Idolism (18 page)

“But that is not your decision to make, is it?” Charlie said. “Ultimately the Germans have to decide what anthem they want.”

“And I think what’s a bit problematic here,” Louise added, “is the fact that those lyrics, the lyrics you sang, used to represent a communist dictatorship.”

“That is actually not exactly true,” Julian replied. “Those lyrics did not ‘represent’ East Germany, they were merely used—
abused
, in fact—by East Germany to make their system look like something that it never was. You can’t blame that on the lyrics.
Risen from Ruins
aspires to peace, prosperity, and happiness for all. I can’t see anything wrong with that. Bad people sometimes do or say good things. That doesn’t automatically make those good things bad. The Germans know that, they’re not stupid. They still quite happily use the autobahns that were built by Hitler, and …”

And that’s when Tholen grabbed Julian’s arm and dragged him out of the studio.

“That was Julian Monk with some very controversial remarks there,” Louise said. “He does have a point, though, when he says that good things aren’t automatically bad just because they’re done by bad people.”

“However,” Charlie replied, “you can’t just go and change a country’s national anthem to something you like better. That doesn’t seem appropriate. But anyway, the time now 7:26, here are today’s headlines.”

I turned off the TV and pulled the bed cover over my head.

Half an hour later—I was just having breakfast—my mobile rang. It was Michael.

“Did you see it?” he asked.

“Oh, you mean our manager on
BBC Breakfast
? Yeah, I’ve seen it. But who the hell was that bloke sitting next to him?”

“I know, right?” Michael said.

“What’s going on, Michael? I mean with Julian. What’s happening with him?”

“I don’t know. But speaking of Julian, he just called.”

“What did he say?”

“He said that after their appearance on
BBC Breakfast
, Tholen cancelled all other interviews for today. Or rather, he decided to do them alone, to do some damage control. He sent Julian home.”

“Maybe better this way.”

“I don’t know. Have you checked our Twitter? We’re getting hundreds of messages, and they’re all rather supportive. The media are pretty mad at us right now because Julian pissed off the Germans, but our fans don’t seem to give a damn. Anyway, Julian is not happy with the fact that Tholen wants to spend the whole day on TV speaking for us, and he thinks we should still do
Inside Momoko
tonight as planned, even if Tholen told us to stay away.”

“So what do you think?” I asked.

“Well, I sort of understand where he’s coming from. Momoko likes us. She’s on our side. She’s probably the only journalist out there right now who’s not out to kill us and who’d let us tell the story from our perspective. So I’m thinking maybe we should take the opportunity.”

“Right. Okay. Well, why not? We probably can’t make things any worse anyway.”

“Yeah,” Michael said. “Let’s meet up at my place later and then go to the studio together. Julian wants to be there early so we can talk to Momoko before Tholen shows up.”

“All right then.”

We got to the studio late in the afternoon, about two hours before the show. Momoko sat down with us, and Julian told her exactly what had happened at Wembley and on
BBC Breakfast
that morning. She listened, she nodded, and like us she had no idea what the whole fuss was all about.

“Nobody have humour anymore,” she said.

Twenty minutes before we went on air, Tholen showed up at the studio. He wasn’t exactly pleased to see us there.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Before any of us got to stammer a reply, Momoko said, “I invite them on the show. To talk about album release.
Originaru
…”

“
Original Sin
,” Tummy reminded her of the title.

“Yes,” Momoko said and looked at Tummy with a strange, almost creepy smile on her face. “
Originaru Sin
.”

“Now listen, guys,” Tholen said impatiently, “I think you might want to keep a very low profile in the next couple of days. What you pulled off at Wembley last night was despicable, immature, and childish. You don’t even begin to understand what kind of mess you’ve gotten yourselves—us—into. The Prime Minister called me at 3 a.m. and shouted at me. The bloody Prime Minister! Do you know why he called me? Because the German chancellor doesn’t have my phone number. So Mr Schmidtmüller, or whatever his bloody name is, called our Prime Minister who then called me to give me a proper licking. You guys have created a diplomatic and political mess that I had to spend all day rushing from one interview to the next to sort out.”

“Well,” Michael said, “you didn’t do a very good job there, did you?”

“Excuse me?!”

“He’s right,” Julian said. “This morning I told people what happened, and you’ve spent the rest of the day talking out of your arse and repeating that fairy tale about some accidental mix-up with the lyrics. It was no accident. You know it, and the public knows it. Everything you did today was a complete waste of time.”

“Oh was it?” Tholen asked belligerently. “Now listen to me, young man. I’ve been working my arse off today trying to protect you from a media machine that was out to tear you apart and feed you to the dogs, because that’s my fucking job!”

“How very considerate of you, but if I need protection, I hire a bodyguard. Or better yet, I ask you to hire one for me. Your idea of protection seems to be making me look like a stupid little brat who can’t tell one set of lyrics from the other, and I don’t appreciate it. Your job is not to protect us, it’s to promote us. We’re more popular than The Beatles now, and that is no thanks to you. Now please excuse us while we go on
Inside Momoko
and talk about our album that was released today, which you managed to mention not even once in all your interviews.”

“You’re not going anywhere near a TV camera,” Tholen said.

“Yes, we are.”

“No, you’re not. I’m shutting you down.”

“You can’t do that!” I burst out before I even knew it.

Tholen stepped up to me and spoke in a very low, almost threatening voice. “You have no idea what I can and cannot do, sweetheart. I can do whatever I want because I’m your bloody manager! I made you famous, and I can make you disappear overnight if you don’t get a grip on yourselves.”

Momoko, who had been following the whole brawl in silence, cleared her throat.

“Um, excuse me,” she said and bowed to Tholen ever so slightly, “but I think I made them famous. Was my camera team at school anniversary. You just standing in the way.”

Tholen stared at her, speechless.

“She’s right, actually,” Tummy said, grinning.

“Okay, fine!” Tholen threw his arms up in the air, “Why don’t you let her be your bloody manager then?”

“What a great idea,” I said. “Momoko, what do you think we should do?”

After thinking about it for a moment, she said, “I think you come on my show and talk about album. And then maybe you go to Germany.”

“What?!” Tholen put both his hands on his head.

“Go to Germany,” Momoko repeated. “And play free concert for fans to apologize. In Japan, when you make mistake, apologize is very important.”

“That’s bloody insane!” Tholen said. “If you go to Germany now after butchering their national anthem, they’re going to tear you limb from limb!”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Michael said, looking at his mobile. “Our version of their anthem actually seems to be pretty popular with the Germs.”

Tholen looked at him. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Well,” Michael said, “last night after Wembley, I put the MP3 in our web shop. After now 20 hours we’ve sold some 80,000 copies at 99p each, almost half of them to people with German IP addresses, so I guess they must quite like it.”

Tholen stared at him. We all stared at him because we were stunned by the news. In the five weeks since the school anniversary we had already had pretty amazing sales through our website, about one song every minute. Now we were down to one every second.

Tummy was the first to regain his speech.

“How much is 99p times 80,000?” he asked.

“Well,” Michael said, “we only get to keep 70% of the revenue, but that’s still some 55,000 quid.”

“Rock’n’bloody roll!”

Tholen was still staring at Michael. “Who told you to do that?”

“Who told me to do what?”

“Who told you to upload and sell that mutilated anthem?”

“Oh I don’t know,” Michael said and scratched his head. “My common sense, I guess.”

“And when were you going to tell me?”

Michael shrugged. “Probably as soon as you were amenable enough to be talked to without blowing your top.”

Tholen closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I’ve spent all day apologizing on your behalf, and behind my back you just …”

“Well,” Julian interrupted him, “who told you to do
that
?”

“My common sense,” Tholen said stone-faced.

I couldn’t resist quipping, “Our common sense obviously beats yours, mister.”

Tholen rubbed his eyes and sighed.

“So what do you say, Peter?” Julian asked.

“What do I say about what?”

“About Momoko’s idea. A free concert for our fans in Germany. Tap into a new market.”

It was obvious that Tholen still wasn’t crazy about the idea, but for the most successful music producer in the world sales figures were something he simply couldn’t ignore.

He sighed again and finally said, “Let me make a few phone calls.”

“You do that then,” Julian said. “Meanwhile we go on the show and sell our album. How’s that for an idea?”

Momoko smiled. “You be on in ten minute. I see you in studio.”

“Bye!” Tummy said and waved as she left the room.

“Now listen to me,” Tholen said. “If you want to go to Germany, you will do exactly as I say. You go out there with Momoko now and you talk about your album and nothing else, you understand? If you mention Wembley or Germany or that bloody anthem, then your trip to Germany is off. Have I made myself clear?”

We all looked at each other and nodded.

“Fair enough,” Julian said.

The Gospel According to Tummy – 9

The fallout from the Wembley scandal was huge. Tholen was officially furious because he had to deal with what he called a public relations nightmare. However, I think deep down inside he was somewhat pleased because it turned out to be a rather lucrative nightmare. On the day after Wembley, our album
Original Sin
was released, and on that first day alone it sold 248,000 copies. A total of more than half a million in the first week.
Original Sin
became the fastest selling UK debut album of all time, breaking the record previously held by that Susan Boyle woman. I’m sure Tholen was very pleased by that, even if he didn’t show it.

One person who wasn’t pleased at all and who
did
show it was me dad. He was absolutely furious. First we had embarrassed him in front of his boss at the school anniversary, now we had embarrassed him in front of his new boss at Wembley. And if I say we, then of course I mean Julian. I was just the bloody bassist, playing the right tune and all. But nobody could be bothered to make that subtle distinction. Julian was Puerity was us. Cling together, swing together, that’s how it went.

Me dad hated me for everything that Julian had done. He wasn’t just angry, he
hated
me. If he’d been just angry, he would have shouted at me or hit me or grounded me. He didn’t do any of that. Instead he just ignored me. He just carried on as if nothing had happened. I tried to talk to him, but he said there was nothing to talk about. I said I was sorry, but he said there was nothing to be sorry about. I knew that he lied. I had seen him lie to me mum often enough to tell when he wasn’t being honest. He was so mad at me that he denied me the opportunity to apologize by pretending that everything was okay. It was the worst kind of punishment he could have come up with, and he knew it. I wish he’d just beaten me up instead.

I tried to talk about it with the others. Ginger and Michael couldn’t see the problem.

“If he says everything’s okay then everything is okay. Just accept it and move on,” is what they said.

Julian—of course—was bit blunter. And more honest, I suppose. “He hates you. What are you gonna do about it?”

“He hates me because of you!” I said in a mix of anger and despair.

Julian shook his head. “Because of me you may have found out that he hates you, but I’m sure he’s hated you before.”

That’s Julian Monk for you. Hurtful, but honest.

I wasn’t sure that this kind of honesty was what I needed right now. I was feeling miserable, and all that me so-called friends, the only so-called friends I’d ever known, were doing was to either dismiss me misery or to reinforce it. I looked around Underground Zero, the place where I had spent so much time in the last couple of years, and I looked at me friends, me only friends. And I felt lonely; lonelier than I’d ever felt before.