If the rest of the house is prone to echoing and he’s got a good half-dozen rooms that are still sitting empty after fifteen years of living here, well, he’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. It doesn’t matter that in every other way, he preferred the dilapidated old house he was renting in Boyle Heights when he and Zac started their careers. The studio makes up for it. It may seem dour and claustrophobic to anyone else—there’s a lot of equipment in there, none of it made for aesthetics—but it’s so perfect in its functionality that it provides Cal with a near-physical sensation of satisfaction anytime he walks inside.
He stops in the doorway today, though, second-guessing himself. He could work on mixing one of the early tracks on the as-yet-untitled album, but he’s too distracted to put his full critical attention to the sort of precision craftsmanship this step requires. He’s feeling like he needs to put some of this garbage in his head on paper.
He walks past the studio to his instrument room.
This room isn’t quite as big as the studio, but it feels less cramped, less heavy. Other than the treated windows, meant to keep sunlight from warping the wood in any instrument left in the glare, everything here is meant to be creative rather than practical. If the studio is a tank, the instrument room is a Lamborghini.
His keyboard and drum machines are set up in the corner, out of the way as he uses them fairly infrequently. Two rows of guitars and basses hang on pegs along one of the long walls. Closest to the door is his Schecter Hellraiser, a five-string with a crimson red-burst satin finish that provides just a hint of color to a mostly black body and neck. It sounds so gorgeous it’s a steal for what he paid for it. That’s the bass he uses the most often in the studio and when performing.
But for brainstorming, he picks up his old Fender Standard Jazz, his very first bass, and one he can’t let go of even though it can’t keep up with the demands of his work or his ear anymore. Years ago, Zac slapped a sticker on the back that he got from a Hot Topic in the nineties that says If mean people suck, nice people swallow. Cal finds it embarrassing every time he looks at it, but he’s never been able to bring himself to try to peel it off. He tells himself that he doesn’t want to destroy the finish, despite that finish already bearing countless tiny age cracks that stretch like spiderwebs beneath the gloss.
He sits down with the instrument in his arms and tugs his wheeled writing desk over. Then he sets his fingers on the strings and thinks.
The new album is a concept album, a series of thematically interconnected songs that tell a story. He has a main character—an old man looking back on his life as he contemplates suicide, thinking about the successes and the regrets and his long history with substance abuse. In the end, the old man will realize that he wants to live, only to die of a heart attack that same night. Or as Zac snottily explains it: it’s a mean God that’ll bitch-slap you when you’re wearing your robe and slippers.
Cal prefers to think of it as the futility of man’s plans for existence. No matter how much planning you do, there’s an element of life that’s simply beyond your control. It’s why you can’t put things off forever and still expect to get the job done. Whatever the job in question may be.
Yes, it’s depressing. Yes, it’s possibly nihilistic. The third track on the album is, so far, the kind of song that would’ve once prompted his mother to ask why anyone would “create such aggressive noise on purpose.”
That doesn’t bother him so much. He’s an industrial rock musician. Half the shit he writes is depressing, nihilistic, aggressive noise. He’s made a career out of it.
But the concept isn’t working. He’s not sure why.
The basic threads of the plot seem fine in theory: in track one, the old man thinks back to the halcyon days when he was young, back before age and disappointment kicked him in the gut. It’s a melancholy piece of music with a big, operatic chorus.
Track two is a love ballad, an ode to his perfect girl and his certainty that eventually she’ll return his devotion, but there’s an underlying dread suffusing the whole thing, because anyone who’s listened to track one knows that everything goes to shit in the worst possible way. Zac says it’s the most upsetting love song he’s ever heard, and Cal secretly thinks it’s one of the best things he’s ever written. It’s also the song that had Zac kicking Cal out of the studio while recording, because the vocal riff is so tricky.
Track three is a quiet piano piece, haunting and instrumental. The working title is “Cherry,” which in Cal’s head is a reference to a loss of innocence—the young man’s introduction to the bleak reality of life. Zac keeps pushing for lyrics, but Cal isn’t going to bend. The song is better without, as the young man is too inexperienced to put what he’s feeling into words.
Track four is all about the young man’s desperate turn to substance abuse as a way of trying to cope, and Cal can’t seem to get it to be anything but chaotic. He’s not sure that’s necessarily a bad thing. Havoc is a key part of being under the influence, so maybe the most honest version of this song requires chaos.
That’s where the album really starts to fall apart, though. Track five is about hitting rock bottom, and it’s full of rage and grief. It’s more of a violent crash of instruments than a song, and though the lyrics aren’t written yet, Cal knows what he wants, and what he wants will scare the shit out of Zac. Track two’s vocal difficulties will be a walk in the park compared to this one. There’ll be a lot of screaming and growling to go along with the heavy bass line and thundering drums, and the demands on Zac’s voice will be considerable. Cal’s been putting it off because he knows it’s going to lead to a blow-up fight, and he doesn’t have the energy for it right now.
He wishes Zac could remember how good he was in the early days. He’s only gotten better with time and training, but at some point he started to think that Cal’s the only one in the band with talent, and Cal wants to shake him sometimes, he’s so wrong.
Cal fell for Zac’s voice way before he fell for Zac.
He puts that thought away with the skill of long practice, then pauses, wondering if thoughts like that are actually allowed now. The three of them agreed that they were serious last night. But perhaps serious only applies to Cal and Anya. Cal and Zac didn’t even touch, after all. Zac only wanted to watch. Cal was tempted to reach out to him, especially when the three of them were crushed together in the hot shower, with Anya sleepy-soft between them, but he was afraid of Zac’s reaction.
He’s still afraid of it. Afraid to ask. Afraid to know.
God, he’s thirsty.
He can picture the tequila in the cabinet. He can picture the glass on the drying rack. He doesn’t feel bolstered. He feels weak. He presses his face against the cool ebony neck of the bass. The strings and frets press into his cheek. He can smell guitar polish and metal and wood and he closes his eyes for a moment before sitting up and trying to get back to work.