The day after they had finished recording, they were spending the day in their hotel room. Trish and Molly were playing Uno, Vickie was watching TV and Lita was at her laptop, updating her blog on her website and looking over the response from people over the song clips she had posted a few days earlier.
Then Trish's cell phone rang. She closed her cards, grabbed her purse off the night table between the two beds and dug her phone out. She answered, "Hello".
It was Shane McMahon, their manager. He said, "They called me earlier this morning to tell me you girls finished recording already. You certainly didn't waste any time. Good for you."
Trish said, "We had the songs ready. We had spent months getting them ready. It was just a matter of getting them recorded." She then mouthed "It's Shane" to her bandmates.
Shane told her, "Anyway, Mick Foley said it would probably take two weeks to do the mixing on the album. The people at Titan were impressed with what you've done and have already decided 'All Night Long' will be the first single. Mick and Shane are mixing that one first, because they want to get a video made. They've scheduled a shoot at one of the big soundstages in Florida on Monday. It will be just you girls on stage, showing the world what you can do."
Trish said, "That's great. Thanks, Shane. I'll tell the others. Bye."
When the day came for the video shoot, they were all excited and a little nervous. They knew they had to make an impression, as this would be the first glimpse most people would get of the Sirens as a group, and they had to get it right. They arrived at the studio early and went into a warehouse-sized building, where a huge arena-sized stage was set up, with huge amplifiers, drum riser, lighting and everything.
Having only performed in small clubs, Trish and Vickie were in awe at the size of it. For Lita and Molly, it was nothing they hadn't been through already. As they made their way to the stage, they passed by technicians and camera people, moving equipment into place and fine-tuning everything. A guy with long black hair and a Fu-Manchu mustache greeted them and said, "Hello, ladies. Al Snow, I'll be your director today."
"Nice to meet you", Trish said. "Wow, this is all just so … big."
Al responded, "That's right. We need to grab people's attention. We want to grab the attention of everyone who sees this, so even though we'll have lots of lights and other stuff, the stars are you four, and I need you to be larger than life. Be animated. Be 'times ten'" as he raised his arms wide.
Lita said, "I think we can do that" and continued walking towards the stage with her guitar case in hand. The band had left most of their gear in Atlanta in case they needed to re-record anything, but Lita and Molly had their guitars with them, while other amps, drums and microphones were brought in for them. They wouldn't be playing 'live', but it was to look like they were.
As they continued walking towards the stage, Al said, "Before you get changed, I'd like to do a run-through. Just do what you normally would so I can determine how to capture it all."
Once they were on stage, Vickie sat down behind the drums, Lita and Molly plugged their guitars into the cables onstage, and Trish picked up the wireless microphone that was lying on the drum riser. They took a few minutes to loosen up, until Lita said, "Let's do this."
Al announced, "Alright, everyone. This is a rehearsal. Cue the music, lights. Starting in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 … and action!
The pre-recorded music came over the PA behind them and the four women did their thing, playing it as if they were at a big concert. All the while, Al held his hands up in front of him in a square-shape, visualizing how it would all look through the eye of the camera, and walking around to determine what angles to take.
Once they finished, Al came to the edge of the stage and said, "That was good. Just one thing." He turned towards Molly and asked, "Molly, why are you back there? The viewing audience is out here", pointing out that she was standing just in front the drum riser, instead of being out near the edge of the stage like Trish and Lita were.
Molly motioned behind her and said, "The drums are back here. It's important for a band to have a tight rhythm section. As the bassist, I need to be back here so I can stay in sync with Vickie."
Al said, "Not today, you're not. Today, you are going to be right here", pointing to a spot near the front of stage right, "and, could you at least try to act like you're having fun? Your friends have got it, but you, … This is you." He then held his arms out as if holding a guitar, his body very rigid and his head down, moving only his fingers to illustrate her lack of energy onstage.
Molly said, "Okay, got it" and the four went to get changed. As they neared the stage steps, Al called out, "Oh, and Molly? I hope you brought something better than that to wear." The brunette bassist rolled her eyes and followed the others to the dressing room.
Once the four of them had changed their clothes and the resident makeup artist had finished working on them, it was back to the stage. Technicians and camera people were making sure everything was ready to go. Al saw them coming out and said, "OK, places everyone. This is a take."
Everyone went to their assigned places. Al cued the music to come in, and everyone went to work. After the first chorus, he yelled, "Cut!" The music stopped and everyone else stopped moving as Al headed for the edge of the stage. He glared right at a certain brunette and said, "I thought you said you had it. You're still acting like you have a stick crammed up your ass."
Before Molly could say anything, Al raised his hand and said, "Never mind. We can deal with this." He then turned to the camera people and ordered, "Camera one, focus on Lita. Camera two, focus on Trish, but move over to Lita for the guitar solo. Camera three, focus on Molly. Alright everyone, let's take it from the top and try it again."
Everyone returned to their places and waited for the countdown before the music started. Once it began, the women went into action on the stage while everyone else played their parts, either working the cameras or the lighting. Once the song ended, Al came to the stage and said, "OK, that was good. Trish, Lita, Vickie, take five – and I mean five, not ten. Molly, come here – and you can take your bass off if you want."
While the other three went to get a drink and let the makeup girl look them over to see if they needed touch-ups, Molly came out onto the floor where the cameras were. Al brought her around so she could see the playback monitors. He told the camera people to play back what they had just filmed. As they watched, Al pointed to Trish and Lita's performances and said, "This is what I want – not this", pointing to Molly's own performance. He then grabbed her head, looked her in the eye and asked, "Do you get it now?"
Molly meekly said, "I think so" and headed back up onto the stage. The other three also headed back, ready to do another take. Everyone resumed their positions, Al realigned the camera people, moving one up onto the side of the stage to get some shots of Vickie playing. Once everything was ready to go again, he called out for the next take, counted down and the music came on.
This time, Molly managed to loosen up, bopping from side to side during the intro and moving over to sing with Trish during the second chorus. After the song ended, Al sarcastically clapped and said, "I think she's got it." He moved the cameras around again, and everyone readied for another take.
It took a few hours, but they were almost done. Al dismissed Trish, Lita and Molly so he could get close-ups of Vickie from in front of her drum kit without the others getting in the way. As they watched, Lita's cell phone rang. She took it out of her olive cargo pants, moved away from the PA and answered, "Hello?"
It was Shane. He asked, "How's the video shoot going?"
"We're almost done", the redhead answered. "They're just getting close-ups of Vickie now."
"Already?", Shane asked. "If you're moving that smoothly, ask if you can get another song filmed.
"Anyway, I just called to let you know where things are going. The mixing is still on schedule. There are people working on the artwork and the layout for the CD booklet. The usual, some pictures, lyrics, you know the deal. They want the album in stores by mid-to-late June and the video on TV a little before then, because you're heading out on the road opening for Radical Revolution for the summer. I had the people from Rotundo & Associates …"
Lita interrupted and asked, "Who?"
Shane clarified, "Rotundo & Associates – they're THE rock & roll financial firm. Accounting, taxes, investments, … you name it, they handle it. Anyway, they ran the projected numbers and said you shouldn't take too much of a loss being out on the road this summer."
Lita softly yelled, "Hold on! What do you mean, a loss? Never mind, let me guess: hotel and travel costs, right?"
Shane simply answered, "Bingo."
Lita then said, "Shane, e-mail me our tour itinerary. I might be able to bring those numbers down. With the Omegas, we built up a pretty big network of people willing to let us crash with them. I was the keeper of the address book and I had to hand it over when I left, but I had transferred everything to my laptop anyway. Let me put out some feelers and see what I can do."
"I'll send it to you later tonight", Shane said. "Keep in mind, it will only be the dates you're opening. I'm still working on trying to get you some club dates of your own in between."
Meanwhile, the music playing finished and Al called out, "OK, that's a wrap, people!"
Lita said, "Hold on a second, Shane" then walked over to Al. She asked the director, "Our manager is on the phone. Since we finished relatively quickly, he would like to know if we can film another video while everyone's here." She held out her phone and asked, "Would you like to talk to him?"
Al said, "Sure" and took the phone. While they spoke, Lita headed back over to where Trish and Molly were and said, "That was Shane. Right now he's negotiating for us to shoot another video, and he wanted to let us know about tour plans for the summer."
Al then called out, "Do you girls HAVE another song you can do?"
Trish said, "I have our rough cut CD in my purse. It hasn't been mixed properly but the music's all there. We'll do 'Push Comes To Shove'."
"Perfect. Go get it", Al said, then turned to his crew and ordered, "OK, people! We're doing another video, so you've put anything away, get it out again! Reload the cameras. Reset everything. We begin shooting again in 30 minutes. Let's get to it." He then returned Lita's phone to her and told the girls, "Go get changed. We don't want it to look too obvious both videos were shot at the same time."
[A/N: Sorry it took so long to get another chapter done. Life got VERY busy for me the last few months. For those of you who've stayed with this story, I thank you and I promise to do better at getting chapters out in the future.
Back in the early days of MTV (when they still actually played videos), it was not uncommon for a band to film two or three videos at once, to get them out of the way so they could focus on other things, like playing live or promotional appearances. Nowadays, with video compilations, you can easily see which ones were filmed back-to-back, between the outfits and the style of the director.
Some of you might think Al Snow is an unusual choice for a video director, based on what a wacko he was on-screen, but since leaving wrestling, he has been doing documentary filmmaking, so it seemed like a good fit. I had thought about reprising some of the bits where he tried to give Steve Blackman personality lessons back in 2000 (with Molly playing Blackman's part), but I then thought they were too silly
The 'Rotundo' of Rotundo & Associates is old-school wrestler Mike Rotundo. Older readers will probably remember his time as evil tax accountant Irwin R. Schyster in the 1990's, and to a lesser extent as Michael Wallstreet in WCW. Nowadays, he's better known as Bo Dallas and Bray Wyatt's father.
As for who Radical Revolution is, you'll have to wait until the next installment.]
