Rockstar Serenade: The Chorus

Ch 11: Collaboration, Or...?

TREVOR~

 

I always knew that collaborating with her is a bad idea.

She was late so she made us wait for thirty minutes. She kept asking us to play the song for her so she could get a grip. We’ve been in the recording studio for roughly an hour already and we still haven’t made any progress. I watch her as she plunges her eyebrows and strokes her chin while her eyes examine the piece of paper with our composition in it.

“So..." she trails, her eyes fixed on the paper. "You want me to scream the verses, then you’ll add clean vocals somewhere in between?”

There she goes again, I grumble beneath my breath. She’s really starting to get into my nerves and my blood's staring to boil. The studio is momentarily quiet--too quiet--waiting for Zephyr’s answer.

“Yeah, what’s a little collab with you without the Poxlier scream?”

The wrinkle on her forehead flattens and the paperweights dragging down the corners of her mouth fall off. She smiles a little at first, but eventually presses her cheeks up and reveals her pearly whites.

“I scream only when August balances it with his growl so I wouldn’t want to have it called Poxlier scream. But thanks for giving it a name.” She is, by the look on her face, undoubtedly flattered.

“Well, I could do the screaming part, but that would leave out the clean vocals. Maybe let Trevor do that for you?”

All heads turn to me. Nathan, Rick and Xavier eye me cautiously, since my anger reached them through my eyes narrowing with contempt.

“I can’t do the screams. I’m better off with the backing vocals,” I say as I tighten my grip around my guitar’s fretboard. It will be too much tension for my vocal chords and I have not trained myself to do heavy duty singing.

Kailey strokes her chin again and gazes at me with furrowed brows. “You have a good voice. Use it.”

“What?” I exclaim. What does she mean by good voice?

“You have a good voice, use it,” she repeats and turns her back at me quickly. “There’s something I just can’t pinpoint out here, but I don’t think combining my screams with your vocals would sound good. You see Zephyr, high-pitched screams won’t blend well with your tenor vocal range.”

Our vocalist jerks back, no doubt, offended. "Do you mean this song won't sound good, then?"

She ignores Zephyr and continues to point out our flaws. “The bass tabs could use some re-tabbing.” Rick jerks in surprise too. The atmosphere suddenly turns tense. Dammit, this girl just crossed the line.

“I’m fine with the drums, but Trevor’s and Xavier’s trebles should be tuned up a step higher.”

Oh so now she even has a problem with my playing too? I see my bandmates glance at each other with hurt etched on their faces. Tsk, look at what this cold-hearted woman with a sour attitude just do.

"What do you think, Mr. Halvor?" she asks our music producer who was intently observing us the whole time. "I think that this way, it will suit the lyrics well, but I'm gonna need your opinion too."

Mr. Halvor and Kailey start to discuss among themselves, speaking using technical music terms. It goes on for several minutes. While the two of them were talking about how to ruin our song further, murmurs and whispers also rises from my bandmates. I could've joined their discussion, but I am too annoyed and pissed off to join them and instead, I wait for Kailey to finish.