Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
But maybe Lincoln wasn’t in the studio anymore, because we heard a muffled response. He was on his way up.
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’—Christ.”
Oh, this was gonna be fun.
There was nothing like interviewing someone who didn’t wanna be interviewed.
In the years Jake and I had worked together, we’d learned that life lessons came in all shapes and forms, and often from places we hadn’t anticipated. It was just a perk of being a filmmaker to constantly pick up a new perspective that changed how we viewed things.
If I was being perfectly honest, I hadn’t thought this trip would change anything for me. It wasn’t one of our “passion projects” we poured our souls into. It was a sell-to-market series about well-established professionals leading happy lives in their tiny towns. Our job was to show viewers around said town and sit down with the celebrity and chat. No muss, no fuss.
Lincoln Hayes’s studio in the basement was where we set up our cameras and lighting for the interview, and getting him to talk wasn’t the easiest. Surrounded by state-of-the-art studio equipment and a luxurious interior, from the tiny spotlights embedded in the leather soundproofing to the massive mixing tables and instruments, the former rock star was a man of few words—until I broached the topic of his production company.
I’d figured using Jake’s passions had once opened him up, so maybe I could do the same with Lincoln. And it worked, though not in the way I’d anticipated.
“You named it Second Verse Studios. Is there a story behind it? Please include the question in your answer, if possible.”
Lincoln sat in his swivel chair, pensive, quiet, looking every bit as one might expect of a musician who’d spent so many years in the industry. Tattoos, a rip in his jeans over his knee, black tee, messy hair, some silver, and laugh lines. He brushed his thumb over his wedding band, then scratched his scruffy jaw.
“The name, Second Verse Studios…is the result of a story I told the PR guy who helped me launch the business,” he answered eventually. “It’s how he summarized my life.” He reached for his coffee mug and took a swig. “I wasted ten years being away from my family, after a coke-filled career of pushin’ out music and tour dates. A life in the fast lane, so to speak.”
I shifted in my seat—a not entirely comfortable leather sofa—and made a quick note in my notebook.
“The label always wanted the next chorus that would get stuck in fans’ heads,” he went on. “The hook had to sell. It had to be memorable.” He set down the mug again and leaned back a bit, running a hand through his hair. It exposed a tattoo on the underside of his bicep. The name of his daughter. Other names I’d seen on his arms included Abel and Jesse, and I knew he’d nicknamed his wife Tiny Dancer. She was there too, blending in with lyrics and heavily shadowed instruments. “What labels never care about is the story,” he said. “They barely care about the message in the chorus either, but even less the background—and that’s where life takes place.”
I tilted my head, curious about what he meant.
Jake silently left his spot in the corner to adjust the second camera on the other side of the room.
“I was sick of livin’ in a chorus,” Lincoln said. “That was the parties, the awards, the lines of coke, the shows—all that. It sold. It was what people wanted to see. A rock star going to their kid’s dance recital won’t sell any papers.” He had a point. America wanted to rage over fuckups. “I was done even before I ended up in prison,” he admitted. “I’d lost respect for pretty much everyone. We could do whatever the fuck we wanted, and we got away with it because of our celebrity status. It was a feeding frenzy.”
I jotted down those last words, wanting them highlighted later on.
“After I got out, I wanted the life no paparazzi wanted to document,” he said. “I wanted to go to my son’s hockey games, my daughter’s recitals, have dinner in front of the TV with my wife, see my eldest graduate from college, go fishing with my old man.”
He wanted his second chance at life to be about the verses.
I didn’t know what I would call the chorus moments of my life. Not in the negative light Lincoln had cast his own moments in, anyway. I could totally see why he did, of course. He’d gotten caught in a cycle that’d almost torn him apart, and the media had been there to showcase every second of it. He had made millions of dollars living up to the name of their band, Path of Destruction.
My own chorus moments were more like the high points of my life. Meeting Jake, becoming a father, starting Condor Chicks…