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Fear and Redemption
“So, Rocktoberfest, where is everyone’s thoughts on the show and how we should approach this?” Zakk said as James joined them in the lounge. It was a Tattered Angel’s only meeting; one they couldn’t put off much longer if they were going to have any hope of being at their best for the show.
“Since it appears as if you’ve been giving it a great deal of thought, why don’t you tell us what options you’ve been considering,” Damien said.
“Because I want to hear what everyone else has been thinking about first.”
“Obviously, we will do the show, since we were chosen,” Damien said. “But we have far more new material than we can use up there, so it’s a matter of choosing which songs we want to introduce to the world. Set the tone for our next release.”
“Should there be one.” Zakk amended.
“Are you phrasing that as a question or a declaration of uncertainty?” Damien replied.
“Let’s put it on the table as a question and see how it lands.”
“Why shouldn’t there?” Riley said. “We’ve got more than enough material and it’s good, better than the last CD we released.”
There was no arguing that. The tug of war with Wade over sound, direction and intensity had made for a miserable process that culminated in something they hadn’t particularly been proud to share with the world.
“But do we need to?” Zakk asked. “What would we be hoping to accomplish?”
“Easy,” Riley said. “We’d be putting more music out into the world.”
“There are plenty of bands to do that, our measly contributions wouldn’t be missed if we opted to say goodbye at Rocktoberfest.”
There was a collective intake of breath, and as Zakk looked around at each of them present, what he saw was a mix of disbelief, confusion, and anger. Well, that confirmed one thing.
“I guess I’m the only one who’s been giving real consideration to being done.”
“This is bullshit.” Dez’s voice, low and edged with fury from the back of the room where he sat, had a hint of a growl to it as he stalked across the room to stand in front of him. “We’ve spent months building new songs…”
“Which I don’t think we should play,” Zakk told him, hands folding in his lap so he wouldn’t be tempted to grab hold of Dez and shake him. “Whatever we do at Rocktoberfest, it shouldn’t be the music you and I wrote.”
“Why the fuck not!”
“’Cause if you get it in your head to walk away from this band, I won’t have you taking anything with you besides the instruments you rolled in with.”
“Jesus fuckin’ Christ,” Dez hissed, running a hand through his hair. “You want me to sign something saying whatever I write with you stays with Tattered Angel, because I will.”
“No, I think I’d rather you just do the job you were hired for and play what we give you,” Zakk told him, as Dez’s eyes grew wider with every word. “I’m not going to give the fans something that we’ll never be able to give them again, just because someone is too selfish to write the music down so someone else can play it if he won’t.”
“You can’t be serious,” Riley said. “He’s written songs with all of us. He’s written the guitars on every shred of new music we’ve got. How the hell can we expect to play anything new at Rocktoberfest if we’re scrapping everything Dez has had a hand in!”
“Because he does not intend for us to introduce the new songs in our set, he intends for us to say goodbye to our fans with one stunning show of our best material,” Damien said.
“How the fuck did we go from months of planning and hard work, to okay, let’s cash it all in and go our separate ways!” Riley growled.
“Ask him.”
Zakk knew he was being cold. He knew this moment could backfire in his face, but he needed assurances, or this really did need to be the end of the band.
“What do you want from me!” Dez snapped.
“I don’t know, and maybe that’s the problem, because I’m having a real hard time trusting you right now and if I can’t trust you, I can’t play with you, and I don’t know how to get past that.”
“I never lied to any of you!”
“But you didn’t tell us the whole truth. I can’t figure out if it was because you thought our sympathy would help you integrate into the band faster, or if you really can’t see why going about things the way you did was wrong. Truth is, I can’t decide which is worse, which isn’t making it easy to sit here and look at you.”
