Page 51 of Naughty Dreams
Johnny strode away, his expression tight. G had a way with team members who needed reinforcement on what was expected of them. He’d let her work her magic and confirm if the lesson stuck or they needed a replacement.
He stepped back into the control room. DJ was at the piano in the live room, but his position, straddling the bench, several pages of notepaper on the floor, had Roy’s gaze narrowing. He moved to the threshold between the rooms. “Were you listening at the door?”
DJ shot him an innocent look. “Roy, that’s so juvenile.”
“You went into the sound booth and engaged the camera over the door so you could see and hear.”
DJ’s brown eyes sparkled. “Is it wrong that I found it seriously arousing, how you dressed him down? I think you held back, though.”
“Why? What do you think I overlooked?”
Affecting a Roy demeanor, DJ straightened and squared his shoulders. “If you don't come to work,” he barked gruffly, “it damn well better be because you’re dead or missing a body part. Not some bullshit piece either, like an ear or pinky finger, or something you have two of, like an eye or leg. One can still do the job. Got it?”
DJ chuckled at Roy’s look. “You do it, too, you know.”
“What?”
“Get fascinated by how I do my job.”
“Do not.”
DJ’s smile deepened. “I could tell by the way you watched us putting that song together. It’s like I said from the beginning. You do this because you’re a metal-head. Come sit beside me for a minute.”
“I’m working.”
“So am I. Let me show you.”
Roy considered, then locked the door and joined DJ on the bench. It wasn’t big enough for two men of their size, so he straddled a corner, bracing his feet. His thigh brushed DJ’s. “We’re working,” he informed DJ. “No taking advantage.”
“Same goes. Keep your hands to yourself.” DJ bumped his shoulder, then played a series of notes with a haunting melody. Roy realized it as a different take on the heavy metal song he and the other band members had been working on. “We’re considering a bridge to ‘Meet Your Maker.’”
“Like in the middle of ‘Master of Puppets’ by Metallica.”
DJ’s knowing look had Roy lifting a shoulder. “Lucky guess.”
“Yeah, right.” DJ’s brown eyes twinkled, but his mouth straightened as he returned to the process. His fingers kept moving over the keys, adding to the existing melody.
“A song is a road. I think for musicians, that’s what heaven would be, staying on that road, a never-ending jam session. While the greats, your idols, they come in and out, jamming with you. Like that studio session you were at where we invited the guys down the hall to join us. You were kind of blissed out by it, admit it.”
“I admit nothing.” But Roy gave him a grudging smile. It was rare Roy revealed his private passions, but DJ reached inside him and brought them forth.
Compatibility.
“Lyrics are sometimes so simple, just a conversation, but you put the music with them and it peels back the surface. You see what the words really mean, or the music gives them meanings they never had before.” DJ’s hands swept the keys, moving in front of Roy and then back, his shoulder briefly pressed against him.
“Jimmy Page, the guitarist for Led Zeppelin, said he wanted the listener to be able to hear every band member’s contribution to a song, because of how amazing the individual parts were.”
“The cohesion isn’t bad, either,” Roy pointed out. “It hits you high, low, inside and out.”
“Yeah. Composition, arrangement, harmony, they all take a song to a different level, give it a life of its own. Makes you see the miracle of it. Like Steve, Pete and I, how we all ended up at Marjorie’s, each of us carrying a love of music. But we also had the need to play it, the drive to work at it, to grow the talent we had. When Tal came into the mix, we knew that was it, the circle had closed.
“Plenty of bands talk about that. Someone comes in, and maybe you don’t think they’re going to fit, because you get in your comfort zone and don’t trust an outsider. But as I’ve told Tal, plenty of times, ‘Man, you’re not an outsider. You were a missing piece.”
DJ’s expression shadowed, but he didn’t get into those darker waters. He just kept playing, his expression meditative. Roy could see the fields of notes and words rolling through his head. It was the place he belonged, that had never kicked him out or left him alone.
Roy sat with him, listening. Their shoulders stayed pressed together.
“Hey, play this chord here.” DJ reached over him to show him what he meant, and started the metronome on top of the piano. “Do it on every third beat.”
