Certainly not my family.
Just my band.
But maybe there was someone else.
Even if she wasn’t currently returning my calls.
I walked out to the small kitchen on the bus and turned on the coffee maker. It was ridiculously early. Way earlier than I was normally awake for. Usually I didn’t bother putting my feet on the ground until the afternoon.
But my silent phone had kept me awake.
And then there was the day ahead of us. It was going to be a big one.
We had our first radio interview at a midsized station in St. Louis, where we would be playing tonight. Then later we had some principal photography that the label had set up for our upcoming album release.
Current Static was set to go live in a couple of weeks. Now that our tour with Primal Terror was doing so well, Pirate Records told us that they were planning on pumping more and more money into our release.
We were all pretty excited about it. But for me this was my chance to prove that I wasn’t a waste of space. That I could do something with my life without going into the military or going to college.
That I hadn’t made a huge mistake by walking out of my parents’ house all those years ago. That I was going to make it with or without their support.
It was kind of pathetic that here I was, a twenty-four year old man and still hung up on his mommy and daddy issues. It was so cliché.
“Pour me a cup, will ya?” I looked over my shoulder to find Jose Suarez, our new manager, sitting down at the table and pulling out his laptop.
“Sure, man. Cream or sugar?” I asked.
“Black,” he said shortly.
Of course. That didn’t surprise me. Jose Suarez wasn’t the type to mess up perfectly good coffee with bullshit.
We had been on the road for a little over four months, sleeping out of Garrett’s van or in crappy Motel 6s when Jose approached us after a show.
We had been playing steady gigs with the help of Dougie, Mitch’s club promoter cousin.
At first, the whole thing had been embarrassing. Hardly anyone showed up and we were playing to crowds of twenty to thirty people. We were living off fifty bucks a show and were close to calling it a day and heading home.
But then, something changed. I still don’t know exactly know what did it. What that magic moment was when we went from being third-rate garage band to up and coming stars.
Suddenly people were talking about us. And people started showing up to watch us play. What had begun as a pipe dream slowly became a reality.
And when Dougie hooked us up with a marketing manager with a rising indie rock label, Pirate Records, we jumped at the chance to record a single to sling out to radio stations.
And then Jose Suarez had entered the picture. He had heard about us and decided to check us out. He had liked what he had seen. He wanted to manage us. He was positive he could take us to the next level. He had been working in the industry for over fifteen years. He had connections. He had experience. He was exactly what Generation Rejects needed.
Jordan was adamantly against it. He hadn’t wanted to screw over his girlfriend. That had pissed me off. And that had led to one of our worst fights. When all was said in done, we had forty stitches between us and had signed Jose as our manager.
Maysie had been fine with it after I had gotten tired of Jordan’s shit and gone behind his back to talk to her about it. She had understood that working with Jose was a once in a lifetime opportunity. She hadn’t been as blind and emotional about it as her pu**y-whipped boyfriend.
But I still got the feeling that Jordan resented me for strong-arming the decision. Whatever. The one thing you could never accuse me of is not having the best interests of the band at heart.
I wanted us to rock the world. I wanted us to be a success. I wasn’t going to let Jordan and his pink, fluffy relationship get in the way of that.
And once we had signed on with Jose, things took off pretty quickly. Using his connections he got us bigger and better venues. He got our single, Perfect Regret, airplay on a bunch of college radio stations.
Slowly and surely, we were building a fan base that consisted of more than just the drunks that hung out at Barton’s Bar and Grill on a Saturday night.
And then he had gotten us the prime gig as the opening act on Primal Terror’s first nationwide tour.
Now here we were, six months later, getting ready to release our first album, playing to sold out venues and preparing for our first radio interview.
Shit couldn’t get any better than that.
I wanted to fist pump the air like a Rocky. I wanted to click my heels Fred Astaire style.
Life was good.
And it would be just about perfect if my stupid phone would just freaking ring.
“Here ya go,” I said, sliding the mug to Jose and sitting down across from him. He barely looked up but he nodded his thanks.
I had learned that Jose wasn’t one for niceties or manners. It was one of the things I appreciated about him.
“The interview has been rescheduled for two so you aren’t so crunched for time. You have to be back for sound check at four,” Jose explained in his cut the BS delivery.
“Yeah, okay,” I responded.
Jose looked over the rims of his dark framed glasses and seemed to be studying me. I hated when he did that. It was as though he were trying to steal my soul or something.
Jose wasn’t your stereotypical manager. He didn’t subscribe to the school of khakis and pressed shirts. Jose Suarez was covered, head to toe, in crazy looking tats. His face was full of piercings. It must be a pain in the ass for him to go through a metal detector.
He looked more the part of rock star than most of the actual rock stars I had seen.
He was one badass motherfucker.
It was rumored he had been a gang banger when he was younger and it was on the streets that he gotten to know some dudes who went on to become some of the biggest musicians out there right now.
It was through those connections that he built his business and he had established himself as a reputable manager. He had personally catapulted at least two other bands into the stratosphere. Blind Susan and Catch ‘Em Cal were two of the biggest rock acts on the scene. The latter of which had just gone on to win the Grammy for Best New Artist.
He was rumored to have the magic touch. He understood the industry and knew how to turn shit into gold. And he was committed to doing the same for Generation Rejects.
The whole thing was still so unbelievable.
“You nervous?” Jose asked arching what should have been eyebrow if he had any. I had seen him shave them off meticulously every other day. It was f**king weird.