walk with jimmy

Abel walked out the door of the bar in a daze.

But when someone who knew him asked, "How is it? Have you met any good artists?", he immediately cheered up and replied: "No! The band called Planet on the stage tonight is very bad. Normal people Wouldn't want to sign a contract with them. I suspect that they are like another death chariot, just as unselfconscious and disciplined, drinking, smoking, eating, vulgar speech and indecent behavior on stage, whoever To sign them is asking for trouble."

After saying these words, he left in a hurry.

But at the next moment, he called Davis, the interim manager of the Planetary Band, as quickly as possible, and straight to the point without a word of nonsense: "I am Abel from the A&R department of Mixer Records. record deal."

look!

Abel is a very interesting guy.

Ignoring his downfall in recent years, he was once a legend in the industry, and his resume is absolutely wonderful.A talented student who graduated from a prestigious school is about to turn 30 this year and has been in the industry for seven years.

In the first four years of his professional career, he had a precise vision and ruthless strikes. He had signed a large number of smash-hit artists, earned a large sum of pounds for the record company, and was deeply trusted by the record company boss.

But unfortunately, after four years, he was gradually unable to do what he wanted, and he was rarely able to sign outstanding artists.

There are also some rumors in the industry that 'Abel's taste is outdated and out of date, and he is not suitable for continuing to mix in this business'.

In order to prove myself.

He then painstakingly signed the death chariot band, wanting to fight a beautiful turnaround.

Unfortunately, times come and go...

The chariot of death is really the chariot of death.

The career is at a low point, and there will be rumors of layoffs in the company next year. It's really bad!

Faced with this situation, many people may be afraid to do more with trepidation, and try to find a way to keep the job at hand.

But Abel was not reconciled.

He has been glorious and glorious, so he can't stand being down and down, and would rather give it a go than end up in a sad situation.And now, the Planetary Band has become one of his hopes.

At this time, after talking with Davis on the phone, it was already three o'clock in the morning.

Instead of going home, he drove to the door of the company boss's house and rang the doorbell.

"the last time!"

Abel fearlessly and decisively said to the sleepy-eyed boss who was still in pajamas: "Give me the best signing conditions of the company, and I will return you a hit group of the year! If you don't succeed, no one else will rush you this time, I will do it myself." Walk."

Maybe it was because of his past contributions to the company, maybe it was out of trust in his previous talent, maybe it was his almost decisive words that moved the boss and decided to give him a chance.

In short, he succeeded in getting what he wanted.

The next day, Abel successfully signed a record contract with Planet.

The speed with which the whole process progressed was overwhelming.

It's like the German army's surprise attack on Poland during World War II, and the blitzkrieg reappeared!

Later, many people thought that it was Abel who knew people with his eyes and dug out the Planetary Band from the bar.

But the truth of the matter should be that Lance chose Abel.

because……

Lance: "For other people, other record companies, we are a deal that can be discarded at any time, but for Abel who is about to have nothing, we are his only last bargaining chip that he can never give up. ... What's more, the conditions he gave are indeed the best."

So, the two hit it off and enjoyed it.

Maybe it can't be said to be enjoyable, because this is just the beginning of cooperation, and there are still many problems and contradictions that need to be adjusted and resolved urgently.

Although Able takes the Planets very seriously.

But he still has many dissatisfaction with the four members of the band, such as: "How do you define your own image?"

James, Baldwin and Theo were all taken aback by this question.

They thought they would ask about music, but they didn't expect to ask about image?I was at a loss for a while.

Only Lance stretched out three fingers confidently, and answered him: "beautiful man, genius, guitarist."

James looked at him with admiration in his green eyes once again.

Abel was silent for a long time.

In the end nothing was said.

But he didn't give up on the matter.

Because, in addition to music, the image of the band is crucial.

For every band to be successful, it is necessary to have a discerning style, a unified style that belongs to the whole group.

The Kexing band members' style at this time is very chaotic.

Lance's style is relatively British.

He owns an assortment of shirts, suits and coats, and is the only person in the band with the best image management.

But others...

Drummer Baldwin always wears clothes that are one size bigger like a sack, coupled with sloppy long hair and beard, it makes people crazy;

Bassist Theo is a killer. He is obsessed with pretending to be cool all day long. When everyone didn't pay attention, he had a hedgehog hairstyle, changed into a ripped outfit, and wore a tinkling metal necklace , the whole person looks like a street gangster;

As for lead singer James.

He has no style or aesthetics at all, and generally wears whatever is around him.It’s okay on the stage, with lighting and music to help add special effects; off the stage, I’m always disheartened, just like the silly son of the neighbor.

In the end, Abel stopped asking for their opinions at all, and directly found a special image designer to redesign the images for the four people.

But at this point, even James, who doesn't care about image issues, raised objections.

Because Abel asked the image designer to uniformly dress and unify the hairstyles of the four people, imitating the Beatles of the year.

"Listen, Abel." James was the first to object.

Not wanting to offend the early collaborator, he made his point as nicely as possible: "I love the Beatles, very much! So to speak, if John Lennon of the Beatles could stand up to me In front of him, serving tea and pouring water and kneeling down to beg for an autograph, I would fucking do anything for him. But if you want to turn me into him, then I won’t be happy! The reason is simple, he is the Beatles, and I am a planet, we are different in nature, no one can be the other, understand?"

Abel was taken aback.

It may be that the previous song "Rotten Strawberries" was sung too sweetly, which caused him a certain degree of misunderstanding.It made him mistakenly think that this boy who was affectionately called Jimmy by his teammates was a cute blond sweetheart.

But obviously, he was mistaken.

James's sober mind is inversely proportional to his silly and sweet appearance. The rebelliousness and pride hidden in his bones are not much less than Lance's, but he has always been better at suppressing them.

Abel stared at him in amazement.

But the strange thing is that he didn't have any anger of being disobedient in his heart. Instead, he felt the excitement and faint excitement of finding a diamond in the gravel.

may be because……

He clearly knows that people will love a beautiful and unrestrained soul more than a naive and alluring vase that can only attract a fleeting glance.

In the end, he made a concession and no longer required the band to have uniform clothing and hairstyles, but only required everyone to make necessary improvements to their own hairstyles and attire under the professional advice of the image designer.

But he still has two tough demands that he cannot compromise:

Baldwin's long hair doesn't have to be cut, but it needs to be tied up instead, but the beard must be shaved off; Theo has to change his style, because the Planetary Band doesn't play heavy metal rock, and his current style is seriously inconsistent with the overall style of the band.

Theo nodded resignedly.

He is young and not ugly now, and he can easily hold any style. He dresses up like before, just because it is cool and fun. Since it doesn't work, it doesn't matter if he changes to a new style.

As for Baldwin.

He cherishes this signing opportunity the most, and has a gentle temper, so he easily compromised and agreed to shave off his beard.

We have known each other for more than a year!

James finally saw Baldwin's true colors hidden under the beard.

Unexpectedly... very handsome!

It was a shy man who blushed a lot.

Moreover, without the cover of the beard, Baldwin may have almost broken the world record for blushing.

He touched his chin in embarrassment and unnaturally: "It's kind of weird, isn't it?"

"No no no!" Everyone shook their heads.

Even Theo said sincerely: "Baldwin, I believe you are 25 years old."

Baldwin immediately blushed again.

He made a correction: "Well, I'm 26 this year."

In short, after everyone has done their hairstyles, changed into new clothes, and stood together again...

Abel was overwhelmed with surprise and thought, "Damn it! How the hell am I signed to a group with such good looks?"

So, he immediately decided to make use of this point, find a photographer, and quickly shoot the big poster and cover!

Speak the truth!

Abel's silly and nervous tossing these things almost bored James and the others to death.Compared with doing these miscellaneous things, entering the recording studio and making music is what they want to do most.

So, they began to ask repeatedly to "do business first."

After a few days, I finally successfully entered the recording studio.

The first song recorded was "Rotten Strawberry".

Another bad idea from Abel.

He suggested that the band release a single first, and the track should be "Rotten Strawberries".

Nobody wants to agree.

Because they liked "Break Up With Him" ​​and "African Bison" more than "Rotten Strawberries."The former involves a lot of performance skills, which can highlight the technical skills of the band members; the latter is full of momentum, giving people a cool feeling that is not obvious.

And "Rotten Strawberry" is a bit boring.

On the one hand, Lance wrote it to vent his grievances, and on the other hand, he coaxed his lead singer to play.

Therefore, this song is the worst in terms of artistry and technology.

That's a very salivating pop song, not cool at all, and it doesn't show any emotion or thought, and it has no other benefits except catchy.

But Abel liked this song very much. I don't know exactly what the source of this love is.

He insisted on using this song, thinking that this song is suitable for entering the list of hot hits, and predicted: "It will definitely climb to the top [-] of the list!"

The rankings in this era still have a lot of gold content, and the communication channels are limited.

If a newcomer's song can enter the top [-], it is already a remarkable achievement.

After all, everyone who is still a newcomer in this industry had no choice but to agree with hesitation.

This is the band's first official recording.

Abel brought in a guy who was said to be a well-known producer to run the show.

The band members only need to listen to the producer's instructions, play when they are asked to play, and sing when they are asked to sing, over and over again.

Everyone was very serious at first.

But the more boring you get to the back, the less you can concentrate.

About three days later, when James was the most tired, and couldn't help but start to lose his mind while singing...

The producer suddenly said, "Okay, it's over."

"What?" James suddenly felt guilty.

He was worried that his distraction would affect the effect of the vocals in the song, so he immediately went over worriedly and asked, "Do you want me to sing it again? I'm sorry, there was a sentence that was not played well just now, and it might sound like shit."

The producer reassured him: "Don't worry, I'm in charge of polishing shit."