Chapter 10: New Producer

Eddy was brought back to consciousness by the sound of his cell phone ringing next to him on the bedside table of the hotel room that he stilled called home. He groaned and grunted to himself and picked it up to see who in their right mind would call him so early. Much to the drummer's dismay (but not to his surprise) the screen read CHRISTIAN in blue letters across the tiny screen.

"H'lo?" Eddy slurred tiredly.

"Hey Eddy, it's me," his friend's voice replied, "I'm waking you up, aren't I?"

"What was your first clue, Einstein?" Eddy snapped warily.

"Well hurry up and get down to the studio, Sleeping Beauty," the Canadian hoaxed, "Jimmy said he wants to shoot some pictures of us rehearsing and our new producer's supposed to show up in a few hours, and we want the whole band to be here for that so we can see whether or not he sucks!"

"Fine, I'll be down soon, I just gotta wake up and throw some clothes on real quick," Eddy replied, attempting to rub the sleep out of his eyes, "See ya later."

"See ya!"

The shortest band member rolled out of bed and trudged over to the tiny hotel bathroom. He quickly teased his hair and plastered it with hairspray the same way he'd been doing it for years and threw on a Poison t-shirt and some of his worn out leather pants. He then jogged out to his truck and sped off to the recording studio. He glanced at the digital clock that was above the radio, which read 10:45.

"Shit!" Eddy seethed to himself, "I'm late!"

As he braved his way through the remains of thick California morning traffic, he found himself worrying about what the new producer Jason got for them would be like. He knew that Jason told them that he was leaving them in good hands, but he and his band mates (especially Christian) couldn't help but be a little paranoid about the whole situation. The night before he and Christian had a long conversation about the matter.

Last night; 9:45 PM

"Dude, I know he gave us all these reasons, but I still don't get it," Christian said, "Why would Jason just leave us like this? We've barely gotten two songs recorded for the album and he just splits?"

"Yeah, I hear what you're saying, but it c'mon Christian, look at the bright side." Eddy stated.

"What bright side?" Christian yelped, "The only record producer we've ever had just leaves us after only a few weeks of work on our second record that's a follow-up for our debut that we made over four years ago; and he's left us with some mystery producer that's probably just some flavor-of-the-month fuck-head that'll try to turn us into some kinda hard rock form of Coldplay and you're telling me to look on the fucking bright side?"

"Dude, Christian, calm down, will ya?" Eddy cajoled, "You're taking this just a tad too seriously, don't you think? I mean, you used to be all laid back and stuff."

"Yeah, but that was back when I wasn't afraid about what was going to happen the next day," Christian said, "If the guy fucks with our image or sound or anything, I say we fire him!"

"Ok, I agree with you there," Eddy replied, still trying desperately to calm down his friend, "If he tries to mess with the formula we've had ever since we were playing gigs at the 5-Hole, I say we fire him and see to it that the door hits him in the ass on the way out. But you're forgetting one thing, Jason wouldn't hire a guy that would do that to us, he said we'd be fine with this new dude, and I think he's earned our trust, don't you?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right," Christian breathed, "I'm just too paranoid for my own good sometimes. I think the big reason is 'cause Iron Fist is cranking out their fourth album this weekend."

"That's all that it is?" Eddy chuckled, "Jesus Christ, Christian, you used to just roll your eyes and laugh whenever a new IF record came out."

"Yeah, but I was drunk a lot of the time back then," Christian pointed out, "That was probably just the beer talking."

"Heh, then I never thought I'd say this dude, but I liked you better when you were a shit-faced alcoholic!" Eddy joked.

"And I liked you better when you were sticking your lizard into anything with a pulse and perfume!" Christian cackled in response, "And I think I liked Ed better when he wasn't trying to be Captain Super Dad all the time and I definitely liked Eddward better when he had his hair!"

"Then it's settled," Eddy kidded, already half asleep, "We're both too sentimental for our own good."

Eddy quickly parked his truck and wended his way through the building until he found the recording studio where his friends were waiting for him.

"Hey guys," he greeted, "Sorry I'm late, I kinda overslept."

"It's ok, Eddy!" Ed ensured, tuning his guitar, "The new guy's not here yet and ol' Jimbo's still getting everything set up."

"Ah yeah? Where is the little dude?" Eddy asked.

"Who're you calling 'little', ass-wipe?"

Eddy looked up and saw a tall, skinny guy with dirty-blond hair and a very worn out AC/DC shirt standing in front of him, raising an eyebrow while working with assorted camera equipment.

"Whoa, Jimmy, is that you?" Eddy gawked.

"Nope, sure isn't, who the hell's Jimmy?" the photographer joked.

Eddy cackled as he walked over and greeted his long lost little buddy with a high-five and a "dude hug".

"So how've you been, Jimmy?" Eddy asked.

"I've been doing alright I guess," Jimmy shrugged, "Not really too much going on with me. Y'know, college and work and stuff. Oh, I did see your sister in a play, though, Ed."

"Really?" Ed asked, "How's Sarah doing? She hasn't talked to me in awhile. Sometimes I write her e-mails, but I don't think she gets them because she never writes back!"

"She's her usual charming self," Jimmy mused, "I only was only able to talk to her for about five minutes before I wanted to kill her, so she's getting better. Normally I wanna kill her after two."

After a few moments of assorted chuckles, Jimmy emerged from the camera equipment.

"Ok, I think I've got everything set up," Jimmy proclaimed, "Uh… I think I'll start by getting some shots of you guys jamming or something. Then maybe I'll take some more of you just hanging around the studio, and then I'm thinking we could do some professional poses for t-shirts and posters and stuff tomorrow."

"Works for me," Eddy replied, "Let's get started."

"Oh Eddy, I almost forgot," Christian declared while strapping his bass over his shoulder, "We decided to do a cover tune for the album just for fun."

"Ok, that's cool," Eddy answered, "That makes one less hit we have to write. What song are we going to do?"

"We figured we could record a few of them and see which one the new guy likes." Eddward answered.

"Yeah, so we're going to play a Misfits song for me, a Motörhead song for Christian, an Iron Maiden song for Double D, and probably a Mötley Crüe song for you!" Ed added excitedly.

Eddy smiled, "Cool, I'm all for that. Which one do you want to do first?"

"Uh… can we do the Misfits one first?" Christian replied, "Ed wants to do Angelfuck, which is only like, a minute and a half."

The rest of the band agreed and ran through it a few times, trying to keep the classic punk track as raw as possible so they wouldn't "butcher" it. Once they were content with the way it sounded, they recorded a demo with Jimmy snapping quick shots with his camera while they did so. Once they finished recording, they scrambled back to the sound room to hear the fruits of their labor.

While Christian was looking around for one of their sound crew buddies to play the recording, one of the secretaries came in.

"Hey guys," she greeted, "your new producer is here, would you like me to send him in?"

"Yeah, sure." Eddy answered.

The secretary nodded and left the room. A few minutes later, a few quick taps were heard against the door before it opened. When it did, a guy that looked to be about their age walked in. He was clad in baggy black jeans and a black and orange Cincinnati Bengals jersey with a black beanie hat. He also had relatively long dread locks and judging by his skin tone, Eddy guessed he probably had some black in him. The new guy looked around the room and smiled.

"'sup guys?" He greeted, "I'm Randy, I'm gonna be your new producer."

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A/N: DUDE! I'm really sorry about taking so long. I had lots of stuff happening, you know how it is. Well, hope this shows you that both me and this fic are still alive and kicking. You guys know the drill, read and review if you want to.