Chapter 8a

Intemperance and their manager, Pauline Kingsley, now knew why National Records management had been so lackadaisical about the submission date for new songs for the next album. It hadn't been out of any concern for the health and well-being of the band or its members, nor had it been because they thought the band would produce better if they had a nice vacation prior to the composition process. No, National had kept nicely in character when they'd pushed the submission deadline back to November. It's In The Book was still high on the top ten list of album sales. Radio stations across the country, as well as in Europe, Australia, and Japan were still playing almost every song on the album multiple times a day. Even the deep cuts that had never been intended for radio play were being spun by disc jockeys and enjoyed by the listening audience. In short, Book had turned into the best-selling album that National had put out in more than a decade and, as a result, they didn't want to hamstring it by introducing any new Intemperance material too soon. As such, they'd decided long before sharing their strategy with the band itself that they were not going to release a new Intemperance album in the coming year. In effect, they'd bowed out of the 1988 option period and had instead decided to focus on a new project for the band.

"We're going to put out a live album early next year," Crow told them in a meeting one morning.

"A live album?" Pauline asked.

"You bet your ass," Crow said. "We've got almost sixteen hours worth of live tracks recorded in Detroit over the past three tours. We're going to compile them into a double live album and package it with a small photo book of band tour photos. The album will wholesale for eleven dollars and retail for sixteen. At the same time, we'll release a concert video that's also compiled of the video shoots we've done at the Detroit shows. This video will wholesale for six dollars and retail for nineteen."

The band had been suspicious about this idea at first — they were automatically suspicious of everything National came up with — but eventually they warmed to it, especially after National officially rejected the new album option for this year and relieved them of the legal obligation to submit new material by mid-November. All figured it was probably for the best anyway. The profit potential of such an album was hard to ignore. At a retail rate of sixteen dollars per album, that meant the band would receive $2.88 for each one sold — and such an album would probably sell three to four million at the very least. That did not include the video sales either. The band received eighteen percent royalties on all videos sold in their name. The money, however, was not the main reason why the band quickly embraced the idea of taking a year off from new material. The harmony that had once existed between them at jam sessions no longer seemed to be as harmonious as it once had.

The band had gotten together a few times to try to hash out some songs for the next album and these sessions had inevitably erupted into arguments over the material in question. Jake didn't like many of the new songs Matt was trying to introduce because they were too hard-core and most utilized a modification of the heavy palm-muted chords technique he was experimenting with. Matt didn't like most of Jake's new songs because they were too soft or too bluesy and a few of them did not have enough strong lead guitar for his taste. Nerdly wasn't fond of much of anything the two of them came up with, writing all of it off as too musically simplistic and bland. Nerdly wanted more complexity, more tempo changes, more four-part harmony backing up Jake's lead vocals, more different styles of music so that when he mixed it he could be challenged by the compositions. Nerdly longed to put together a musical masterpiece that would be remembered for hundreds of years after his death. And then there was Charlie. He was just strange, always worrying about tapeworms and bacterium and wiping off his bass guitar every time he had to go to the bathroom or turn up his amplifier. Coop, the only one without strong opinions, was just frustrated with the lack of progress and spent much of these sessions sitting behind his drum set smoking cigarettes and rolling his eyes.

"What the hell is happening to you guys?" Pauline had asked after three such sessions in which they'd only agreed to start working on a single song — Jake's She Cut Me Loose, the song he'd written about his failed relationship with Rachel. "Both you and Matt are telling me you've come up with nine to ten songs apiece for the next album and all you're doing is arguing about them?"

"I think we've grown too big for our condoms," Jake had replied.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"It's like this," he said. "Matt and I are the ones who compose the lyrics and basic musical melody of our tunes. Nerdly is the one with the best ideas about how to fine-tune those basic tunes into the end product that shows up on the albums. Sure, the other two throw in suggestions on minor points, but Nerdly is the one who has the best ear for mixing the various instruments together in a way that gives us our unique sound."

"Okay," she said. "It sounds like a system that's been working well ever since the D Street West days. So what's the problem now?"

"The problem now is that we've all grown — musically if not emotionally — and we've grown in different directions. We've all developed our own ideas about what we should be doing and those ideas tend not to jibe with each other. Nerdly is into mixing and utilizing the best new techniques of blending the music together. He wants to be a fucking maestro who turns us into a mixture of Boston and Pink Floyd with all the overdubs, synthesized voice and guitar tracks, and unnecessary tempo changes. Matt, on the other hand, is edging more towards the hard-core heavy metal sound, complete with palm-muted chords or approximations of them, a pounding back-beat, and two heavily distorted guitars on every track. He wants no overdubs of any kind and he's starting to push for Nerdly's piano to be more of a backing track instead of one of the main instruments. And then there's me. I'm not blameless in all of this either. Most of the songs I've composed for this next album are heavy on the acoustic guitar tracks and the piano and not as heavy on the harsh, crunching lead guitar. I'm starting to favor more of a blues approach to the lead guitar instead of the classic loud, overriding electric distortion. I'm also in favor of using Charlie's bass guitar as more than just a means to set the beat. The guy is one of the best bass players I've ever heard. He can do things with his instrument that Darren can only dream about. As long as he's in the band I think we should take advantage of that."

"Can't you guys come together with your three points of view and combine them into something?" she asked. "It would seem that is the logical conclusion."

"And hopefully that's what we'll do," Jake agreed. "We've only had a few sessions now. We'll get a list together by the deadline. We always do."

Most likely they would have, had they been allowed to continue. Now, however, with the new album on hold in favor of a live album, the band found something else to argue about. This argument, however, was not with each other, at least not at first. It was with their oldest and most formidable enemy — Crow and the rest of National's production team.

National had the right to put together either a live album or a Greatest Hits album at any time during the duration of their ownership of the rights to the Intemperance collection of songs. The band could have argued until blue in the face, could have screamed and threatened lawsuits, but the language of their contract was quite clear on this issue. National owned the rights to all tunes recorded by Intemperance, including live tracks, for twenty-five years beyond the expiration of the contract itself and they could do with them what they wished. The same contract, however, gave the band the right to oversee the development and production of any album bearing the Intemperance name, including the right to decide which tracks went on the album (subject to veto by National management), what order they went on, and how the final mix of the tunes in question were done. These were rights that Jake, Matt, and especially Nerdly insisted upon utilizing for the live album.

Crow had tried to talk them out of it, of course. "Look, guys," he said. "Just keep enjoying your vacation. We've already given you the standard advance money for the live project so your bank accounts are back to overfull again. Travel, ride your dirt bikes, go fishing, fly your airplanes, run your restaurants. In short, enjoy yourselves. The live tracks are already recorded and only have to be mixed. We don't really need any of you in the studio for any of this — at least not until the final mix when we might have to do some overdubs on some of the weaker tracks."

"Overdubs on a live album?" Matt asked, fuming. "Don't even fucking think of it!"

"You think I'm going to allow some National Records technician to mix a live album?" Nerdly asked. "I will be there for every session."

"Me too," Jake said. "There's no way in hell we're going to let you throw something together with our name on it without consulting with us. We'll come up with the track list and give approval for all tunes put on the album."

As much as the band was stuck consenting to the production of the live album in the first place, National was similarly stuck with allowing the band to exert their control over that production. It was, after all, in their contract. So instead of enjoying themselves with travel, meaningless fornication, gross intoxication, and every other excess the members of Intemperance were so famous for, the three core members were now showing up at nine o'clock sharp five mornings every week and working in the studio usually until six in the evening — sometimes later. Every week, it seemed, there was a fresh clash between the band and their management over the vision for the album in question.

The first battle had come over the name of the album. National was pushing for something along the lines of Let The Darkness Descend or Falling Between The Cracks (making reference, of course, to the infamous coke from the butt crack session that had taken place during their first tour). Nerdly had come up with the title: Thrills Alive, making reference to Intemperance's most popular live song — The Thrill Of Doing Business. Although both Jake and Matt had thought Nerdly's idea a good one they did not wish to put any emphasis on one particular song. After a drunken, stoned session at Jake's house one night they had come up with what would become the actual title: Intemperance — In Action. Nerdly, upon hearing it, had quickly agreed (although he still liked his idea better).

"In Action?" Crow had complained when told about it. "That's boring! I'd be more inclined to go with Bill's idea than that."

"And we'd be forced to go along with you if it were you making the final decision," Jake said in return. "But you're not. We've already made up our minds, Crow. In Action it's going to be."

From there the arguments had spread to what the album cover itself was going to look like. National favored some sort of satanic imagery, of course, while the band wanted nothing more than a wide angle shot of them on stage and performing. That led to the issue of just who should be seen in the onstage picture. Should they use a shot where Darren was playing bass or one where Charlie was playing? National didn't really give a shit either way since their satanic imagery had been shot down, but all five members of the band had strong feelings about this particular subject. Matt and Coop both insisted that Darren's picture be on the cover shot.

"Darren is the real bass player for this band," Matt argued. "No offense, Charlie, but we hired you as a replacement while Darren is recovering from the fuckin' botulism. You'll get credit on the tracks you played on and you'll get your share of the royalties from the album, but you don't get to be on the front."

Jake and Nerdly both disagreed with this logic. "We already know we're going to use the tracks recorded on the last tour for most of the basic tunes," Jake said. "Those were the recordings with the best sound quality because they were using newer equipment. Charlie is playing on those tracks, not Darren. His picture is the one that belongs on the album cover."

"Then we'll just have to use the older tracks for the basic tunes," Matt said.

"I apologize, Matt," Nerdly cut in at this point, "but I must strenuously disagree with that idea. The older tracks are palatable and can be mixed into something of LP quality, but they are inferior to the latest tracks from the Book tour. I was personally able to set the levels on those tracks and they are pristine."

The argument started to get quite heated before Charlie himself stepped in. "Dudes," he told them. "I don't care if Darren's on the front of the cover or not. Put him on there. I know I'm just the replacement. I'm happy enough that I'm even involved in this at all. I was about to jump off a building before you guys let me in the band. Why should I care if my picture is on the front or not?"

Jake tried to keep arguing on Charlie's behalf even though Charlie himself was in favor of the Darren shot. It seemed a matter of honesty and principle. If Charlie was the one who had played bass on the majority of the album's tracks, he should be the one to be featured on the cover. In the end, however, Nerdly took the side of Charlie, Matt, and Coop, not because he thought they were right but because he knew that this was ultimately a stupid thing to be arguing about. Jake was left standing alone on the issue and was forced to give in.

The next argument — and the major one — had to do with the track list itself. There was room for ninety-six minutes worth of recording material on the double album. Everyone agreed that all of Intemperance's major hits — those that had breeched the top ten list and those that had received extensive airplay — should be featured. This was a total of sixteen songs which, when mixed, would account for sixty-eight of those minutes. That left twenty-eight minutes that needed to be filled. Everyone had their own idea of what should be put into those twenty-eight minutes.

National wanted to simply fill the time in by putting another six tunes from the first four albums, leaning particularly heavy on the deep cuts from It's In The Book. Since those deep cuts were still receiving airplay it seemed, to them anyway, the most logical and easiest course of action.

Nerdly, on the other hand, was in favor of filling some of the time with Jake's between song banter — which had been recorded along with the music — and then adding two or three new studio cuts to the end of the album. He was the only one who liked that particular idea and National out and out forbid it the moment it was suggested.

Matt wanted to fill up a good portion of this time by putting in the various solos that had been performed as part of the live act. Mixed in with the recordings were more than seventy-five minutes worth of guitar solos, piano solos, drum solos, and even a bass solo from the last tour. If they were interspersed throughout the album they could eat up ten to twelve minutes of that twenty-eight and give those that had never been to an Intemperance show before some sort of sense of what they were missing.

Jake liked this idea and then expanded upon it. If they were going to put in the solos, why not put in some of the tracks they'd done during the earlier tours, tracks that had never been released to the public in record form, that had only been played live?

There were three such songs available to them. One dated back to the D Street West days. It was called Life Of Toil and had been written by Matt, recorded on the first demo tape they'd submitted to national when they'd first signed on, but never included on any album because it was over seven minutes long. Still, it was a hard-rocking tune that featured an extended guitar, piano, and drum duel between Matt, Nerdly, and Coop just prior to the closing verse and it played so well live that they'd used it in the The Thrill Of Doing Business tour as a space filler. Thus, it had been recorded in Detroit on the night that Darren had first openly smoked marijuana before stepping onto the stage.

The other two songs had been penned by Jake. The first, Twisted Logic, was one that had gone on the original demo tape Ronald Shaver had used to sign them to that original contract, but, for one reason or another, it had always been bumped from subsequent albums. It too had been recorded in Detroit during the Thrill tour. The second was called This Life We Live. Written initially for the Balance Of Power album, it was a long, ballad-like piece about the downside of being a celebrity, about the isolation and mistrust that came with the job, about the lack of privacy.