The Rush

Chapter 11

We walked into the building and Mamma guided us through to one of the conference rooms. It was different from a lot of the conference rooms I'd seen on TV. The walls were painted an almost mustard colour with vinyl records hanging on the walls of bands with the label. There was a long wooden table against one wall with a TV above it and in the center was a large round table. Mamma directed us all to sit and pulled out her phone to text her boss's boss. Still crazy that we were meeting with someone so high up. I knew that wasn't usually who bands spoke to, usually it was the talent agents. I guess they really wanted us.

The door opened and an older blonde woman walked into the room dressed in a pair of magenta cigarette pants with a white blazer over top. She exuded style and confidence and I knew she was the one in charge. It definitely was not the stiff in a basic black suit behind her. "Hello, I'm Siobhan Doyle and this is my lawyer, Tyson Grey. It's lovely to meet all of you." We all quickly introduced ourselves and soon we were sitting around the table. She immediately turned to me with an intimidating gaze that I'm sure was supposed to frighten me. Too bad that shit never seemed to work on me. "Those videos of you singing are getting a lot of attention online but I noticed they were all covers. Do you write your own music?"

"Yes." I answered, "We were only playing covers because we were playing an impromptu show with Lenora. We've posted quite a few originals on our socials. I'm surprised you haven't seen them if you're wanting to meet with us."

I could see that she was flustered that I caught her not doing her due diligence. I gave her a smile and she looked down at the tablet in front of her. I noticed Mamma had hers out as well but I kept my eyes on Siobhan. "Do you have a demo I could listen to?" Mamma hooked her phone up to the Bluetooth in the room and soon my song was filling the room. I watched all of Siobhan's reactions but she didn't let much through. It wasn't until the song had finished that she said anything. "It's good. We might have to clean it up a bit for the mass market but it has good bones."

I tried not to roll my eyes as I leaned forward on the table. "The song stays as is. If you clean it up you're losing the essence of the song. It's about frustration with the way things work and when that frustration breeds anger. People will resonate with that song as it is. If you can't see that then maybe we need to talk to other labels."

Siobhan was silent but I could see the grin playing on Mamma's lips. I saw Siobhan's lips turn up as she looked at me. "Authenticity is what sells at the end of the day. Remember that." Her eyes carried humour to them and I realized that I had responded exactly how she wanted me to. Maybe she's not half bad. "We're proposing a four record, four tours contract. I would assume that you'd want to work with Olive as a producer but we have put in a stipulation that you can work with others. We also want Melody to appear on some other artists' songs to help get your name out. Given your family, we have reached out to Disaster's Calling as one option and Lenora Ashley has already agreed to work with you."

My eyebrows raised as she said Lenora's name. Lenora already agreed to work with me. Recording a song would mean spending a lot of time one on one with her. Fuck yes. Today was getting better by the second. Siobhan kept explaining different parts of the offers that I didn't really understand, but Uncle Andrew seemed to get it. Anise also chimed in from time to time. I didn't follow much until Uncle Andrew asked the big question. "Who owns the masters?"

This I understood, and I understood just how important it was that I retained the rights to my songs, to our songs. Siobhan seemed to understand, "We own the masters. It's industry standards."

I didn't like it. I really didn't like it. "We can't agree to that," I hopped in.

"It's going to be the same with any other label you go to. We are the ones who have the largest financial risk and we need to be able to make a profit."