Chapter 3

The rest of the meeting was mostly Hanna peppering Kent with questions about procedure in the studio and what would happen with our album once we were finished with it. I had to hand it to Hanna, she was really prepared. While I had some of the same questions she asked, she had a lot that hadn’t even occurred to me. Things like release schedule and getting airtime on radio stations were questions I was going to ask if she hadn’t beaten me to them, but she had a lot of questions about what we could expect from marketing and specific areas of marketing beyond radio play that I hadn’t considered.

Most of the answers were that they wouldn’t put that much money into marketing, which wasn’t surprising but did mean people outside of about a four-state region wouldn’t know we existed, unless we just got lucky.

The reason so much music is regional is how labels market their product. On big-name acts, they would do national pushes which included marketing on TV and in national publications, pushing for both daytime and late-night talk shows, pushing for placement in movie soundtracks and popular TV shows, and setting up national tours. Only a handful of artists could get that kind of push, though.

The main way everyone else got pushed had been through local radio, and even with streaming music taking over, it was still the go-to method for letting the general public know you existed. They would send a song or two out to stations the label had a relationship with and try and get station managers, producers, or individual DJs to give it airtime. If a DJ liked it, they might put it in regular rotation, which meant an increase in sales in whatever market that DJ covered.

Surprisingly, that hadn’t changed much even though the internet was rapidly taking over how people listened to music. Streaming might be taking over how people listened to music, but that usually meant listening to artists they already knew, which meant radio was still the main way a label could actively market new artists. Unlike other industries, where the internet made it easier for people to break through, the internet was making it harder for musicians to get discovered.

While that was partly due to how people used the internet to listen to music, it wasn’t helped by labels being so slow to adapt to the new way people got their music. Social media and internet presence was still mostly left up to the individual artist, which meant getting a record deal didn’t automatically make a group more likely to break through than groups without a deal. Because everyone was doing it themselves, we were all left trying to figure out how to reach new people.

The answers Kent gave weren’t necessarily encouraging, since it all amounted to only getting us some airtime on radio, Hanna didn’t seem bothered by it. She took notes throughout and was nodding along with his answers.

I’m sure she’d have ideas on how we could get more exposure, but I was more of the mindset that we’d get what we could get. I’d seen enough of the industry to know the labels were all about the bottom line, and they weren’t about to take a risk on someone new, especially if money was involved. They’d put us in front of radio stations because that was essentially free marketing. They’d put some paid marketing in areas where we’d be performing, but that was because they were taking part of the house, since we were too small to carry tours on our own, but they wouldn’t do much there.

When we finished up, Hanna chased Kent outside, probably to hit him with more questions, and I decided to let her do her thing. I’d have been shocked if anything came from it, but if she was willing to try, I wasn’t going to stop her.

Instead, I wandered into the kitchen looking for Chef. Ever since the call from Victor, I’d been thinking things through. Over the last year, I’d kind of just gone with the flow, happy to let people like Chef, Willie, and Mr. French push me in directions they thought I should be going.

Mostly, I was happy to just follow their lead, since all of their advice so far had been pretty good. With the music contract though, things needed to change. If I was going to take this seriously, I needed to take charge of my life more. I still needed the advice, but I needed to get better at saying no, and that had to start with Chef.

“Hey, Charlie, how was the meeting?”

“Good. We’re all set up for next week and the tour after that. I know we’ll be gone for a while, sorry to leave you in the lurch like that.”

“It’s okay. I knew from the moment you played up there the first time, that it wouldn’t be long before the rest of the world discovered you and you went on to bigger and better things.”

“You still have Willie though?”

Chef paused. It wasn’t a long pause, but Chef didn’t normally hedge before something like that.

“What?” I asked.

“Neither of us wanted to say anything, because we didn’t want you to do something dumb like throwing away your big shot because you felt some kind of responsibility. Willie’s going to be backing off playing as often. He still wants to play once a month or so, but it’ll be short sets, and the rest of the guys were only playing here because Willie was. I’ve started making some calls down to Ashville to a few people I know to fill in music on weekends while you’re gone.”

“Is he okay?” I asked, suddenly worried.

It felt like my stomach had dropped out. Willie was the first guy to give me a shot and he’d taught me so much. We hadn’t known each other long, but we’d spent so much time together over the last year, he’d become almost a grandfather of sorts. It was almost impossible to think of the Blue Ridge without him.

“Mostly. His arthritis has been getting worse, and it’s just too much of a strain to play every weekend like he has been doing. He’ll still be around, and this will always be his home, but he just can’t keep up with it. Honestly, if you hadn’t taken over so much of the music time on weekends, he might have pulled back months ago.”

“Why didn’t he say anything? If it was that bad months ago, then it can’t just be about my music contract and not wanting me to make a bad decision.”

“It’s tough for an old warhorse like Willie to admit that he can’t keep playing anymore, especially to himself. He liked to just pretend it wasn’t happening, and he liked how playing with you made him feel younger. Getting old is hard to accept. You’ll understand it one day.”

“I guess,” I said, the news of Willie’s health suddenly taking the wind out of my sails.

“So, what did you want to see me about? Or were you just coming back here to socialize?”

“It’s nothing,” I said, starting to turn and head back into the dining area with the rest of the guys.

“Hey,” Chef said, reaching out and putting his hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “One of the reasons we didn’t say anything is because you have a bad habit of getting in your own head when something bad happens. You’ve sometimes got to compartmentalize things and keep moving forward. What did you need?”

I sighed and said, “I wanted to talk to you about Victor.”

“Did you two talk?”

“Yes, and that’s what I wanted you to talk to you about. I know you told him my schedule and pushed him to call me and set up training. I know you mean well, but I’d really like for you to stop pushing me into things and just talk to me about them.”

“I see,” Chef said, putting on his serious face. “I’m sorry if you felt like I was pushing you to do something you didn’t want to. I know you’re not going to be able to do any actual training while you’re on tour, so I thought you might like to at least keep it up while you’re in Raleigh. I can call Victor and tell him not to bother you.”

“That’s not what I meant, and I think you know it. I really do appreciate you trying to look out for me, but instead of arranging it, did you consider suggesting that I call Victor, and leave the choice up to me, instead of calling him yourself?”

“I didn’t, but you’re right. I probably should have done that. I knew how busy you were getting ready for this and how much it meant, so I was trying to keep it from being something else you had to deal with.”

“Again, I appreciate it, but I need you to let me make my own decisions. I did talk to Victor and I am going to train with him when I can, because you’re right, I don’t want to lose what I’ve gained here and I won’t have much chance while we’re on the road, but I really want you to hear me on this. I need to be able to make my own decisions.”

I could see I’d hurt him a little bit, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t been purposefully trying to manipulate me. It was one of those things where, if you do something one way for long enough, it becomes habit. Chef had been helping people in distress for so long, many of whom were part of the problem they needed to be pulled out of, that he’d become accustomed to directing people the way they needed to go instead of talking about it outright.

I could appreciate that, but it didn’t make it any less annoying.

“Okay, I hear you Charlie, and I’ll try and talk to you about these things ahead of time, okay?”

“Good. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, because I really do have you to thank for all this stuff that’s happened this year. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have gotten to do any of this.”

“You don’t sound ungrateful. I understand where you’re coming from. You’re not the first kid I’ve seen grow up and become their own person, you’re just doing it a lot faster than any of the others who’ve come through here.”

“Thanks. On the same point, there was something else I’d been thinking of. I appreciate you wanted me to compete in the martial arts competition last month, but I don’t want to do that again. It was a good experience, and I learned a lot, but if I hurt my hand or something, I might not be able to play guitar again, and this whole thing could go up in smoke.”

“Okay, no more competitions.”

“Good,” I said, a little off balance.

I don’t know what I’d expected, but this all seemed a lot easier than it had been. He’d basically agreed with everything I’d said, which was unlike Chef, at least when he was training me. It was strange to see someone who always had the answers so ready to just give up when challenged.