DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 73: Smart Girls Keep Quiet And Narrate

Marley, October, Atlanta

I sit on the couch at the back of the mixing room for the third week in a row. Soundcrush is deep in the recording of their third album.

I say very little these days. I'm here as a girlfriend, not as a road manager. Not even as a counselor. None of my training up til now has prepared me for this mess.

Three-fifths of Soundcrush are also in the mixing room with me. Bodie is in the soundbooth—his entire kit mic'ed and walled off in plexiglass. Adam is also in the large area, which is actually a room not a booth, behind his own sound barriers. Together, Bodie and Adam are laying down the rhythm track for Bone Break, a song that Trace and Mac wrote about their traumatic experiences and dealing with the aftermath. The central theme being that a bone is stronger at the site of a break than before.

Which isn't technologically true. Or rather, it's only temporarily true. Apparently in the last stages of the healing process of a bone break, the over-calcification does make a break site temporarily stronger. Then the over-calfication fades and the site loses that added strength. Kade pointed this out to Trace at a Labor Day picnic last month in Tennessee, much to Trace's annoyance.

Not that it takes much to annoy Trace these days. His mother and Ross have reconciled and are now living together in Atlanta again, and his anxiety has reached an all-time high. At least from my year perspective of being his counselor. Adding to his stress this particular week is a minor estrangment with Kat.

She is in Florence for his brother's first art show, and she's angry with Trace that he wouldn't take two days off from recording the album to fly over for the exhibition.

For once, I'm on Trace's side when it comes to his obstinacy. He isn't being petty, not attending the show. He's got massive problems to deal with, right here, right now.

From everything I have learned so far about this business, and from Riley and Matt's frequent trips to Atlanta to help mediate between Sid and Trace, I gather that the recording sessions this time around are going much more roughly than at any time in Soundcrush's past.

Soundcrush has a reputation for being a group of top caliber musicians and requiring few takes. So Sid and Trace had the goal of producing this album "live" in the sense that all the songs would be recorded with the entire band playing as one, with only the barest expectation that there might be some dubs on Leed's vocals. Yet producing a studio sound. It's a high aim for a band, and when it's achieved successfully, critics take notice, even if the fans have no clue.

The goal isn't panning out. Soundcrush spent more than a week trying to get a clean cut on Priestess. After the next single candidate, Drunk Sundial—a song about Leed's temporary break-up with Ashlynn—took another five days and nearly all of Trace's patience...Riley had a sit-down with the band and Sid to "adjust expectations."

Apparently Sid—who has never produced for them before—and Trace—who is cutting his first album under the del Marco media microscope and perhaps finally coming to understand Street's "big shoes to fill" hang-ups, are not the best combination after all.

Two perfectionists don't necessarily make a right. They make a huge headache for getting an album done.

So now, the band is trying to record as they have in the past—laying down the rhythm section together—sometimes Trace on additional backing guitar but not on this particular song. The keys, lead guitar, and vocals are recored after and separately.

Even still, the process has been fraught with more error and more conflict than any band member has anticipated. It seems Leed's voice is not at the best it's ever been—in hindsight adding those three weeks of tour dates at the end of the Double Impact was a mistake because it only gave him a few weeks to rest his voice.