Rock All Night (The Rock Star's Seduction #2) (12 page)

He was dressed in jeans, boots, a black t-shirt that hugged his chest, and his customary sunglasses.

My heart leapt. I was so happy to see him that my whole body buzzed with anticipation –

But a second after my heart jumped in my chest, it seized with fear.

Our previous encounter last night in my room – temporarily forgotten because of Riley’s antics – reared up in my memory like some monstrous shadow.

Derek seemed to have no such qualms, though. He just ambled over to the table, sat down between Riley and Ryan, and reached for a plate.

He didn’t even look at me.

It was like a punch to the gut.

“I’m assuming that chick out in the hallway was yours, Riley,” he said as he piled on eggs and bacon.

“Whose else
would
it be?” she snorted. “Nobody
else
in here gets any pussy.”

“Jesus, Riley,” Ryan groaned, “I’m
eating.
”

“See? He’s too much of a pussy to even
talk
about pussy. And don’t even get me started on Mary Jane over there.”

She was obviously referring to Killian. He ignored her and kept strumming his chords with one hand and eating toast with the other.

Riley flopped her head towards Derek and grinned. “Broke another one in last night.”

“Just a second ago you were groaning about her being straight,” Ryan reminded her.

She just flipped him off. Apparently that was her preferred method of communication.

“Stick with the lesbians, Riley,” Derek said in a bored voice, like this was an all-too-common topic of conversation. “Or real switch hitters. Bi-curious does
not
equal bisexual.”

“Don’t I know it,” she groaned. “But straight girls are so… I dunno. Guess I like the challenge.”

“You must not like getting reciprocation.”

“Fuck off,” Riley grinned again – and then the grin turned evil as she looked at me. “Hey, what’s this I hear about you and Blondie not doin’ it?”

Derek looked up at me for the first time, though I couldn’t tell anything because the sunglasses shielded his eyes.

“You heard right,” he said neutrally, and gave me a half-smile before returning to his breakfast.

“Why do you keep hittin’ on her if she doesn’t put out?” Riley taunted.

“I dunno. Guess I like the challenge.”

That wasn’t what you said last night,
I thought.

But I had sense enough not to say it out loud.

“Guess you must not like reciprocation,” Riley joked.

“Mm,” he said, bobbing his head like
You got me
as he chewed a mouthful of eggs.

At that point, Miles strode into the room.

“Alright, gents and rabid animals,” he said with a pointed look at Riley. She flipped him off, as usual. “The bus will be here at 3 o’clock. You
will
be ready by 3 o’clock, or I will kick your ass all the way from here down to the lobby. Show’s in Irvine. With the abominable state of Los Angeles traffic, that’s two hours at least. Do whatever you want before 3 o’clock, and do whatever you want on the bus, but you
will be on the bus at 3:05
or you will
NOT
enjoy the consequences.”

“Are we staying in Irvine?” Ryan asked.

“No, we’re continuing on down to San Diego for tomorrow night’s show.”

“After-party on the bus,” Derek grinned, and looked at me as he said it.

I glowered at him, then looked at Miles and raised my hand.

“This isn’t primary school,” Miles said tersely. “What?”

“I’m going on the bus, right?”

“If you’re on it by 3:05, yes. If not, sod off.”

Riley raised her hand, obviously mocking me.

“What,” Miles snapped.

Riley slowly folded down all her fingers except the middle one, grinning as she did it.

“Fuck off, you little slag,” Miles growled. “Three o’clock.
No exceptions.
”

Then he walked away.

Ryan looked around the table. “I had some ideas I wanted to work on before tonight.”

“Fine by me,” Killian agreed.

Derek just nodded.

“Fuck no, I gotta get some sleep,” Riley yawned.

“No, you gotta get a shower,” Derek said. “You
stink.
”

“Fuck you.”

“No thanks.”

“Ha! You’d be lucky to get it, seein’ as Blondie’s not puttin’ out.”

“Okay,” Derek said simply, like
That’s it
. He stood up, slipped behind Riley’s chair, and got her in a full nelson headlock. His arms looped under hers and over her shoulders, and his hands locked behind her head. He pulled her backwards off the chair, tipping it over backwards. It clattered on the floor as he dragged her to her feet.

She immediately started screaming like a tomcat in a back alley fight, kicking and clawing and flailing and spitting.

“LET GO OF ME, YOU STUPID COCKSUCKING SON OF A BITCH!”

“I’m throwing her in the shower,” Derek announced calmly to the group. “Be back in five.”

“
Thank
you,” Ryan said.

“No problem.”

“I’M GONNA KILL
ALL
‘A YOU FUCKIN’ MOTHERFUCKERS – ”

“Bye, luv,” Killian waved at her.

“FUCK YOU, YOU LIMEY FUCK – LET GO OF ME, YOU GODDAMN ASSHOLE!”

Derek dragged her back into her bedroom, kicking and screaming all the way.

A little shaken, I looked over at Ryan. “Is that… normal?”

“At least once a week,” Ryan said, completely blasé about the whole thing. “Or whenever she needs a bath. More orange juice?”

I let him fill up my glass again, and gradually went back to eating my breakfast.

Once breakfast was over, Killian went to another bedroom in the penthouse, apparently to get dressed. Ryan fiddled with the wires to all the instruments and microphones sitting out in the middle of the penthouse. Derek came back from Riley’s bedroom dripping wet.

“Be back in a minute,” he said, and left the penthouse.

Ten minutes later, Killian was back outside in his customary black shirt, black pants, and black shoes – and with a freshly-lit joint. Ryan was warming up on his bass. And Derek walked in wearing a dry outfit.

As they all took their places, Riley shuffled out in soccer shorts and a wifebeater, her face freshly scrubbed and pink. Without the fright mask of mascara, it was a lot easier to see how pretty her features actually were. All the dried styling gunk was gone from her mohawk, too, leaving her hair a limp, wet mass hanging down one side of her head.

“You guys suck,” she grumbled as she sat down at her drums and picked up her drumsticks, but that was all she said.

For the next two hours, I got a peek behind the curtain of one of the world’s most famous bands.

It started off with Ryan. He played a slapping kind of beat on his bass, and Killian suggested, “How about this?” and dropped in a chugging guitar riff. Riley joined in on the drums – not loud or overpowering, just counting out time and throwing in a combination of snares and cymbals here and there. Derek pulled out a notebook and made some marks in it, then interrupted. “Yeah, when you did that – ” here he sang a few wordless notes – “I was thinking of dropping in, ‘I’m over what you told me when you told me it was through.’”

My mind raced –
Is he talking about us?
– but within seconds it was past, and they were onto something else.

It continued like that, with them going back and forth with suggestions and additions, until finally Ryan asked, “Should we try it?”

Derek nodded, and Riley counted it out on her drumsticks,
click click click click –

And over the next three minutes, a new Bigger song unfolded – one that no one else in the world had ever heard before.

I was the first.

The song was good – definitely rough, but good. I was enjoying it by the midpoint, and was disappointed when it ended.

“Well,
that
sucked,” Riley muttered after it was all over.

That shocked me.

“No, it was good,” I burst out.

The entire group turned around and looked at me. Apparently they’d forgotten I was even there.

“You liked it?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah.”

“Which part?”

“Well – all of it. I mean… I don’t know… I didn’t like the middle part as much, where it slows down and Derek sings about walking away?”

“The bridge,” Ryan said.

“Is that what it’s called?”

“Yeah, the bridge.”

“I told you,” Killian said. “B minor and faster.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay, okay,” Ryan said grudgingly.

“I didn’t say it was bad, it just – it didn’t click for me.”

“What else?”

“Um…” I looked over hesitantly at Derek. “I didn’t like the second and third verses as much as the first.”

His face darkened a little.

“It’s just the first verse is really strong, that’s all,” I added quickly.

“Yeah, the rest was fuckin’ weak,” Riley taunted him.

“Fuck you,” Derek snapped.

“Ha haaaaa,” she jeered back at him.

“But you liked it overall?” Ryan asked.

“Yeah, it was good.”

“How good?”

I shrugged. “Solidly in the middle of everything you’ve ever done.”

Ryan cringed. “That’s
it?”

I stared at him. “That’s the first time you ever played it, isn’t it?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“And all the other songs you’ve done, you did a ton more work on them before you recorded them, right?”

He sighed. “Yeah…”

Then he turned to the rest of the group. “Let’s put it on the back burner for now. Killian, come up with some new ideas for the bridge. Derek – ”

“Yeah, yeah,” he growled. “If we’re through getting reviews on our shit before it’s even halfway finished, can we get back to work?”

Ouch.

I sat down and crossed my arms.

“It’s good to hear from people,” Ryan protested, giving me a sideways glance to make sure I wasn’t taking it too hard. “It’s good to get feedback.”

“Yeah, well, now you’ve got it. Let’s work on ‘Gold And Diamonds.’”

“Okay…”

Ryan gave me a sympathetic look, and then he turned back to the band.

“For the bass line, I was thinking of changing it from what I played you guys last time to…”

Despite my wounded pride at being told to butt out, I was soon captivated by the jam session. In total, they worked on three songs I’d never heard before. Each one was better than the last; the final one could have been good enough to be a single on the radio, even in its rough state.

I kept that opinion to myself, though.

Two hours passed, and suddenly Miles walked in. “Twenty minutes. In twenty minutes, you’re on the bus or my foot is up your arse.”

The band members put up their stuff and retreated to their separate rooms. Derek slipped out before I could say anything to him.

“He just hates criticism in any way, shape, or form,” a voice said behind me. “Can’t stand it.”

I looked back. Ryan was standing in the doorway of one of the bedrooms.

“It was actually pretty good, though,” I protested.

“Yeah, well, for Derek, telling him he’s ‘pretty good’ is a half step above saying he’s awful. It’s amazing – the guy can handle all sorts of stuff getting thrown at him, but he gets bent out of shape at the first mention that his lyrics or singing aren’t absolutely amazing. It’s been that way since the beginning.”

“Is that why he can’t handle music critics?”

“That’s pretty much it. Although some of them aren’t exactly evenhanded. There was this one guy at the Red and Black back when we were in Athens – ”

“He told me about that.”

Ryan grimaced. “Did he tell you about him sleeping with the guy’s girlfriend for revenge?”

My stomach turned. “Yeah.”

“Did he tell you he recorded it and sent it to the paper’s offices?”

I felt even queasier. “Yes.”

“Derek’s always been super-mature,” Ryan said sarcastically, then shrugged. “Oh well. Hey, you got whatever stuff you need? Because Miles is one hundred percent not kidding about being on the bus at 3:05.”

“Oh crap,” I whispered, and ran out of the penthouse as fast as I could.

I made it out to the bus with five minutes to spare.

It was waiting outside the main circular drive in front of the hotel. The exterior was black, with ‘BIGGER’ in huge white letters on the side – plus a graphic of the .44 Magnum Smith and Wesson from their first album, only now it was about twenty feet long.

Subtle.

Inside, the thing was beautifully decorated. It looked more like a luxurious train car, with tons of soft, plush, black leather seats. There were a couple of giant flatscreen TVs on the wall, areas set up for instruments, a kitchen area with a double-wide steel refrigerator, a full bar, and what looked like sleeping quarters in the back.

Ryan and Killian were already onboard. Derek showed up a couple minutes late, quite obviously in defiance of the deadline. He waved to the paparazzi and a couple of dozen screaming fans as he entered the bus.

“Hey – I just wanted you to know, I thought the verses were good,” I said as he walked up the center aisle.

“Okay,” he said without any emotion, and strolled past me to the bar.

ASSHOLE!

Somewhat deviously, I wondered where Miles was and why he wasn’t chewing Derek out – until I saw a giant crew member walk out of the hotel with Riley slung over his shoulder. She was kicking and screaming, and Miles was marching along behind her, hurling insults and profanities at the top of his voice.

The paparazzi had a field day with
that
one.

The crew member basically threw Riley down on one of the front seats of the bus and retreated outside to lick his wounds. Miles walked in and shouted at her, “OI, NOW SIT THE FUCK DOWN AND SHUT YOUR FUCKIN’ GOB!”

With that, the bus driver closed the door, and we were off.

Good times.

I had a couple of hours to kill, so I figured I ought to do my job. I pulled out the Zoom recorder and walked over to Killian.

“Hi… Killian?”

He looked up at me with a pleasant, vacant smile. “Yes, luv?”

“Could I interview you? For the article?”

“Oh…” A shadow of concern passed over his face, and then was gone. “…I suppose so. Why not.”

I sat down opposite him and began.

And found out that Killian Lee was about the worst interview ever.

Not that he was mean, or rude, or anything like that. No, he was as pleasant as always.

It’s just that he was very… laconic.

“Oh… I don’t know.”

“This and that.”

“I can’t really say…”

“I don’t remember that well…”

When I asked him about guitarists who had influenced him, he shrugged. “Oh… all the famous ones.”

So I started naming off all the famous guitarists I knew (mostly from perusing Top 10 lists on the internet before I left New York).

Jimmy Hendrix? “Yes.”

Jimmy Page? “Definitely.”

Keith Richards? “Oh, yes.”

B.B. King? “Definitely, yes.”

Eric Clapton? “I’d say so… yes.”

Any others?

“Oh, you know.” And then a little shrug.

After ten minutes of going nowhere fast, I smiled tightly and shut off the recorder. “Thanks.”

Killian gave me an apologetic smile. “Sorry, luv. I’m just not much of a talker.”

So I noticed.

“We’ll do it again,” I said politely.

“Hey Blondie, come and interview
me!”
a raucous voice shouted.

Oh God.

Apparently Riley had gotten over her temper tantrum and now was bored.

And I was the designated plaything.

I sighed and walked across the bus.

Riley patted the seat next to her with a grossly overt leer.

I winced and sat down. “Okay, so – ”

“To fuck hot chicks,” Riley interrupted.

I stared at her. “…what?”

“To fuck hot chicks,” she repeated.

She was very serious.

Too
serious.

“What are you talking about?”

“Why I do it,” Riley said matter-of-factly. “To fuck hot chicks.”

“That wasn’t what I was going to ask,” I said, annoyed.

“Oh. Well, that’s the answer, anyway. To fuck hot chicks.”

I looked at her. “O-kaaaay… moving on. What’s the best part of being a rock star?”

“Fucking hot chicks.” She acted like she had confused herself – then clarified. “I mean fucking chicks that’re hot. Not chicks who are fuckin’ hot. I mean, I want ‘em fuckin’ hot, but if you don’t get to fuck ‘em, what’s the fuckin’ point, right?”

I glared at her.

I knew she was messing with me.

But she was really,
really
good at hiding it.

“Cut it out,” I said.

“Cut what out?”

“The stupid answers.”

“It’s not stupid, it’s the truth.”

“Let’s move on,” I suggested.

But to paraphrase Riley, what was the fuckin’ point?

Every answer was ‘to fuck hot chicks.’ Or ‘fucking hot chicks.’ Or ‘hot chicks fucking.’

I finally lost my temper and shut off the recorder. “Never mind.”

She looked shocked –
shocked!
– that I wasn’t happy. “Never mind what?”

“If you don’t want to do a serious interview, just say so,” I snapped.

She put her hand on my knee and leaned in conspiratorially. “Y’know, Blondie… if you want better answers… we could go in the back… there’s a bed back there…”

I took her hand off my knee and set it back on her leg. “Thanks, but I think I’ve got everything I need.”

“Blondie, I got
everything
you need!” she laughed as I stood up and walked away. “You just don’t know it yet!”

I sighed and walked over to Ryan, who was fiddling around on a laptop.

He looked up at me and smiled. “Not having such good luck with the other members of the band, huh?”

“Not really, no. What are you doing?”

“Updating our Facebook page… Twitter… Instagram… the blog… basically all the social media.”

“You do that?” I asked, surprised.

“Always have.”

Which made me think of all those Facebook pictures of hot girls hanging off of Derek back in their cover band days.

Which made me automatically irritated with Ryan for posting them.

But I had a job to do, so I pushed that all out of my mind.

“But you’re rich and famous now.”

He looked up at me like
Aaaand…?

“Don’t most bands at your level have somebody else to do that for them?”

“These are our fans. I’ve spent
years
building up the rapport we have with them. I don’t want somebody else – somebody I don’t trust implicitly – doing
anything
on behalf of the band. Too much potential for them to turn it into some kind of corporate money grab.”

“Oh… well, can you spare a couple of minutes?”

“For you? Sure.”

We retreated to a booth set into the side of the bus. I sat across the table from him. Somewhere in the background, Riley was listening to death metal on headphones, and the plinking sound of Killian’s guitar wafted through the air along with his marijuana smoke.

The interview wasn’t very interesting at first, mostly because my questions were pretty dull.
What’s the toughest part about touring, what’s the worst part, what do you like best about being a rock star, where do you get your ideas for music.

Ryan was very polite, though, and answered every question with a lot more thoroughness than my questions probably deserved.

There was one interesting bit, though.

“There’s something I always heard about with other bands, but I never see at your shows,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“I always hear about record company people. Like A&R guys. But I don’t think I’ve seen a single record company executive yet.”

“That’s because there aren’t any.”

I frowned. “What? But you put your stuff out through a record label, right?”

“Not exactly. Remember when Macklemore and Ryan Lewis got huge a while back with ‘Thrift Shop’? Then ‘Can’t Hold Us’ and ‘One Love’ right after that?”

“Yeah…?”

“They didn’t have a big record company behind them, either. They put out all their own stuff on iTunes, which is how we started. They’re completely independent, and so are we.”

“But how did you guys get on the radio, then? I thought you needed record companies to get on the radio.”

“You do. Macklemore and Lewis got courted by a ton of people, but they wanted complete control over everything, so they stayed unattached. Even though they weren’t on a label, they had a distribution company named ADA – Alternative Distribution… something. They were behind acts like Nirvana and The Arcade Fire before they got picked up by major labels. ADA was doing all their CD sales and stuff, plus they were working ‘Thrift Shop’ to college radio stations. And it was getting rotation, mostly because
The Heist
spent four days at number one on iTunes and tons of college kids knew about it. Then L.A. Reid – the guy behind everybody from Outkast to Pink to Mariah Carey to Justin Bieber – flew in to one of their shows and made them an offer to work ‘Thrift Shop’ to national radio stations for free, IF Macklemore would go with L.A.’s record label for their next album. He and Ryan Lewis talked about it – ”

“Who’s Ryan Lewis?”

“He’s basically Macklemore’s music producer, DJ, business partner, and best friend. They’re so tight, Macklemore insists on giving him equal billing on every song.”

“Okay.”

“So, anyway, they talked it over, but said ‘Thanks but no thanks’ to L.A. Primarily because they wanted 100% control. And then they realized that maybe ADA’s parent company, Warner Bros. Records, might agree to a deal: promotion to Top 40, R&B, rap, and rock stations across the country, for a flat percentage – and no strings attached. Their manager worked out the deal, Warners finally agreed… and Macklemore hit Number 1 on Billboard twice in the next six months. The rest was history: two guys from Seattle, nationally unknown a year before and completely independent, with no record label behind them… and they were arguably the biggest musical act of 2013. Not to mention they won a couple of Grammys.”

“Wow,” I said, truly impressed. “So is that what you guys did?”

“That’s
exactly
what we did. Well – minus the Grammys. We actually talked with them and their manager Zach at one point. Awesome guys. Really cool. They told us everything we needed to know, and we followed their blueprint to a ‘t.’ If you check the liner notes on both our albums, you’ll see we thanked all of them. Basically, there’s no way we could’ve done this without them paving the way.”

“Why’s it so important that you guys stay independent?”

“Because,” a voice behind me said, “we don’t want anybody fucking with our music.”

Derek walked up and sat beside me in the booth.

My heart did a little thump in my chest as his leg bumped against mine.

“Rock ‘n roll is littered with thousands of bands who got fucked by record companies,” Derek continued, then took a sip of scotch from the glass in his hand. He was still wearing his sunglasses, even in the bus. “
Tens
of thousands.”

“Not Warner Bros.,” Ryan said cautiously.

“Ha,” Derek said, knowing Ryan was being diplomatic in case I quoted him in the article. He played along. “Not with the deal they gave us, no. But almost everybody out there has gotten fucked in one way or another. Courtney Love had a great quote where she made you start out thinking she was talking about piracy. Went something like, ‘There are
absolutely
people out there who steal music and stiff artists for millions of dollars. They’re called record companies.’”

Okay, that was pretty funny. But…

“Is it really that bad?” I asked. “I mean, Katy Perry and Metallica seem to be doing alright.”

“If you’ve sold 100 million records, of
course
you’re doing alright. Because you’ve got leverage. You can threaten to go to somebody else who’ll give you a better deal. But guys who sell a million copies? Not so much. They’re lucky to break even five years after the album’s out. Now imagine the little guys who only sell 100,000 copies, or worse, 20,000 copies. They’re
fucked.
”

“You’re joking,” I said. “…right?”

“Most record company contracts aren’t much better than slavery.”

“‘Indentured servitude,’” Ryan wryly corrected him. “You don’t get paid anything if you’re a slave.”

“Okay, whatever the fuck, but it’s terrible,” Derek said. “Every expense a record company has, from marketing and advertising to the costs of shooting the video to whatever payoffs they make to get your song on the radio, they charge back against the band’s advance and royalties. After you pay your manager, the lawyers, the record producer, the studio fees, and whatever the record company has run up in their giant tab, you could get a one million dollar advance and still be in the hole. Not to mention the record company owns everything you did, from now until the end of time.”

“You’ve got to be joking,” I said, aghast.

“You get some publishing money over the years, if you wrote the song – but if you didn’t, then once the advance is gone, you’re probably fucked.”

“That’s why so many bands tour relentlessly,” Ryan explained. “Touring is where the money is for most artists. Not the actual songs.”

“But you guys are different, right?” I asked. “I mean, you’re independent, so you’re actually
making
money on the songs, right?”

“Yeah,” Ryan agreed.

“A
lot
of fuckin’ money,” Derek said, then took a sip of his scotch.

“Then… why tour so much?”

Derek and Ryan looked at each other – and then burst out laughing.

“Because I love it,” Derek said, just as Ryan said, “Because he wants to.”

I looked back and forth between them, settling on Ryan. “Um… Derek loves it, so you do it?”

He shrugged. “I mean, I like it, too… but he
loves
it.”

“If I could be onstage 24 hours a day, I would,” Derek said. “There’s no drug, no feeling like it in the world. Ten thousand people shouting your name? Ten thousand people singing along to
your songs?”

Ten thousand women who want to fuck you?
I thought bitterly.

“Nothin’ better in the world,” he finished.

“Obviously you don’t agree,” I said to Ryan.

He gave me a mysterious little smile. “The Beatles gave their last concert in San Francisco in 1966. You know why?”

“Because they hated touring?”

“Maybe that was part of it.”

“Fuck that,
all
of them toured separately after they broke up,” Derek scoffed. “Lennon, McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr –
all
of them toured.”

“That was years later,” Ryan said, then turned to me. “When they first formed the band, the Beatles toured non-stop for six years. They finally quit because they couldn’t hear each other onstage for all the screaming.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. The crowds were literally screaming so loud, nobody could hear them play. Not the fans, not the Beatles,
nobody.
Plus, they were sick of getting mobbed everywhere they went. I mean, it’s tough on
us
– ”

“Speak for yourself,” Derek said.

“Okay, it’s tough on
me,
and we’re not even one tenth as big as the Beatles were in 1966. They were
gods.
And when they were big enough, they just decided to pack it in, and never appeared in public again.”

“They did the rooftop concert in ‘69,” Derek pointed out.

“That was an impromptu appearance for a small audience, not a concert. Plus, they only did it so they could film it for
Let It Be.
They went out in a huge way at Candlestick Park, and they concentrated on studio recording after that.”

“And broke up, too,” Derek said.

“Yeah, but they probably would’ve done that anyway. And we got
Sgt. Pepper’s, The White Album,
and
Abbey Road
in exchange. I’ll take that any day of the week.”