrick goes to bed. There are 367 when he gets up in the morning. He doesn’t read any of them.
*
So, he knows that he’s forgiven, except for the part where payback is a bitch, because it’s not even 24 hours later that Patrick gets an email with a list of media requests, everyone from Rolling Stone to Ryan Seacrest to the Today Show-
“The Today Show?” Adam asks, eyes going wide in a way they haven’t for months. Like he’s just remembering who exactly he’s in a group with. And it’s not just a guy that he met at work and all of that guy’s friends.
“We’re a fucking super group,” Frank says. “Although a slightly less random one than a few of the others from recent years. Who knows: we could end up being the new Traveling Wilburys.”
“That’s sacrilege,” Spencer says.
“Also, you know that *they* didn’t get their start playing covers in fucking George Harrison’s basement,” Patrick says.
--and that is how, three weeks later, they end up having breakfast with a reporter from *Spin* on Monday, lunch at Patrick’s studio with another from *Alternative Press* on Tuesday, and have a reporter from *Rolling Stone* following them around Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.
Honestly, Patrick is still used to this. He’s worked with enough big name bands that he gets more than a few interview requests. Usually they’re phone interviews, though. Background information on past or upcoming albums. Generic quotes about how it was his privilege to work with the group, really, no really, and how big their new sound is going to be. It’s been a long time since the article’s been focused on him, though.
And really, the first breakfast is fine. The reporter asks the questions Patrick is expecting: How did their group get together? Have they remained friends all this time? Now Adam, how’d you get lucky enough to get in on this? What’s your background? Why covers?
They talk about Pete’s party, just a little over a year ago now, and how Patrick and Spencer had reconnected there. They talk about Frank moving to Riverside to help Jamia get her new shop started. They talk about jamming in Patrick’s basement, about the first charity show, about Patrick’s total stubborn oblivion.
Even the lunch is fine, although they pretty much have the exact same conversation with this reporter that they had with the first one.
It’s when the reporter from Rolling Stone comes to stay that Spencer finally loses it. Not in front of the reporter, thank fuck, or their first headlines probably would have been about them being ego-driven stars just looking for another way to make money, ten years after their glory days.
Still, when Spencer brings the reporter back to Patrick’s studio from a drive around the Los Angeles hills, he steps into Patrick’s office, closes the door, and mouths, “Save me.”
“Why?” Patrick asks, and Spencer walks across the floor to sit in the chair in front of Patrick’s desk.
“She’s sneaky,” Spencer says. Then he shakes his head and pinches at the bridge of his nose, laughing at himself. “She lulls you into false sense of security and the next thing you know, you’re telling her your life story. And the life stories of all of your guys. And she just-“ He trails off.
“Yeah,” Patrick says. Because Rolling Stone always does those sorts of stories. The in depth ones, always looking for the chinks in your armor, that sign that maybe you don’t really love this life as much as you should, that hidden story that maybe none of the other magazines were able to get out of you.
The reporter is with Adam now-and suddenly Patrick’s wondering if that was such a bright idea, scheduling the kid’s individual interview before Patrick had had a chance to do his own-but Patrick had thought he’d probably be a better choice to entertain the reporter for dinner. Frank gets to give her a tour of The Ragged Nest in the morning.
Indeed, when Adam drops the reporter off at Patrick’s office an hour and a half later, he looks a little shell-shocked. And maybe, Patrick thinks, that is the reason that Spencer had stuck around after his own interview, instead of taking out of there as soon as he was free from the reporter’s clutches; maybe he’d seen this coming.
So, basically, Patrick’s feeling more than a tickle of dread when he and the reporter leave for dinner. She asks where he wants to go, and he’s pretty sure that she’s expecting him to mention some trendy LA place, someplace that you pretty much have to be famous to get into at all.
He drives them to the bistro that he and Ryan used to meet at for lunch semi-regularly, although that routine has tapered off considerably now that they aren’t the only two DecayDance alumni in the LA area any longer. The restaurant’s menu has a little more depth at dinner than during the lunchtime rush, and Patrick opts for a vegetarian Panini instead of his regular salad.
And Spencer’s right: she is sneaky. She starts subtly, talking about the restaurant, how she’s never been here before. Does Patrick come here often? Oh, so he and Ryan used to meet for lunch? How many of Ryan’s bands has Patrick produced again? And what does Ryan think of Patrick and Spencer working in a band together? Oh, he wrote one of the songs for the album? Who else wrote songs for the album? Wow, that’s quite a lineup! So all of your band mates have been supportive of this venture?
Patrick was rarely the talker in Fall Out Boy-he usually tried to leave that to Pete and Joe-but wow, he just keeps talking tonight. He doesn’t say more than he means to say, but it’s probably closer than he’d like to admit. And the reporter is charming throughout, genuinely interested in what he has to say, never seems to be *looking* for the story.
She smiles as Patrick drops her off at her hotel, thanks him for a lovely evening. Patrick drives two blocks before pulling over in a 7-11 parking lot so that he can call Frank.
“Yo,” Frank says. “You survive?”
“Barely,” Patrick says. “I just wanted to give you a heads up that you’ll need to watch out. She’s deadly.”
“So Spencer and AJ said,” Frank says. “Although I don’t really think the kid has enough experience to judge yet. He said she got him talking about his old band.”
Patrick raises his eyebrow at that. He knows the basics of what happened with Adam’s previous band, after all. How they’d gone on tour, how they’d had their EP, and then-
“His previous band mates are fuckwads,” Frank says, with enough vehemence that Patrick thinks he’s now heard more of the story than Patrick has. “But if they weren’t, he probably wouldn’t have ended up in your studio, needing a job, so maybe we should send them a fruit basket or something? Or possibly an autographed copy of our CD?”
“Or both,” Patrick says, which makes Frank laugh. “I like the way you think, Stump!”
*
So, it’s a mini-blitz, those media outlets that don’t want to get accused of ignoring their band if they actually do end up becoming something more than a novelty act, and then it quiets down again.
Only in that way, though, because the next week, Pete sends him a list of venues that he’s lined up for them to play at. Three months on the road, 52 shows, and Patrick would say, ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!’ except that, well. The thought of getting back out on the road, seeing the country through bus windows, well.
It’s actually sort of exciting, is what it is. And 52 shows in 90-something days is a lot lighter schedule than he used to do. Also, Pete and Ryan conspired to get them support from The Aqua Angels and The Atomic Turtles, and members of both of the bands keep dropping by Patrick’s studio to tell him how excited they are for this, no seriously, Patrick can’t even imagine. Which, actually, he can.
Especially when he gets word of the first sold out show, the one in Pennsylvania of all places. It took a day and a half. The second show comes two days later, in Nebraska. And then it’s a deluge of news, as if people suddenly realized they might not have a chance to get a ticket if they didn’t get one *now*.
On the afternoon they hear about the 30th sold out show, they’re meeting for practice at The Gateway, so that they can get used to the size of stage that they’re going to be playing on for the next three months.
“What the fuck,” Patrick says, when Pete texts him the news. “No, seriously. We’ve put all of what, *one* of our own songs out there? People have only heard us play covers!”
“Which we are obviously fucking awesome at,” Frank says.
“But still!” Patrick says. Because, really.
*
And then they’re a week out from the album release, and the magazine articles start hitting the newsstands. They don’t get the cover on *Rolling Stone* or *Spin*, but they do get a small picture box on the cover of *Alternative Press*, with the caption, ‘The Summer Tour You’ve Got To See To Believe!’
By the time Patrick opens the first magazine, he’s already tensed up, waiting for the first glaring inaccuracy to appear in print, somehow sure that they’re going to be painted in an unflattering light, as pathetic stars trying to reclaim their former glory. He sees Spencer and Frank looking just as tense, just as ready to slam the magazines shut and spend the next hour laughing off the stories, until Pete posts a cryptically outraged blog post about how the media just doesn’t know a good thing when it sees it.
When he looks at Adam, though, he sees the rapt look on the kid’s face, the too-wide eyes, like he just can’t quite believe what he’s reading. And Patrick does understand that. His name, in print. His picture listed as being someone to watch. The fact that people would buy magazines just to read about him, his band. It still occasionally seems unbelievable.
It’s only a moment later, though, that Adam’s eyes narrow into something of a cringe and Patrick immediately looks to see what magazine he’s looking at. Rolling Stone, of course. So Patrick opens that one, flips to the marked page.
Despite the fact that they didn’t get the cover, they did get a five-page picture and article combo. And apparently a box, all about Adam. Where he tells about his old band, The Still Wanderers. About how they’d grown up together, playing music in his friend’s grandmother’s garage. About everything Patrick had known already, and then about how they’d come back triumphant from their summer tour only for the other three members of the band to tell Adam that his presence was no longer needed, that they wanted to take their music in a different direction than Adam supported. Which, Patrick guesses, is what Adam always meant when he said things like, “and now here I am.”
“Fuckwads,” Frank says again, quietly, as if knowing exactly what Patrick is thinking, and Patrick nods. But maybe Patrick should be thanking them? Because Frank is right: if they hadn’t been fuckwads, they might have kept Adam, and if they’d kept Adam, he probably wouldn’t have ended up in Patrick’s studio, or in this band, and Patrick and Frank might never have moved beyond fucking around on guitars in Patrick’s basement.
Patrick might have spent most of a six-month period fighting against acknowledging he was actually in a new band, but sitting here, now, with this group, a CD and a tour on the horizon, he really doesn’t want to be anywhere else.
And maybe that’s the ending that he’s been building towards, all this time.
40. The Beginning
Except for, you know, how it’s *not* the end, because the CD is coming out and one week after that little milestone, they’ve got their national tour kicking off in LA. Also, Patrick still has to finish up everything at the studio so that he can take an extended leave of absence, and then there’s the fact that he’s pretty much forgotten how to pack for three months on a bus. They’ve got two for this trip--one for Patrick and Spencer, one for Frank and Adam--but half a bus is still smaller than Patrick cares to remember.
And also, you know, on top of everything else, they have to practice.
By the end of Fall Out Boy’s run, Patrick had pretty much been able to play all of their songs in his sleep. Not so for Reason No. 437.
The songs are all new, even the covers that they’re doing. Also, the show that they’re putting together now just *feels* different than the little ones they’ve been playing for the last several months. Probably because they know people are paying more than a cover charge to get in. Also, they actually have a stage that they need to *set up*. They have techs that need to learn the ins and outs of their instruments. They have transitions to perfect.
Five days out, Patrick thinks they might actually make it; two days out, he’s sure that they won’t. The day of the first show, company starts descend. Because of course *no one* is going to miss this performance.
Pete and Joe are the first to arrive, flying in from Chicago at some god-awful hour in the morning. Pete excuses Patrick from picking him up at the airport, but that’s small comfort, as they show up at Patrick’s house at an hour that Patrick still prefers to believe doesn’t exist.
Pete, being Pete, ignores Patrick’s bleary grumpiness and just fucking *hugs* Patrick until Patrick croaks and says, “Air. I need fucking *air*, Wentz.” Pete reluctantly disengages himself, but then it’s Joe’s turn, and he slaps Patrick’s back hard enough that Patrick’s pretty sure there’s going to be a bruise there the next day.
“Dude,” Joe says, shaking his head when he finally pulls back from his own hug, wiping a fake tear away, probably pretending he’s a proud parent or some such shit.
“Dude?” Patrick says.
“Dude,” Joe says.
Originally, Patrick had tried to discourage Pete and Joe from coming in so early, but it’s only an hour later that he decides that he’s glad they’re there, because they totally take over airport duty, letting Patrick, Frank, and Spencer do their final run-throughs of the show without having to worry about keeping everyone entertained.
Of course, that also means that by the time they’re done with their final tweaks, the very small Gateway green room is full of former band mates, waiting to pounce on them. Fall Out Boy had always liked to have an active green room, to be able to hang out with their friends until it was time to get down to serious performing business. This, though, feels a little more overwhelming.
In the middle of the room, Brendon’s talking to Gerard. Off to one side, Ray, Joe, and Andy are doing something that involves head banging. Bob and Ryan are talking very seriously in the corner. And the kids in the Aqua Angels and the Atomic Turtles-because of course they’re there, too-are just fucking eating it up.
There’s a moment of silence as they all come in, and then their respective former band mates are crowding around them, hugging them, shouting greetings, all so fucking excited to be here with them.
And so it goes.
It’s about an hour and a half before they’re supposed to take the stage, about ten minutes before Patrick needs to begin his vocal warm-ups, that Pete comes over to where Patrick’s been sitting on the couch, talking to Bob, and plops down next to him. He drops his arm over Patrick’s shoulders, then pulls him into a quick hug. They sit there silently for a few moments and then Pete says, “Look at this. Your band, man.”
And Patrick looks: Adam’s hanging out with the kids in the Aqua Angels, making the sort of hand motions that make Patrick think they’re probably discussing cowbells. He sees Frank riding around the room on Ray’s back, high-pitched laughter audible even over everyone else’s voices. He sees Spencer getting attacked by Ryan and Brendon with makeup brushes while Jon stands off to the side and laughs.
As Patrick watches, Spencer looks over at him, catches his eye, smiles. Patrick grins back.
“Yeah,” Patrick says finally, softly. “My band.”
End.