Backstage Demands Read Free

anyway? You seem to have me at a serious disadvantage, considering. You know who I am, and apparently we are here to talk about something that the rest of the band didn't want to be around for. Is that why I was scheduled so early to show up? Fucking Christ. You know, I don't have to be on time like I always am. I could just be one of the fuck off rock and roll guys that never does shit but anything for himself. I don't know why the Collective keeps pushing me around like we won't be renegotiating a contract after the next tour.”
    Rick saw something flicker in the eyes of the woman beside him.
    “So this is about the next tour,” Rick said. “Let me tell you something, I'm burned out from the last tour. I don't know how much they told you exactly, but I ended up, at one point, standing out in the fucking rain for three hours because the rest of the band gets so fucked up they're out of their minds most of the time.”
    The woman whose name he still didn't know shifted in her chair uncomfortably. Rick was glad she was uncomfortable. It was complete and total horseshit that they had sprung a meeting on him, much less with a total stranger.
    “So are you going to start talking or should I just go home?” Rick said. “I never signed a contract for this gig, so it'll be no skin off my ass if it doesn't happen.”
    She looked like she was going to fall out of her seat. Rick decided to wait until she spoke again to say anything else. He didn't want to come across as one of those people who always talks over the people around him. Those kind of people sucked, as far as he was concerned, and he was afraid he'd just been one.
    “Hey,” Rick said softly. “You know, I'm sorry about all of that. It's just that, well, I'm a little burned out is all. You have to understand that this industry isn't exactly easy on the people that actually make the music. We get treated like animals that do nothing but make other people money. The Collective was supposed to be something that actually cared about the musicians, but that hasn't turned out like I thought it would. I guess I wasn't really sure how it would turn out, but when I signed on—fuck, it seems like years ago now—I had no idea that they would be aggressively running things like they are now.”
    The woman looked down at her drink then up at Rick.
    “I'm sorry things have gotten off to a rough start,” she said. “My name is Jen, and I'm your personal manager. I think you might have been told I'm the tour manager and that we were going to speak before the show—at least that's what I sussed out of the emails I read. So let me start with an apology.”
    She stopped and took a long drink of her water.
    “Well all right then,” Rick said. “So my days with the Collective are officially numbered. There is pretty much no fucking way I'm sticking around with these assholes if this is how they tell me about meetings.”
    Jen nodded.
    “I'm also here to tell you that the next tour starts in three days. That's the reason that they had this meeting take place two hours before the gig actually kicks off. They didn't want you to lose your cool in front of a bunch of people. And if you don't do the gig or the tour, I lose my job. Not that that really matters to you, I completely and totally understand that you aren't really going to care that I lose my job when my job can't exist without your job. It isn't your thing to care about your intern’s job. It's your--”
    “Wait, what?” Rick interjected. “So I have a fucking intern now? The fucking Collective, full of people that are the most punk rock, like, ever, have forced a fucking intern on me.”
    Rick finished his drink and stood up.
    “Listen, lady,” he said. “I'm sure that they gave you some kind of song and dance when they hired you. But even if they're paying you, being an intern in the music industry is fucking shitty. Like, way shitty. I don't want you to waste your life looking after a bunch of people that