Might As Well Be On Mars // Motley Crue

Part 2: Shout at the Devil

I got tired of waiting so here's the first chapter of Part 2 two days early.
I have the first three chapters done, but I don't have a ton of ideas for scenes/scenarios yet, so if there are things you think would be interesting to read about feel free to leave them in the comments or dm me!

Now, onto the story:

October 26, 1983

"Will we be riding in a jet?" Vince Neil asked.

"No." Three of the four men groaned.

"Why not, Zutaut?" the bassist asked, giggling at the rhyme.

"It's not in the budget. Now if you,"

"He's Ozzy fucking Osbourne. You're telling me he can't afford an airplane?" The slur in Nikki's voice made Evie look over at him. Two and a half years ago, she would have been pissed at him, probably almost brought to tears by the degenerate state he was in. But now, she found it almost amusing, the way he showed up to business meetings drunk, sunglasses covering his eyes and his legs propped up on the table like he was some kind of big shot. She quickly looked away when Nikki glanced at her. Nikki smiled. This tour was gonna be fun.

"He probably can," Tom Zutaut said. "But he's not paying for your shit. Elektra is." Evie still didn't completely understand who this guy was. In her few days in Massachusetts, where the band had been living for almost two months to prepare for the Bark at the Moon tour, she had taken him to be almost like their co-manager, working closely with Doc McGhee, especially when Doc got sick and tired of the guys' drug use and hooker addiction and stormed off while saying no amount of money was worth trying to clean up their messes.

Mick, however, told Evie that Tom was a representative from Elektra Records, the record company that Motley signed to last year. Elektra re-released Too Fast For Love, which sold 100,000 copies instead of the 20,000 it sold during the first release. Evie also knew that Elektra Records had given each of the guys $2500 dollars as a cash advance, which is how Evie ended up with a full semester worth of classes at the local community college. Further, Elektra paid for the band's parties, the things they destroyed during said parties, and it paid for the recording of the band's second album: Shout at the Devil.

Why, then, almost a month after Shout at the Devil's release, was Tom Zutaut still hanging around the band, and why was he coming along on the tour when Motley Crue was only opening for the headliner? She didn't know, but didn't really care enough to ask.

Luckily, though, Zutaut was nice. Evie got the impression that he was a little awkward, never too sure what to do around a pretty young woman like herself. But he was always kind and relatively sane. Apparently, he was also the one who suggested Evie join the tour.

Mick would never admit it to her, but she would later hear from Tommy that Mick missed her desperately in the first month the band spent rehearsing on the East Coast, and it was bringing out the worst side of him.

Mick (most of the time, at least) refused to partake in the debauchery of strippers, prostitutes, and groupies that the rest of the band loved. The few times he did, he came out of it feeling old and disgusted with himself. With no wife or girlfriend, no friends his age, his spine feeling like it was being soaked in battery acid, and his daughter two thousand miles away, Mick felt lonely and depressed. He ended up spending most of his time alone, drinking and playing his guitar.

Apparently, Tom Zutaut caught on to Mick's sorry state, and when he asked the other guys about it, they all told him he was missing his family. Zutaut thought he could do nothing but sympathize until about three weeks ago, when the band had to start thinking about the road crew they would be bringing along.