Uproar

Chapter 37

Mike

"So good meeting with everyone again," Don said as he sat in one of the office chairs. He looked at everyone then smiled. "I listened to some of the demos you all had and I'm quite impressed with the material you all came up with."

I have Don a smile smile as I fumbled with my pen, chewing on the end of it.

"I really would like to see what else we can begin to work on. I know there'll be of great ideas we can throw around.

"Now reviewing some of the demos, I really liked three of out those few that you all worked on. 'Pretty Birdy', 'Figure .09', 'Faint' and that really long one you made Mike, 'Drawing'."

My head perked up. "Really? I thought it wouldn't sound like our band to play it."

Don nodded his head, "I really like it Mike. It can become something great."

I nodded, feeling a blush creep across my face. "Um thanks."

Don smiled and turned his chair to face the rest of the band. "I'm assuming Brad and Joe are gonna work a lot with Mike. Chester, it'll take a while before we'll start working on vocals, but I expect lyric ideas soon. Got it?"

Chester nodded from his corner of the room, his head resting against his hand. He looked tired and like he didn't want to be here with us. I looked back over at Don once Chester took notice that I was looking at him. I did that a lot. Stare at him when he wasn't looking. I couldn't figure out why though.

"We have until this winter to get this done. January the latest."

***

"Um, so you wanna keep tracking or take a break?" I asked Chester, looking over him from the other side of the glass.

He took the headphones off. "Break," he whispered tiredly. Rob and Joe, who sat in the room too, perked their heads up curiously. "Okay then. We can...work on 'Pretty Birdy'. We don't have an intro, maybe we can work on that?" I suggested, turning to Joe and Rob for an answer.

Joe nodded and moved to sit next to me in the other office chair, leaving Chester and Rob on the couch. Chester sighed and grabbed Don's acoustic from it's stand and began strumming quietly.

After a while of Joe playing samples from the computer, he turned around and faced Chester. "Can you play that again? I really liked that."

Chester's face lit up and he repeated the chords he had played earlier. The progression was good but I didn't like it too much.

"It sounds too...bulky," I muttered. Joe looked at me and then at Chester, who looked like a child who had asked for candy and had been told 'no'. There was genuine hurt in his eyes. Joe rolled his eyes and then grabbed the acoustic's cable and tossed it to Chester.

"Here, I have an idea."

Joe spun his chair back at the desk and clicked a few programs open. "Alright. Play it." Chester played the progression and then Joe hit the spacebar.

"Okay look at this," he scooted closer to the keyboard we had set up and messed around with sounds. He threw in a couple and overlayed them into the guitar.

"Wait, reverse it," I said suddenly as Joe's new product played. Joe nodded and clicked a couple things and then played it. It sounded cool, really cool.

"Scoot over," I told Joe. I grabbed the mouse and cut the clip into different parts, each part a chord. I arranged them so they were in their original order, but the audio was still backwards.

"Okay, now play it."

Joe nodded and hit the spacebar. He grinned and looked at Rob and Chester. "This sounds so cool! We can just add that to the intro and maybe extend it throughout the song?"

Chester nodded, a small smile appearing on his face. Then it faltered. He cleared his throat and then stood up quickly.

"I need to go," he stuttered, moving past Rob and grabbing his backpack. He sprinted out the door.

***

"Shouldn't you at least be a little concerned?" Brad asked me as he tuned. Mark Fiore sat on a stool across from him and raised a brow curiously.

"What are you two talking about?"

"Chester," Joe piped in.

"Ooh. Yeah I've been worried about the guy too. I saw him leaving in a hurry earlier today."

"What happened?" Brad asked, his hand stopped turning the peg and looked at Joe and I. Joe shrugged.

"We don't know. He just, left."

"Okay I know that," Brad sighed and continued tuning his guitar. 

"Are you sure you don't want to like use the Ibanez for this one? It sounds a lil too 'djent' to be on this old thing."

I shook my head. "Just trust me with this one."

"Um okay. But we're not Deftones Mike, they actually got their gear built for their sound."

"Brad. Please shut up and just use the damn PRS," I said, trying not to laugh. Brad rolled his eyes and played a few chords.

"Okay. But, how's this gonna work. Are you gonna like play a higher part?"

I nodded and thought for a moment.

"Play a harmonic real quick. Like any one."

Brad looked down at the neck of his guitar and and played a harmonic, looking at me with an 'are you satisfied face'.

"Use that note and work with it. Just do something with it. I think we can get something out of it for this track."

"Out of just that...?"

"You can do it Brad."

As I was turning back towards the computer, the door opened and a very pale looking Chester walked in. Anger simmered in me as he walked in with his head down.

"Where were you? You just left and we needed to track samples for this!" I spat as I pointed at the computer screen. He didn't look at me at all, which made me angrier.

"What were you off doing? Fucking one of the band members again? Or did you not have your morning fix?"

He looked up at me when I mentioned the second part. I shook my head. "Fucking druggie," I muttered. Mark was looking at everyone, really shocked.

"I um, I got a few things to do," he said quickly as he put his camera away in its bag. He slung the bag over his shoulder and opened the door. Chester sighed and followed behind him quietly, tears streaming down his face. I felt bad. Mark had a bit of an idea of what has been happening between Chester and I for the past few years, but he never witnessed it firsthand. 

Joe shook his head. "He needs to know he can't leave whenever."

Brad nodded and played a few notes.

I sighed and looked down at the keyboard. I couldn't help but feelt sudden guilt weigh down on me. Chester looked so pale and tired and didn't even talk much anymore. Brad was right earlier. We should be worried. But his shenanigans aren't gonna help us at all with this record.