“But that doesn’t mean the work you’ve done so far is a waste of time,” Chip rushes in, apparently even more incapable of tolerating a thoughtful silence than usual. “I sent the entire package over to Kathy in LA last night, and she’s already texted this morning. She wants to license everything for an angsty, girl-power band they’re launching next spring.”
“The songs are written from a man’s point of view,” I say, frown digging deeper into my forehead. “My point of view.”
“Yeah, but that’s not a big deal,” Chip says breezily. “They’ll just swap out the pronouns and change a few words here and there. Easy breezy. Kathy says your songs are exactly the kind of deep, layered stuff she’s been looking for, and she’ll owe us a big one for sparing her the trouble of listening to anymore shitty demos.” He laughs low in his throat. “Poor thing. I don’t envy her that job. There’s so much shit out there right now. It’s a hard time for good music.”
Which is exactly why I shouldn’t be catering to current Top 40 trends. But first things first. “I’m not selling the songs. That’s not going to happen. They’re mine, and they’re important to me.”
“I know, I know,” Chip says in a soothing tone I don’t find soothing. At all. “I get it. I do. They’re close to your heart right now, but by the time they hit the airwaves in a year, they won’t be. And Kathy assures me the band is going to be launched hard and launched well. These girls are going to be stars, and their music is going to sell like crazy. You’ll be rolling in royalties for years, brother, making bank for music it only took you a few days to write while raking it in for your solo stuff at the same time. If that’s not winning big, I don’t know what is.”
“They didn’t take me a few days to write.” I stop at the window at the end of the hall, watching the sunrise turn the sky pink and yellow, wishing my inner world was as peaceful as the scene outside. But the thought of losing the “Colette songs,” as I can’t help but think of them, makes me physically ill. “Technically, yes, I wrote them in a few days,” I continue, “but that wouldn’t have been possible without a decade of working hard at my craft. And on myself.”
“Right, but—”
“No, Chip.” My hand balls into a fist at my side. “I’m not selling. I’ll take your feedback and do what I can with it, but I’m not letting that music go. It’s mine, and it’s going to stay mine. And next time, ask before you send my work out for a potential licensing deal. I’m not opposed to writing for other artists, but some songs are too personal.”
Chip sighs, sending another rush of sound into my ear. “You’re going to make me break Kathy’s heart, aren’t you? She’s a powerful woman, Zack. Make her happy now, and she’ll scratch your back later. She’s not the kind who forgets a favor. Or a slight…”
“Tell her it’s your fault,” I say flatly. “That you got ahead of yourself and sent the songs out without asking me first. And tell her I’m open to writing something for her band this fall after my album is locked and loaded. If she can wait that long and wants to hop on a call in late September, feel free to set it up.”
“You’re killing me here, man,” Chip says, his tone tighter and more irritable than any he’s used with me before. “But fine. If you need to hold onto these to feel good about moving forward, you gotta do what you gotta do. But for the sake of your future as a performer, it’s time to shift gears. You feel me?”
“Understood.”
“Cool,” he says, though things clearly aren’t cool. “Oh, and when you get the chance, can you fill out that image release paperwork I sent over yesterday? It can’t be digitally signed; I need your real John Hancock on that one. You can just print it out, sign, and snap a pic with your phone and text it to me. Should take you five minutes. Tops. They’ve got a printer there, right?”
“They do, and I’ll get that sent over this morning. Talk to you later.” I end the call without waiting for him to say goodbye, my stomach in knots.
Fuck.
What a shitty start to the morning— back to square one with only nine days left out of the fourteen and no clue where to go from here.
“Shifting gears,” I mutter beneath my breath as I pad back down the carpeted hall to my bedroom.
I’m fully capable of taking music in another direction—I have range as an artist, and I’m not too precious to make rewrites—but I don’t want to.