Page 92 of Rock On

“As soon as we can get it done, we’ll re-release both albums,” King growled. “New cover art, new everything. Fuck Aurora and fuck Sound of Light. They think they’ve got the upper hand, but I’m not playing this game with them. Madeline, tell me what we have to do. I don’t care how much it costs as long as it doesn’t bankrupt the band. Otherwise, I will spend whatever it takes to shove those masters right up their asses.”

It was a legal quagmire and Madeline guided us through it as best she could. For the most part, I was only half-listening because I was texting Bash—the drummer from Nobody’s Fool—to ask if he could help out if I couldn’t play well enough to re-record those two songs.

He was a good guy and we’d gotten friendly when they’d been on tour with us, but he had his own responsibilities, so there was no guarantee he was available on such short notice.

“Well, Bash is available,” I said when I heard back from him. “So if I can’t do it, we can fake it with his help.”

“I like the idea of you and Kellan switching for one song,” King said.

“Me too,” Z added. “But it’ll be good to have Bash come in, maybe even as a special guest, like Devyn suggested. Whatever it takes to have a whole new version of the song.”

“We never released ‘Holding’ on an album,” Devyn said thoughtfully, referring to a single we’d released a couple of years prior featuring a then sixteen-year-old vocalist named Kirsten Aiken. She was the sister-in-law of Ford Malone, the rhythm guitarist of Nobody’s Fool, and she’d been out on tour with us for limited dates since then. “What if we added it to either ‘Shiny Pieces’ or ‘Second Level of Hell’? That would be bonus material and people would flock to buy it.”

“I think Kirsten’s ready,” I said. We’d kept our relationship to her relatively quiet, beyond the release of that one song, because we hadn’t wanted the life of a sixteen-year-old to become a circus.

“She’s in college at Julliard,” King said. “But I’m sure she’d be able to fly in for a day to re-record it.”

“I’ll call her,” Sasha said.

“All right, gang, I have to go,” Madeline said. “Let’s keep our plans quiet. We don’t want Aurora or anyone else catching wind of what’s going on. Who knows what bullshit they’ll try to pull once they realize what we’re doing. They stand to lose a fortune, so I wouldn’t put it past them to start a smear campaign.”

“You think?” Z asked quietly. “I’m still willing to reach out to Aurora and try to put some of this behind us?”

“I don’t think it’s that simple at this point,” Madeline said. “I strongly recommend you stay away from her.”

“My wife would probably agree,” he said.

“I’m sorry I put us in a position where we can’t just head into the studio and do our thing,” I said once we’d disconnected the video chat and it was just the band and Harley. “It never occurred to me something like this might happen.” I motioned to my knee.

“It’s not your fault, accidents happen,” King said.

“Yeah, but this one wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t been driving like a lunatic. I should have been more careful, more cognizant of the fact that a motorcycle accident could not just delay the tour, but totally derail my career. It won’t happen again. You have my word.”

“We’ve all done dumb shit,” Kellan said.

“Yeah, but after what we went through with Carter, we shouldn’t be dealing with it now. We all know better. I meant to apologize before, but I’m doing it now.”

“We’re all good,” Devyn said. “We’ve all brought our share of shit to the table. Let’s not dwell on the past.”

“Amen to that.” Z nodded.

“I know, but… we deserve better. All of us.”

“We appreciate the sentiment,” King said, “but let’s not go there, okay? You didn’t do it on purpose, you’re on the mend, and you took responsibility. Let’s leave it there.”

“What if I can’t play next week?”

A small silence filled the room.

“Well, we have a back-up plan,” Kellan said. “I play one song, Bash plays on the other. And we won’t record the rest of those albums until you’re better.”

“Besides, we don’t have time to record the rest of the songs right now,” Z said. “We’ve got to start rehearsals.”

“Speaking of which, let’s go over choreography,” King said. “We can do that today.”

“Give me a minute to walk Harley to her car,” I told them.

Harley had known we might have a regular meeting or small rehearsal, so she’d been planning to leave at that point anyway.

---