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As I walked back out into the bar, I felt restless and agitated. Bored, actually. What the hell was left to discuss? We were at a stalemate. We’d gained no ground here atall.
This entire fucking process was a waste of mytime.
Mind-numbing auditions. Listening to wannabe rock stars play song after song. Most bad. Somegood.
A few very, verygood.
Not one of themDirty.
We’d seen the process through, for the cameras, for our deal with the network, but off the record we all knew that talent-wise it was down to Johnny O’Reilly or Boz Bailey—a couple of actual rock stars we alreadyknew.
Johnny, if we could convince him to ditch his other band and join us; doubtful, since they had a song at the top of the indie rock charts this very second and our last conversation had gone along the lines of a three-way argument between Johnny, Jesse andZane.
Boz if we could get around his travel issues. As in, he was banned from ever entering the United States because of some drug charge over a decadeago.
Great news for a touringband.
Fucking awesomeoptions.
If we couldn’t seal the deal with Johnny or Boz, it was down to one of these auditions, and none of us were happy with theprospects.
Well, a few of us were, but none of us could agree onwhich oneswe were happywith.
I flopped into one of the chairs that had been arranged in a semi-circle on the dance floor, facing the stage, for us—the band and our record producer. We’d agreed, easily enough, that it made sense to film the L.A. auditions at Dylan’s bar, because it was the kind of place where we might hold actual auditions, even if we weren’t doing them for a documentary TV series. No one wanted to go film in some TV studio or on some fake set, and Zane, in particular, said there was no way he was going to “sit on some fucking throne like on some bullshit reality show and judgepeople.”
So here we were, in old theatre seats that had been reclaimed from some derelict theatre, in the middle of Dylan’s place, with a house band onstage made up of friends of ours, and it felt pretty fucking homey—the only weirdness being the film crew and cameras, and of course, the giant screen that had been set up, blocking our view of one side of the stage, where the hopefuls stood to play guitar for us. There were lights behind the screen that tossed a bit of a silhouette onto it, but it was pretty much a blur. Most of the time you couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman or an alien rocking out backthere.
Zane had bitched about that, said we needed to see what people looked like as part of the process, but Brody had convinced us to go with the idea, which was all Liv’s. And we’d trusted Liv, like we alwaysdid.
Blind auditions read well on TV, she’d said.It’ll add to thedrama.
As if we needed anything to add to the drama of live auditions with Zane in the room. And with all of us disagreeing over every single guitarist who played for us. All we could agree on so far were the ones who’d totally tanked theaudition.
Currently, the guys were still arguing, which meant even though my head was already on a beach in Kauai, I had to put in the appearance of beinghereuntil they were done with theirdebate.
As usual, Jesse and Zane were butting heads. Dylan was sitting back with his mouth shut, and I was trying very hard not to lose my shit. We’d wrapped almost half an hour ago; I’d already wandered off to check my messages and come back. We were now halfway through The Guess Who’s greatest hits and they werestilldebating the guy up in Vancouver who’d managed to impress Jesse last week with his take on Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train,” and the girl who’d played a weirdly slowed-down and somehow sultry Avenged Sevenfold coveryesterday.
“If she didn’t have tits,” Jesse was saying, “would you still think she played ‘God Damn’ worth a damn?” He was sitting in the seat to the left of me, though I’d barely looked at him throughout this entire process—unless the cameras were rolling and I had to makenormal.
“She had tits?” Zane said dryly. He was kicked back on Jesse’s other side, wearing his trademark black leather vest over a distressed white T-shirt, with low-slung jeans that showed too much manscaped treasure trail. Zane had a hot bod, yes. Did I want to see it?No.
He raked his blond hair back from his face with a ring-laden hand and his ice-blue eyes caught mine. Hewinked.
Isighed.
I didn’t bother mentioning that the girl in question was barely eighteen and probably shouldn’t have been here at all, and likelywouldn’thave been if not for the fact that we were filming these auditions, and “good TV” and all thatshit.
“So, if no one slays this thing, where are we at?” Dylan asked, for about the dozenth time this week, weary of the argument. He was sitting to my right, long, jean-clad legs spread out in front of him. I glanced at him and he shot me a pained look, his green eyes pleading with me to help him end this madness. “Do we just pick someone for the TV series,” he suggested, “and ditch them after the contract isdone?”
“No way we’re doing that,” Jessesaid.
“Why not?” Zane argued. “Who the fuck cares? Ride it out, enjoy the publicity, and fire them if theysuck.”
“No fucking way,” Jesse said. “I’m not sharing the stage with anyone I don’t want to share itwith.”
“No one wants to do that,” Brody put in. He was standing back against the wall, arms crossed in his leather moto jacket, and hadn’t said much since the last guitarist left. He usually didn’t speak up when the cameras were rolling, but now that we’d wrapped and we were still arguing, we were clearly in need of the voice of reason among us. “But we have an obligation to the network. If we can’t pick someone, they may expect us to extend filming and keepsearching.”
He looked to the series producer, who was also sitting back, against the wall, playing with his phone. He didn’t talk much at all, other than to enthusiastically kiss our asses at every opportunity, relying heavily on Liv to drive this whole thingcreatively.
