Getting a manager meant getting serious about the band. They still had their daily practice, but there were plenty of other things to do besides playing: writing new songs, figuring out how to put an album together, rewriting parts of songs to make them suitable for said album, setting up shows, and getting word out about the band.
As the most dedicated member of the band, Nikki took the initiative in most of these things, but there was too much for him to do by himself. He needed the other guys to help out. Nikki loved Tommy, but he had to admit that he was kinda fucking clueless. Nikki got the impression that he believed fame was going to come overnight, and that all he had to do to achieve it was jam out on his drum kit for a few hours a day. That was nice when Nikki needed a little optimism in his life but for all practical purposes, it wouldn't work.
Vince, on the other hand, Nikki didn't know well enough to judge his work ethic. Mostly because Nikki could hardly stand his primadonna attitude long enough to talk to the guy for more than ten minutes at a time. Their relationship was strictly music and drug based.
That left Mick Mars as his partner in crime. The old man was definitely busy, having a kid to take care of and working forty hours a week at a laundromat to pay the bills, but Nikki was able to convince him to dedicate Saturday mornings as "Motley work" time, as they called it.
The first Saturday Nikki showed up to the Deal home, he was greeted by a confused young face.
"What are you doing here?" Evie asked when she opened the door. She looked behind Nikki, trying to see if he had brought his friends with him.
Nikki felt a tinge of panic and wondered if, in one of his drunken stupors, he had created imaginary plans with an imaginary Mick.
"Uh," he began.
Just then, Mick appeared behind the girl. "Shit," he said, grabbing the door. "Did I not tell you?" He motioned for Nikki to come in while Evie shook her head. Nikki felt awkward standing in the hallway leading to the door, unsure of whether he was welcome to show himself to the living room. Mick was whispering something to his daughter while she nodded her head, her eyes wide.
Finally, Evie lowered her head and scurried past Nikki, not even acknowledging him.
"Sorry about that," Mick said to him. "I forgot to tell her." He made a face that said 'what can you do,' and led Nikki into the main room of the house. There, Nikki could see the girl picking up sewing supplies and a headless stuffed dog off of the breakfast bar.
"You can stay down here, honey," Mick said. The two men moved into the living room before she could respond.
When Nikki looked back, she was heading the opposite direction with all her supplies hugged tightly against her chest.
Nikki leaned in close to the other man on the couch. "What happened to that poor dog?"
"Science experiment gone wrong," Mick responded in a grave tone. Then, he laughed and picked up a legal pad with the agenda of the day written on it: tracks, shows, publicity.
Just as it was written, the men first spoke about what songs were going to be put on their as-of-yet untitled debut album. They decided nine tracks was an acceptable number, and they moved into the garage to show each other some parts they were working on. Next, it was back to the sofa to discuss the live shows Doc had set up for them. They decided on the setlists, throwing some covers into the mix to keep it interesting, and also talked about securing some costumes and mannequins to spice up their performance. Finally, Nikki showed the older man the sketches of the Motley posters he had been working on. They talked about what the cheapest way to mass produce them would be and made a list of locations they would hang them up.
Coincidentally, that was the time Evie began coming down the stairs, dressed in her thrifted business pants and black shirt that had "Cancun Mexican Grill" written in white lettering on the back. Neither man had noticed her sneak up from the basement and go to her bedroom to get ready for her shift.
She raised a hand to wave goodbye to her father, when he called her over. Mick picked up one of the posters Nikki had made and said, "is there a bulletin board or something at the restaurant where you could hang this up?"
Evie took the paper out of his hand. The obviously hand drawn poster displayed drawings of the four members of Motley Crue, their names and the name of the band, and a list of all their upcoming shows. "Yeah," she said. "There's one by the door, I'll hang it up."
"Thank you."
She put it in her small backpack just as Mick had an even better idea. "Hold on," he said. "Instead of that, would you mind stopping by the library on your way home? Print out some more copies?"
"Sure. How many do you want?"
"How many can you print for free?"
And so, when that Friday night's show yielded the largest audience yet, Evie was given at least some of the credit. It also proved that Nikki and Mick's Saturday mornings were valuable, but it soon became clear that it wasn't enough time. Doc was asking them to have the album ready to record by the end of May, meaning the guys needed to finish the last song, make the final edits, and work up the scene's anticipation, all within the next two weeks or so.
It was decided that, in addition to Saturday mornings, the two most responsible members of the band would meet at the Deal home on Monday afternoons, too. Actually, it was less like having a meeting and more like Nikki not leaving after practice when the other guys left.
Nikki came to really enjoy these Monday afternoon sessions, and he hoped Mick liked them, too. That first Monday, the 18th of May, Nikki got a special treat that he had almost forgotten was commonplace for most people: lunch. And he didn't have to pay for it, steal it, or fuck anyone to get it; Mick just offered him the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and he gratefully accepted.
They ate on the couch in the living room.
"I haven't had a homemade sandwich like this in... I don't know how long," Nikki said. That was the comment that sealed the fate of the afternoon. Instead of getting work done towards the creation of their new album (which the band had decided was going to be called Too Fast For Love ), the men were going to spend a good portion of the day getting to know each other better.
"Yeah," Mick responded with empathy. "It seems like you don't have much."
Nikki looked away. "I mean, I work a bunch of odd jobs here and there, and I get some royalties from London, but I invest so much of it back into the band. It just seems like there's never anything left for me."
"I know how you feel. But I've been in this industry for quite some time, and I can just tell that this band has got something special. I have a feeling that we're gonna meet at least some success... And in the meantime, you can always come here if you need a meal."
Nikki was touched, and that made him feel uncomfortable, so he changed the topic. "How many bands have you been in?"
Mick chuckled. "More than I can count. I started out in the late 60s, dropped out of school and everything."
"Me too."
"Yeah, I had a feeling. Anyway, I was in a bunch of random bands, mostly blues. The one really serious band I was in, Whitehorse, I was with for five or six years."
"Why'd you leave?"
"Could tell it wasn't going anywhere. All they wanted to do was play blues and disco-type shit, but people are getting tired of it. I really feel like rock'n'roll is taking hold. How about you? What happened with London?"
"I guess... the band kinda just fell apart. By the end, we had been looking for a new singer for a couple of months, but the other guys in the band rejected everyone I thought had potential. They fought me over the smallest shit and I knew our drummer was contemplating leaving, so I just said fuck it and left."
"So where'd you find Tommy?"
"I met him when I was in London. He was in a little band, and I saw one of their shows one night. The rest of the band was shit, just a bunch of high schoolers, but Tommy-- he's one of the best drummers I've ever seen. Even better than some of the people who make it onto the radio. After that show, I saw him at a diner and went up to him. Then after London went to hell, I called him up. By that point he had left his old band, cause he could tell they sounded like toddlers, so he was real happy to join me."
Mick couldn't think of a response to that, but Nikki soon spoke up again.
"So," he said, "was Whitehorse ever big?"
Mick contemplated for a moment. "If we're going by what qualifies as 'big' on the Strip, yeah, we were for a bit. We did tour Alaska for a few weeks once, and we sold a couple hundred copies of our album, but we were all 20 something year olds with other things to do besides play music. We couldn't be playing shows or writing music all the time because we had jobs to work, kids to feed, wives to keep, ya know?"
"What changed with you, then? You seem to have plenty of time for shows and music now."
"I spent a decade working my ass off. I picked up as many shifts as I could and saved as much as I could. It helps that I lived with my parents rent free for a few years, too. So now, I've got decent savings and money coming in from both my job and a daughter who's now old enough to take care of herself. We're no millionaires, but I'm not working sixty hours a week anymore on top of the music and parenting shit."
Nikki took this in for a moment. He wondered if he was gonna have to take the same path Mick did, working overtime at dead end jobs and spending his free time with a mediocre band and a child he had too young, waiting a decade-plus for success to come, if it ever did. The thought made him shiver, and he changed the topic.
"When did you move to California?"
"Oh, I think it was about ten or eleven years ago. Came here from the Denver area. How about you?"
"A little under two years ago. I moved around a lot as a kid. I was actually born in San Jose and my family lived here for a bit when I was younger, but I also lived in Seattle, Mexico, and Idaho."
"That's right, weren't you living with your grandparents in Idaho before you came here?"
"Yeah..." Nikki said, his face contorting with confusion. "How'd you know that?"
"You told me."
"Yeah..." Nikki was taken aback by the idea of Mick remembering such a small detail about his life. "I guess I did."
They were both silent for a moment.
"So," Nikki finally said, "should we get back to working on the band?"
Mick sighed. "I suppose so."
With that, the men tried to begin working on the upcoming album, but it turned into a conversation about musical influences, which turned into a conversation about concerts they had been to, which turned into a conversation about any and every music related event in their childhoods. This went on for hours, only interrupted once when Evie got home, waved to the men, and went up to her room.