And you’ll be right.
About both.
You will hear of, and witness injustices.
You will be betrayed.
You will do things that will make people feel ways you never wanted them to feel, but you were so stuck in your life or your head, you didn’t pay attention to what you were doing.
You will say things you wish you could take back.
You will hear things you wish you never heard.
See things you wish you could unsee.
[Draws in breath]
Do things you wish you could undo.
They did covers. They always did covers. They were musicians [grins] and musicians like music.
When I’d go to their shows before that tour, I always looked forward the most to when they’d do a cover.
I told you I fell in love with their music, so it wasn’t about them playing something more familiar that I’d like.
It was that they loved music and they didn’t choose to do covers of songs they hated.
[Closes eyes, opens them]
And when they played those songs they loved, those songs that led them to the life they chose…
They were not a multi-platinum, sold-out tour earning band because they sucked onstage.
Far from it.
But when they did covers.
[Whispers] Fuck.
They were something.
Every show of that tour I watched.
That night, that first night when I realized something was very wrong with Preacher, and he knew I knew it, they did a cover.
By this time, their show was a production.
It wasn’t just the band.
They had percussionists and backup singers and their show was a show.
And he sang “Maybe I’m Amazed.”
DuShawn banging on the piano.
Preacher doing the guitar solos.
[Swallows and whispers]
God, the way his voice got raspy.
[Interviewer’s note]
At this point in the telling of her story, the gray cat, who had found a spot on a pillow at the far corner of the daybed, picked its way across the cushions to lie on its stomach next to Lyla but with its paws on her thigh.
And after Lyla distractedly began to rub its neck, it started kneading.
I’m not sure my memory is correct.
Maybe it was just what I was feeling.
But if I’m right, no one sang with them when they played that song.
They were mesmerized.
An entire arena.
And this was not surprising.
I was mesmerized.
And I thought I could not be more tuned into Preacher at that point.
But I wasn’t old enough.
I was still just a girl.
I didn’t get it.
I didn’t get what he was telling me.
I didn’t get what DuShawn had warned me about.
[Looks out the window]
I didn’t get it.
[Interviewer’s Note]
Lyla ended the session at this juncture and asked that I return the next day.
I agreed and left her sitting on the daybed, stroking her cat and staring out the window.
I closed the door behind myself.
Jesse:
It was a killer idea at the time, and in the end, I don’t know what to say.
I have that book and I look at that book and it makes me smile.
It also makes me proud.
And it makes me want to carry it onto a boat, sail deep into the ocean and throw it overboard.
Last, it makes me want to hang my head and cry.
I’m sure, you doing this, you’ve seen it.
[Off tape]
Cat Trelane’s book?
Yup.
I own it.
’Course you do.
Well, I’ll give you the full story.
Trelane goes to the label who goes to Tommy, and as I hope I’ve impressed on you, Tom was not a stupid guy.
Trelane was the biggest fashion photographer out there.
And the most controversial.
He was like Robert Mapplethorpe and Herb Ritts had a naughty kid they couldn’t control, even though, he reads I said that, he’ll find me and kick my ass.
[Grins]
And he’d be right because he was his own thing.
And his own thing was the shit.
When he wasn’t shooting fashion magazine spreads, he was putting together shows that sent the Christian right to thumping their Bibles so hard, they put their fists through them.
And he wanted to shoot the band.
We all knew who he was, and not only because all of us but Preacher had dated models he’d shot, so that agenda item at a band meeting took us about thirty seconds to discuss before we said yes.
Deal was, for the first time for anyone outside our inner circle, Trelane had all access all the time except when a member of the band was in their own space, say in their suite. He couldn’t invade that unless he had permission.
And Preacher wanted right of refusal on whether or not he published images he’d taken of Lyla.
We thought that last would blow the deal.
But Trelane agreed.
The man even walked out onstage to take pictures of us while we were playing, with Preacher saying shit into the mic like, “That’s Cat Trelane, and the man’s got talent, so if you don’t know who he is, find out. He’s thinkin’ of putting together a book with pictures of the Roadmasters on tour. So, he decides we’re worthy of that, you better fuckin’ buy it.”
And man, when that book came out, I’ll tell you what.
[Lengthy pause]
They bought it.
But Trelane dipped in and out of the tour. He wasn’t with us the whole time.
When he was, he was everywhere.
Sound check. Backstage. Dressing room. When we were partying. On the plane with us.
And true to form with him, we watch, and his favorite subject, bar none, is Lyla.
But also, he’s all about Leeanne.
Not with pictures so much.
But he had a fascination with her he didn’t hide.
The band caught it, and I can’t say any of us got it.
She definitely caught it, and she came in thinking her shit didn’t stink, but that made her think it smelled like roses.
I don’t think Tim noticed.
[Off tape]
I see your theme continues, dark and light.
Yeah.
And not only because Lyla is blonde and Leeanne was a brunette.
Because one woman had a soul of gold and one had a black heart.
We really had it good.
We really did.
It’s one of those things you don’t understand until it’s over. You don’t understand and so you don’t celebrate it, cherish it while you have it.
Keep it safe.
But we got along.
We all got along with each other and collectively.
Until we didn’t.
That first breakfast after there was a couple of days Preacher seemed off—when Tom and Shawn came down pissed right the hell off, and Preach looks like he’s been whipped, and Lyla’s not even fuckin’ there, and Tom shares he almost called an ambulance because he couldn’t wake up Dave, and Dave loses his mind Tommy’s tellin’ us that—things that were already on edge and we didn’t really get it, probably thought it’d just go away, got razor sharp.
Tom wants a clean tour, no booze, no drugs, cold turkey, and DuShawn is backing that and doing it hard.