the dreaming tree

and maybe it’s ridiculous and i shouldn’t get my hopes up. maybe someone was even yanking my chain. but here’s what happened…

i was at the david bazan show (very good, by the way, thanks scott), and he was closing his set with “hallelujah,” when my phone rang. it came up as some 408 number that i didn’t know, and so, against what i would usually do in that situation, that being one of my favorite songs (and one of bazan’s, apparently, too), i decided to answer it. i had to walk outside and couldn’t really hear what she was saying, but something about a third-party operator reading the conversation to me, typing responses, something…i thought she was trying to sell me something. but she finally convinced me that someone was calling me with this service, was i david, and did i accept the call? i said yes.

hello, this is neil from rca records.

what? my attention was had. (i can only remember pieces of the conversation, and not always in the right order, but i’ll write the gist of it. plus it was all being read to me by the operator, so that was kinda weird as far as flow goes and stuff. i also had to say, “go ahead” whenever i was through with a statement or whatever so she could press enter and send it to him. weird.)

and so he went on to say that they saw our show at juanita’s and were impressed with us. is this a good time to talk? YES! did i know anything about RCA? they’d like to revitalize the label, what did i think about that? i said the record industry and pop music could use some revitalizing. they thought we might could help with that and they’d like to get the ball rolling. i said that was very nice of them to say and we’d be up for any rolling balls…yes, i really did say that. and i asked what they meant by revitalize, but he said that was too long of a conversation and we could talk about it later. they asked if we wrote all our own music and what our long term goals were. i said yes, and we all want to do this full time, as soon as it’s financially feasible. he said, well maybe i can help you with that later, and i was like, well, no, i just mean we don’t know how to book enough shows to be playing consistently right now. he asked how long we’d been together, i said a couple years, but we only get to play shows once a month, if not less (trying to impress on him the fact that we would be even more awesome if we could practice and play more), because zach, the drummer, lives in missouri.

then he asked about the lead singer, so i gave him michael’s number, but then said, don’t call him tonight, cause he has a wife. the reply: is she a problem? hahaha. i said no, i just mean they’re asleep. i’m still up because i’m not connected. connected? i don’t understand. like, i don’t have a wife or a girlfriend or anything. anyway, she’s not at all a problem…she can’t wait until we can do this full time.

then he wanted to know about zach’s situation, so i was telling him how his wife is in grad school and that was another thing we were waiting on, cause she also wants him to be able to do whatever it takes for the band (namely moving to nashville is our plan after she finishes grad school). and so he says, well, we really want to get the ball rolling before the new year…you guys have raw talent and can’t afford to wait around. i didn’t quite understand, so i asked him to explain. he said, well, drummers are a dime-a-dozen, we can easily get you one from RCA to replace him. and i was like, no, there will be no replacing. zach and his wife are committed to doing whatever we have to do for the band. he said maybe we would talk about that later.

so basically they were impressed with us and want us to know they’re interested in us and want to talk more, but it was getting late in california, so he said they would call back in a couple of days or so…then…horror of horrors…my PHONE DIED! thank goodness it died after we had already had a 20 minute conversation, and not right after he said, this is neil from RCA. so anyway, i thankfully had a message this morning, being read by an operator, that said, hey it’s neil, i think we got disconnected. i’ll call back again later. goodnight.

so now…i’m freaking out. i called michael and zach immediately…they were, of course, both asleep with their wives at one in the morning. michael told me if i was joking he would rip my face off, and zach was just like, what are you talking about? probably because i was screaming. anyway, we’re freaked out and don’t know what the deal is. i didn’t do a great job recounting the conversation, but the way it went, and the questions he asked, i don’t feel like it was someone messing with me. usually that would be, hey, this is so-and-so from RCA records, we’re interested…bye. but he talked to me for 20 minutes about the band, what we want to do, etc. i feel like my heart is racing 800.000 miles a second.

if i remember anything i left out, i’ll add it later.

it’s all happening.