Chapter 6

We were all startled when Chris Weathers, Susan's husband, got to his feet. I knew he had his own opinions on a lot of things ... but, like Liz, he tended to keep them to himself. I wondered what had been said to make him angry.

Rather than offer a contribution to the discussion, he walked over to a young man sitting three tables away. I had to turn my head to follow his movements and eventually I turned around to see what was happening.

"Are you aware that California is a dual-consent state?" he asked in a voice I'd rarely heard him use. The kid's eyes had been locked on his phone but they jerked toward the man on his left.

"Wh- what?" he asked. Chris had his arms crossed, his posture military erect.

"I asked if you understood that recording a private conversation requires the consent of all parties." Chris asked, each word clipped.

"Uh..." the kid stammered. I guess he was probably in his early to mid-20s. He looked like one of the hipster douche bags that had overrun the San Diego area in recent years. "Uh, I wasn't recording anything. I'm just playing a game, Dude."

Chris gestured for the kid to turn his phone around and the kid was too scared not to.

"You've had the phone pointed in our direction for the past several minutes," Chris said, removing his wallet and displaying some sort of identification. "The conversation is private. That is why we have chosen to sit well away from other patrons. If any portion of our private conversation were to become public, I would find you."

He tapped the ID card he held between his fingers and the kid's face went white.

"I wasn't..." the kid began but Chris cut him off.

"Then let's keep that phone pointed in another direction," he advised.

"Sure, Man," the kid said. Chris kept his gaze locked on the guy's face for a long, uncomfortable moment before turning and walking back to the table.

"He was really playing a game," he said as he sat down. He seemed unaware that everyone at the table was looking at him. Strangely, I noted that no one else appeared to have paid him any attention – and the kid had picked up his tray and moved to a table much farther away.

"That's not actually the law," Liz pointed out. "We're in public so we have no right to privacy."

Chris gave a shrug.

"I know that; you know that," he said before gesturing to his chin to the guy. "He doesn't know that. In fact, I could fill an ocean with the things that kid doesn't know. I saw his phone directed over here and I know a lot of what you're talking about would be considered ... sensitive. I thought it best to make sure it remained private."

"Chris was a Navy NCO until he hurt his knee," Susan said. "He has experience dealing with stupid kids."

"What was with the card?" Liz asked.

"After I retired from the Navy I was hired as a civilian consultant to the Defense Department," he explained. "My security clearance is pretty high so they found a way to keep me around."

"He's being modest," I added. "Chris has a very important job at Coronado. But it's apparently classified because none of us really knows what he does."

"I am just a civilian consultant," Chris said, echoing the line that he'd offered us many times.

"Uh-huh," Rick said dubiously, reveling one of the rare opportunities we got to pick on Susan's husband. "He's a consultant that had to leave a party after an urgent phone call. The next morning we got word bin Laden was dead ... oh and a Seal Team from Coronado was the one that took him out. Yeah."

"Maybe he's like Travis at Cedar Point," Liz said.

"Travis told us he was a..." Sarah said, looking at me.

"Janitor," Liz confirmed with a laugh. She offered Chris a wink and he blushed. "I mean, you know, with something important like killing bin Laden, I'm sure someone had to come in to clean up the coffee cups and confetti."

Chris smiled and laughed.

"That would explain why he never cleans up at home," I offered. "His garage looks like a bomb went off inside."

"Well, he can think on his feet," Liz said. "So if you ever get tired of being a janitor, let me know. I'm always looking for people with the ability to act instead of react."

"I'm happy with what I'm doing," Chris said. "But thank you."

"You can't coddle these guys," Sarah said, shaking her head sadly. "Now he and Matt are going to expect Suzie and me to be nice to them. It'll take us a month to housetrain them again."

"My bad," Liz said with a laugh. "If I can move us back on point, this is exactly what I'm looking for in my marketing people. I hate to continually rehash a conversation I had earlier with Travis. I know he gets bored easily and his mind starts to wander. But I've been looking for several months. As you've pointed out I have interests outside of Nashville. Under the guise of looking to increase the profile of those interests, I've been meeting with people in your field since late last year. That's when I decided my long-term interests were better served by a new label. I am stubborn. I am opinionated. I am also very ignorant on a lot of things. What I saw today ... and what my friends, Stephanie and Jill, saw ... told me that this group would be willing to stand up to me when I'm dead wrong. I also believe, simply because I knew Travis when we were younger, that you will also look out for me and accept my input without getting upset.

"I didn't get that impression from the others I met. From them, I saw a group not unlike the people that handle my marketing now. I saw people that thought they knew best how to 'grow my profile' and they would do it without my consent if I didn't like their plans. I don't have that impression here. I like the fact that you come from diverse backgrounds. I like the fact that you are all grounded. I like the fact that you are already working as a team. That is one thing that I've always hated. For many years I have kept some concerns separated from the label. That was out of mutual necessity. They didn't want to deal with them ... so long as everyone toed the same line. There was little communication. There was little trust. Both groups worked independently on cross-plateau projects ... and often found themselves going in opposite directions.

"I can give you many reasons this happened. First was my lack of input to the Nashville process. Just as importantly was my inability to oversee the projects away from Nashville. I was busy and I lacked the acumen to supervise while I was away. I also had no one I could trust to look after my interests. I have taken steps to change that. I am well established in the industry."

"Well-established, she says," Sarah interrupted with the requisite eye roll. "Seven platinum albums on the way to eight, the highest-selling artist in any genre for the past 10 years and more money that the Sultan of Dubai and she says she's 'well-established.'"

"All right, fine," Liz said with a laugh. "I suppose modesty is not a strong suit. I'm a freakin' goliath in the industry. Better?"

"Much," Sarah said with a broad smile.

"With a series of veiled and unveiled threats to my current label, I was able to solicit some provisions that are not expressly written into my contract," Liz continued. "Please understand that I was 21 years old and completely unaware of life or business when I signed the deal. My first contract was for five years or three albums. My second deal was for 10 years or six albums. They gave me a lot of upfront money and a pretty fair amount of my sales earnings. In exchange, I gave away my proverbial soul. I suppose, technically, if this conversation were to become public the label might have grounds to sue me. The confidentiality clause is pretty strict. And, unlike most things in Nashville or Hollywood or New York, the terms of my deal have remained a secret. In the past few years I have grown powerful enough in the industry and outside of the industry to force concessions. I have, purposefully, kept my demands small and, to me, reasonable.

"I have the ability to hire my own personal staff ... that includes my road manager, my assistants, the musicians that travel with me, the crew that sets up my shows and things of that nature. From a performance standpoint, the number of people that answer directly to me numbers less than 30. The rest answer to the label and are under no obligation to consult with me on anything. This includes booking me for shows, my concert schedule and which of my songs are released to the radio. For instance, I had no say in making this time a stadium tour. That was decided by others and they informed me that this was how it was going to be. I have limited say in which songs go onto each album. The only proviso in my contract in that regard is that songs I write or co-write are given preference.

"I also have very little say in many other things. Again, this is something I mentioned to Travis earlier but it bears repeating so you'll understand me better. The people in Nashville made arrangements, without my knowledge or consent, for me to 'befriend' several people that I would normally avoid at all costs. I won't mention names while we are sitting in public but if you want my true impression of any person I've met, feel free to ask me in private. I will give you the unvarnished truth from my perspective. You can bet your asses that I will 'unfriend' a great many people the day I walk away from Radio Free Nashville. My point is, this is the final step I need to take in order to regain control of my life."

"But this is one of the more important steps," I said. "Look, we're outsiders but I think everyone understands the general principles involved. If Stephanie called any venue in the world to set up a performance, they would jump at the opportunity to have you there. If you decided you wanted your own brand of sneakers, Adidas, Nike, Converse and Keds would start a bidding war to make Major League Baseball blush. But your image ... the one you already have and the one you want to move toward ... that is something that is completely outside of your control. No one gets to determine fully how other people look at him or her. You could release a slash guitar disc next and still see 500,000 in sales. But if you get a DUI tonight nothing is going stop people from thinking you're a drunk. So, you're looking for a multi-faceted approach. You want people to market your musical releases; you want people to ensure the products you endorse are not manufactured by indentured servants for a company with ties to the Chinese government; you'll want people to refine your brand to your buying public and to the world at large. Finally, you'll need someone to act as your public relations liaison to the venues that get your songs and your message out to the public. If any facet of the operation lags, the entire house of cards tumbles."

I looked around the table for arguments but everyone appeared to agree with me.

"Additionally, you have a time factor that cannot be ignored," Sarah noted. "You tend to go about 16 months between discs and have a tour every year. You don't want to make your fans wait for you. I think we all know how that tends to work out. If you don't believe me, ask Synthia Dickens how taking a couple of years away from the business worked out for her. Or even Gary Bookout. He dropped a new disc and can't crack the charts now with a song. Their fan base moved on. As much as I hate to say it, you're not as big as they were in their prime. You're close, but the business changed and I don't foresee anyone hitting those heights again. So, while you're setting up your next release, your marketing team is going to have work double time to keep your name in the public's mind. Can we assume that the label change will not take place overnight?"

"It won't," Liz said with a slight downward turn at the corners of her mouth. "There will be 90 days where I won't be able to do much of anything. RFN has exclusive negotiating rights for three months when the contract expires."

"Are you in violation of that by negotiating with other studios while under contract to them?" Rick asked.

"Possibly," Liz confessed. "But the contract language is vague enough that it shouldn't matter."

"But it will matter if your current label sues you and it takes two years to get the matter resolved," Rick pointed out.

"Yeah," Liz replied with a nod. "They might sue me either way. It is just how they operate. And, I have not entered into negotiations with another label. I have asked another label for a prospectus of the services they provide. We have not discussed costs or percentages. My attorneys are pretty good ... better than the studios use to be honest. There is case law on the books and I'm clear. If RFN claims breach of contract I'll have to deal with it."

"It's a hard thing to prove," Matt said. "I'm in purchasing for a construction company. We often solicit quotes from other vendors before our existing contracts end. A few times, we've been sued over it but it's mostly a nuisance. Unless someone has very compelling evidence, the judge very rarely issues a restraining order to keep us from conducting business. I think it's happened maybe twice in the last 10 years. We got the thing quashed in a day or two and life went on. It's more likely that RFN will take aim at the new label and argue unfair trade practices or collusion. But poaching clients is a time-honored practice in American business and everyone knows it. Still, it can be a headache if you're not prepared for it."

"She has a legal team and we ain't it," Susan said.

"True," Rick said. "But it isn't like the fallout won't trickle down throughout the organizational structure. No one can bury their head in the sand on this. Her legal team will have to understand the marketing ideas; marketing will have to understand the legal process. Otherwise she's stuck where she is right now: Everyone has hold of an arm and tugging in opposite directions. When the tug-of-war is over, Liz has been forgotten."