Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 27

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 27
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

The boys all teased me when I ordered coffee, and I just smirked at them. They were absolutely right. I was drinking coffee so I would have plenty of energy to have sex with my boyfriend the second this meeting was over. What was wrong with that? Our only plan for tomorrow was to lie around on the beach or maybe by the pool. Maybe I could get one of the cabanas… Someone kicked me under the table, and I looked up, embarrassed.

Jeff and Saffron were telling us how great the show was while we waited for our drinks, and Lola just looked nervous. Jeff was her boss, and this was like her first onsite review. But the show was great, and we got back here without any problems. She hadn't wanted to let me drive here with Nick, but I even got to the hotel bar before the rest of them, since Nick didn't have to fuss with parking the big ass bus.

Jeff had gone on the bus with them… I had to wonder what a disaster area it was. It shouldn't have been too bad, since we had packed up all our stuff to fly home now, right?

"I know you're all wondering why Jeff is here," Saffron said, pulling me out of my thoughts of our messy-or-not tour bus.

"Christmas bonuses, right?" Darien questioned, and Jeff laughed.

"It might be. Saffron should have mentioned this when we were first negotiating, but if you don't remember, I wouldn't blame you."

Jeremy leaned forward. "Our contract with EMI is technically up, isn't it?"

Jeremy never forgot anything. Jeff raised an eyebrow at him, impressed. "Or maybe you do. Yes. The way our lawyers are reading it, you have fulfilled your contract with EMI with the European re-release of this album. Now, this gives you some options."

We were all leaning forward now, hanging on his every word.

"EMI will surely argue that you owe them another album and that the re-release doesn't count. And if you fuck with them, they might fight back, and tie you up in court. That wouldn't be good, obviously. Right now you're golden. 'Pretend to be Nice' is on TRL every day. The song you did for the VW commercial is hot, and it's not even an official release. 'Christmas Wrapping' is the hottest Christmas song this year."

"EMI-UK is pushing it for the Christmas number one, aren't they?" I piped up. I'd been talking to Em, my friend in London, the other day and she'd mentioned it was in all the papers. England was completely weird about the Christmas number 1, record companies did a ton of promotion and spent a lot of money for a song to peak during that week. I'd just thought it was a laugh, so I'd said yes. But we'd signed so many things in the last month that I'd nearly lost the plot.

We'd covered the Waitress' "Christmas Wrapping" on Saturday Night Live in early December as a complete one-off. It was just something fun to do on the show since even we were bored with "Come On," our first single. We'd updated it, throwing in a funny little rap at the end about what we each wanted under our Christmas tree. Who knew it would take off like it had?

Nick particularly liked it because I mentioned - in a rather breathy voice - wanting my very own fuzzy bunny with a bright red bow under my Christmas tree. And the boys particularly hated it because now we got pelted with at least one stuffed bunny at every show. I had a great collection now on the bus. Had I packed those? What was happening to my bunnies? I needed to ask Lola…

"Not that we're seeing many royalties from that, since we didn't write it," Jeremy grumbled. Blah blah blah, whine whine whine. He'd been moaning about that ever since we first heard it on the radio.

"You'll see a lot of mechanicals, I promise you," Jeff assured him. "And yes, Rachel. You approved EMI-UK to release a Christmas single. It's a hot record. So that's hot, you've got three AMA nominations, and you'll get Grammy noms."

"No!" we all wailed, almost in unison. We hated talking about possibilities. We thought it would just jinx us. When we'd been nominated for American Music Awards, I hadn't believed it until I saw it verified in three different sources. Best New Artist, Best Pop for "Come On," and Best Video. Go Em! I still couldn't believe it.

Jeff snickered, looking over at Saffron and Lola. "Lola was telling me how superstitious you could be. Fine. You have AMA nominations, three hit singles on the radio right now, and the Christmas sales of your CD are huge. Those are facts, right?"

I guess… I had a lot of trouble believing it. "Facts," James agreed.

"So, if you get caught up in lot of legal maneuvers, it could be the end of your career."

"But EMI doesn't want that, either," Jeremy offered. He'd obviously been thinking about this, while I'd spent most of this tour talking to Nick and complaining about hanging out with obnoxious DJs.

Eh, that's why I was in a band. Jeremy took care of those sorts of details.

"We're making a ton of money for them right now," Jeremy continued. "We have paid back everything they've put into us. Why would they want to stop making money?"

"Maybe they could just start making a little less money," Jeff agreed, nodding at Jeremy. They thought alike. Should that scare me?

"We should do it now," Jeremy asserted. "If we wait for another album, when our contract is definitely up, who knows if it'll be a hit? Right now, we hold all the cards."

"But EMI are a bunch of dicks," Darien disagreed. "They would love to screw us."

"They were a bunch of dicks," I corrected. "They love us now. Even Amber has been nice. They sent us awfully nice Christmas presents, after all."

We'd all gotten Tivo, which was this cool digital VCR thing. I think. I hadn't had a chance to look at it yet, but James told me it was a cool thing. I think it meant it would tape 'The Gilmore Girls' for me every week while I was on tour and I wouldn't have to worry about tapes. That was pretty damn cool to me.

"And then told us all our royalties were tied up in recouping the fucking video for this quarter," Darien grumbled. Of all of us, Darien hated recoupables the most. We'd just paid them off and gotten a check, but then we went and made an expensive video.

"You guys have done great not spending the record company's money very much," Jeff said, sounding like a teacher trying to give us all gold stars. "But, when you're at this level, you need to spend it."

"Some artists don't have to pay back the video budgets," Saffron offered. "The record company knows any video they release will spike the album sales, so they let it go."

I wondered if Backstreet had to do that… it seemed like Nick made plenty of money, but maybe that was all on merchandise and stuff. After all, he was splitting everything 5 ways.

"You're doing okay right now," Jeff interjected. "You've got the VW sponsorship, the merchandise from this tour has been through the roof, and we're looking at booking you onto a really big tour this winter."

"Who?" I demanded. Saffron kept saying that, but would never tell us who. Jeff just smiled at me.

"I don't want to say anything until we have some firm offers on the table. Suffice to say, you'll be opening in huge arenas. That's a flat fee, plus merchandise, and your expenses will be lower, since you'll use their sound systems. That's a lot of money in your pockets. You don't need to renegotiate with EMI, if you don't want to."

"Why shouldn't we?" James, ever the logical one, asked.

"They could take you to court and you'd be unable to release anything until it was settled."

"We'd be Prince!" James said, making us all laugh. Prince had been through years of legal battles with his record company. But we were nowhere near that status.

"Or George Michael," I offered, and James' eyebrow shot up.

"I could do George Michael."

"I bet you could," I deadpanned back to him, trying hard not to giggle.

"Would we be able to tour if that happened?" Darien interjected. Wait… since when was Darien business-like and serious? That was freaking me out.

"Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends. But… I can't imagine EMI would want to spend that sort of money on lawyers. That would eat up whatever return you've shown them so far, and whatever return you could show in the future."

"So we should do it," Jeremy insisted, looking at all of us. "We can only win."

"But if we gamble, and they do take us to court…" I countered. "That's it. Ride over." We'd never survive that. I was still shocked we were more than a one-hit wonder.

"Or, we should take the ride for all it's worth. We could be getting a bigger return on the album, Rache, and you know it. Even if we get the percentages up a couple of points and the recoupables down a few… we win and they win. I don't want to sell my soul to commercials to see the money we deserve."

"Why do you keep saying EMI?" Darien asked. "Can't we sign with someone else?"

This time Saffron answered. "You will get offers, I'm sure. But there's some ambiguous language about your master recordings."

"Ambiguous?" Jeremy almost shrieked. "I thought our masters were airtight!"

I still had nightmares about Jeremy insisting on those rights. Our first contract negotiation had been hellish, and I wasn't looking forward to doing it again. EMI was being nice now that we were making money. Couldn't we just leave things the way they were?

"Nothing is airtight in this business, Jeremy," Saffron said with a smile.

"It's a game," Jeff added. "It's all a game. All the other record companies will know that you're unhappy, and they'll make offers. That gives you something to take back to EMI. But everyone knows you won't really be going anywhere."

James and I scowled at one another. I wasn't sure if I wanted to play the game if we were just going to end up where we started. What was the point?

"If it gets us a better deal, it's still worth it," Jeremy insisted, looking at me. I met his gaze for a moment, then sighed, turning to Jeff.

"Do we have to decide right now?"

"Rachel, Nick can wait. Yes, we need to decide," Jeremy demanded, but I didn't even look at him, waiting for Jeff to answer and sitting up straighter in my chair. I didn't want Jeremy to start being an ass in front of Jeff. We could fight later.

Jeff smiled at me, answering like Jeremy hadn't said anything. "No, you don't have to decide right now. Saffron and I are leaving first thing in the morning, but you know where to reach her, anytime. If you want to do it, I want our lawyers to be prepared, but I think we have some time to spring it on EMI."

"Why not now, when they're more concerned with Christmas parties?" Jeremy asked.

"My advice is to wait until after the Grammy nominations are announced. That's January fourth. If you get a nomination or two, that gives you even more power. If you don't get a nomination, you don't lose anything by waiting."

Saffron could tell I was losing my patience. I understood it, and now I didn't want to think about it anymore. Actually, I wanted to ask Nick a million questions. Hadn't they done a renegotiation with Jive a few years into their career? Before Millennium?

Jeff waved the waitress over for another round, but Saffron leaned forward, "There is also a risk that if you do it before the nominations, EMI will stop lobbying for you, and you definitely won't get anything. Don't take that chance."

"Good," I asserted. "That gives us like two weeks to decide."

"But, if…" Jeremy started to say, and I turned to him.

"I'm not making any sort of decision right this minute, Jeremy. None of us should. We are tired and strung out from the tour and in no state to be deciding something this important. We can talk about it tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow," Darien whined. "I had big plans, none of which involve thinking!"

The guys were spending tomorrow in Miami, and we were going to do something for Jeremy's birthday in the evening, since that was right after Christmas and none of us would be in the same state then. They were all staying at this hotel, so I'd probably see them around the pool, but I wanted to avoid them and just spend the day with Nick. We all needed a little time away from each other. Just one day to lie around next to the pool and not be rock stars, before we went back to our respective families and the holiday drama.

Jeremy met my eyes for a minute, but he knew I wouldn't budge. He knew I was right, too. "Fine," he grumbled, sitting back in his chair. "We won't decide."

"No problem," Jeff assured us. "Whenever you decide, let me know. When are you going to be together again? The MTV New Year's Ball?"

"Tomorrow night we have big plans for Jeremy's birthday," Darien told him gleefully, and then proceeded to tease Jeremy about how old he was. Which was only two years older than Darien, but Darien still liked to say that Jeremy was pushing 40.

Since everyone was now relaxed and making small talk as they waited for their second round of drinks, I finished my coffee and said good night. I didn't even react to their teasing. I was tired, and all I wanted was Nick.

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