TWO DAYS later, Monique met them at LaGuardia.
Jeff had always liked New York City. New Yorkers had rules—not hassling celebrities in their off hours was one of them, mostly. Not that they were taking any chances. All four of them wore their most inconspicuous street clothing and let Monique, in a gorgeous cream linen suit with a teal silk shell, command people’s attention.
They wouldn’t be in town for long anyway, Fate willing.
The car picked them up right outside the airport and they quickly got in. Jeff leaned his head on the window and looked up at the skyline—well, he couldn’t see all the way to the sky, but he looked up… and smiled. “Remember the first time we played in New York City?”
“Barely,” Max admitted with the ghost of a smile. “Didn’t you throw up?”
“Twice.” Jeff didn’t get nerves much as a rule, but playing NYC the first time had him ready to spit butterflies for a week.
Across from him, Joe grinned. “It was a wild time for everyone, if I recall.”
That had been in his pre-Sarah days. Jeff had the vague feeling Joe had gone home with a pair of twins, but he wasn’t going to ask about it. Although—“What did you do?” he asked Trix.
She stretched her legs out—sandals discarded on the floor of the car—and propped them in Max’s lap. The two of them had shared a room for their first several years as a touring band. “Honestly? I went back to the hotel and sobbed in the shower for ten minutes because I couldn’t believe we’d done it, and then I went to bed and slept for eleven hours.”
“I remember that,” Max said. “I thought you must’ve had way too much to drink. I tripped over my own feet when I got in and you didn’t even move.”
“Emotional catharsis is better than any sleeping pill.” Trix rubbed the back of her neck. “Finally getting to prove people were wrong—that you could be a rock band with a girl drummer and she didn’t have to fuck any of the guys to earn her spot….” She lifted a shoulder. “Sweet, sweet vindication.”
Jeff let himself sink into the rightness of it. With the sun streaming down on his face, he felt like he’d been personally blessed by his decision to stick around. They hadn’t given up. And now they could reap the rewards of their labor.
Monique cleared her throat as they passed the next block. “All right. Let’s go over our plan for the meeting one more time.”
She walked them through it—reiterating to make sure she knew exactly what they were asking for, reminding them to defer to her and let her do the talking if things didn’t seem to be swinging that way. They hadn’t booked return tickets, just in case they needed to stick around New York to label shop, but Jeff didn’t think they’d have to.
This was the best album they’d ever put together. It might be their Rumours… and everyone knew that was Fleetwood’s best album.
If these executives knew what was good for them, they’d give Howl whatever they wanted and be grateful for the opportunity.
Fingers crossed.
The car pulled up to the office a few moments later, and Monique strode to the reception desk in her sky-high Manolo Blahniks. “Monique Huberdeau and Howl for Zephyr Kendrick.”
The receptionist looked up through thick-framed plastic glasses, wide-eyed. He took them in and then pressed a button on his phone. The elevator doors opened behind him. “Go on up. She’s expecting you.”
Jeff furiously ignored the churning cement mixer in his stomach. Suddenly he missed the butterfly effect.
Half of him expected a typical conference-room setup, but instead they were shown into a casual office with comfortable lounge furniture and a sound system that would’ve had Sibel diving for the manuals to drool over the specs.
A woman and a man met them in the lounge.
“Monique,” the woman said, coming forward for a handshake—except once they clasped hands, they leaned in for a kiss on each cheek. Apparently this wasn’t their first meeting. “How long’s it been?”
“Let’s not count the years since twelfth grade.” Monique stepped back with a smile and gestured the band forward. This was Jeff’s cue. “Zephyr Kendrick, may I present Jeff Pine, Trix Neufeld, Max Langdon, and Joe Kinoshameg, better known as Howl.”
They went around with handshakes—the man with her was the label’s executive vice president of A&R, Amir Basri—and then Zephyr gestured them to the couches. “So. Monique tells me you’re ready to make the leap from Big Moose.” She waved her hand. “Once some administrative details are out of the way, of course.”
Jeff glanced at Monique for permission. She nodded infinitesimally. “Very,” he said.
Zephyr smiled. “Well, then.”
Jeff knew Monique had transmitted the files digitally in some supersecure manner, but he didn’t know if Zephyr and her team had listened to them. Surely to God they weren’t going to have to listen to an hour plus of their own music while sitting with a room full of music executives? There weren’t enough antacids in the city of New York.
But the smile only widened. “Welcome to Spin Cycle.”
THE INK wasn’t even dry on their check—metaphorical check—when they booked their last-minute tickets back to Toronto. Jeff felt like he spent the entire flight bouncing his knee. He didn’t dare text Carter, didn’t dare even check to see if their trip to NYC had made the internet. None of that could matter until the contract with Big Moose was officially terminated.
Monique’s superlawyer status must give her some kind of clout, because they didn’t have to wait for an appointment there either.
Still grimy from the dual flights, punch-drunk with apprehension and relief, they followed Monique into the executive boardroom at Big Moose.
Dina was there, as well as Tim, which Jeff would’ve been angry about except that he was really going to enjoy watching the man’s face as his golden goose crapped all over him.
Tim didn’t even let Monique get a word in edgewise when they entered the room. “Ah, Howl. I hope you’re here to deliver your album?”
Monique smiled like a shark, but it was Max who stepped forward.
“We’re here to deliver our letter of resignation.” Ignoring Tim completely, he stepped up to company president John Cannon’s desk. “We’re breaking our contract.”
He slid the check across the desk.
Tim spluttered. “You can’t—”
“They can,” Monique interrupted. “I triple-checked. The payment’s all there. My clients are free to sign with whomever they choose.” For legal reasons, the actual agreement wouldn’t be signed until tomorrow.
Cannon looked thunderous. “In all my years in the industry—”
Oh, fuck him. “What?” Jeff said. “No one’s ever stood up to your predatory business practices?” He paused. “First time for everything.”
Trix spread her hands in innocence. “We’ve always been trendsetters.”
They all looked at Joe. It was definitely his turn for a parting shot. “Fuck you guys,” he said with an eloquent shrug. “Dina, call me if you need a reference letter.”
For the first time, Jeff looked at her and noticed she was biting both lips, wide-eyed. “For the record,” he said, “we probably wouldn’t have quit if Dina had been in charge from the beginning.” She would’ve been, like, twelve when they started, but whatever. He didn’t want her to get fired.
“Actually,” she said, “you know what? I quit too.”
“Nice!” Trix high-fived her.
Monique tilted her head toward the door, and Jeff was happy enough to take his cue. “All right, nonlawyers to the back. Drinks on Joe?”
“It’s Trix’s turn to pick up the tab—”
“I’ll buy,” Max broke in, prompting cheers.
Ahead of them, Monique offered Dina her arm. “So listen,” she said, “I’m new to the music management business. I don’t suppose you signed a noncompete agreement…?”
From Guitar Hero Magazine
September issue
Howling at the Blue Moon
IT’S BEEN a whirlwind summer for multiple Grammy nominees Howl. Between public indecency charges, headlining a Canada Day celebration, wrapping a tour, and cutting ties with Big Moose, it’s been an eventful few months, to say the least.
And that’s not even mentioning frontman Jeff Pine’s fairytale romance with best friend Carter Rhodes, recently of @smokeybearlake fame, or the happy news of Joe Kinoshameg’s impending fatherhood (his partner, Sarah Monague, is expecting their first child in December).
Somehow, on top of all of this, rehab and treatment for Max Langdon, and a handful of real estate transactions, Howl found time to record a new album and sign a new record deal, this time with NYC’s Spin Cycle.
You might think that writing an album in the middle of such a tumultuous summer would result in a slipshod, unfocused effort, patched together through necessity. But you’d be wrong about this. I sure was.
While it’s obvious that each member of the band has gone through their own struggles in the past year—drummer Trix Neufeld recently went public as a survivor of childhood sexual assault—their voices work together beautifully on the album, tied together by a common thread: that feeling of hitting your thirties and wondering, What next? I’m not where I should be. I’ve fallen behind.
“Our tour schedule with Big Moose was a lot,” Pine, now thirty-one, tells me in the back booth of a family-owned restaurant in his hometown of Willow Sound, Ontario, a few hours out of Toronto. Far from the gaunt, hunted-looking man who graced covers of magazines internationally earlier this year at the end of the band’s February tour, this Pine is tanned, round-cheeked, and dimpled, completely at ease. As we chat, he sips on a milkshake; a song he wrote plays on the diner’s tinny overhead speakers. “I was exhausted, Max was spiraling, Joe just found out he was going to be a dad, Trix was working through her own shit. But none of us were talking to each other about it. I came out here convinced I was going to find the guts to go back to Toronto and quit for good, pay my way out of our contract and then, I don’t know, write songs in a cabin in the woods for the rest of my life.” He laughs. “Except there’s, like, way too many spiders in the woods. So that wasn’t going to work out.”
Instead he opted for a cottage on the lake with his high school best friend and now boyfriend Carter Rhodes, a man many now speculate was the inspiration for more than a handful of early Howl hits. And as for the decision to stay with Howl….
“When I first came out here,” he says, “I wanted a break, but what I got was some clarity, some perspective. I realized that I’d gotten so burned out I couldn’t see past my own problems and that the way we were going was unhealthy for other members of the group too. It took a little break for me to realize they weren’t the right target of my frustration. Once I figured that out, my whole plan changed.”
The plan, as I’ve come to understand it—neither Pine nor any other member of the band will confirm or deny—seems to have hinged on securing a different label before their next album, the final on their contract to Big Moose, was due.
“I’m not going to talk about that,” Pine tells me. He takes a break to sip his milkshake. “You know how it is.”
Whatever the motivation behind it, Howl’s latest album is far more than a cry for freedom. It alternates between emotional connection and catchy bangers and will resonate with any audience who’s wrestled with past demons, uncertainty, and the dreaded third-life crisis. In the two hours I was permitted to spend for a sneak preview at Pine’s cottage, tucked into a recording studio apparently put together for the specific purpose of making this record, I struggled not to see myself in every song. This is a collection of tracks that meets you where you are and tells you it’s okay not to have all the answers.
This is the album we’ve been waiting for—even if the tour dates are farther out and significantly more scattered than we’ve gotten used to over the past ten years.
Rhodes’s Garage comes to digital and physical stores near you this November.
“THAT’S THE last of it.” Carter set the box on the tailgate and gave it a push. It just fit between the lawn mower and the Rubbermaid bin full of kitchen detritus.
Jeff closed the tailgate and leaned against it. “We going to do a last walk-through?”
Carter held out his hand. “Kinda feel like we should. Come on.”
Casting one last look at the SOLD sign at the end of the driveway, Jeff let Carter lead him into the house.
It didn’t look anything like it had the first time he’d been there. Instead of stacks of boxes and clutter, the hallway held nothing but the occasional shoeprint. It had been a rainy week, and it didn’t make sense to take their shoes off every time they collected another box to bring out to the truck. The kitchen cupboards hung open, the better to verify they’d been emptied. Even the shower curtain had been packed, though Jeff had no idea what Carter was going to do with it. They certainly didn’t need it at the cottage.
Carter’s home office was bare save for the curtains and the pull-up bar installed over the door.
They paused in the bedroom—empty but for the two of them. Carter wrapped his arms around Jeff’s waist and snuggled up behind him. “A few good memories here,” Jeff commented as he folded his arms over Carter’s.
Carter bent his head and nuzzled Jeff’s ear. “We could make one more.”
Jeff should’ve seen this coming. He squirmed a little—the prickle of Carter’s beard against his neck, contrasted with the soft heat of his mouth, always got him hot, but it also tickled—and protested, “There isn’t any furniture.”
“Hmm,” Carter said thoughtfully and bit gently at the side of Jeff’s neck.
Then he spun him around, hoisted Jeff by his thighs, and pressed his back to the wall.
“Oh my God,” Jeff said weakly as Carter held him up one-handed to fish a bottle of lube out of his pocket. He hadn’t even known his dick could still get hard that fast; it was like being a teenager. “Okay, yes, but put me down so I can take my pants off.”
Carter kissed him first, fast and dirty, and then pulled back far enough for Jeff to get his feet on the ground.
“Really glad the new owners wanted to keep the curtains,” Jeff said, stepping out of his boxers. “Slightly—” He yelped when Carter lifted him again before he expected it. “Slightly regretting we tossed out the condoms.” The ride to the cottage would be squishy.
Carter did the one-handed lift again and handed Jeff the lube with the other. Jeff opened it and poured and didn’t pretend to be surprised when Carter pushed two fingers into him at once to smear the slick inside him.
Then Carter was pushing in—no teasing this time, just a fast, shallow thrust that had Jeff struggling for breath. He managed to squirt some lube in his own hand and was just about to wrap it around himself when Carter decided the angle didn’t suit them and stepped backward, taking more of Jeff’s weight and angling Jeff’s lower body so Carter could nail him just right.
“Oh fuck,” Jeff said, wrapping one arm around Carter’s stupidly large forearm. This was not going to take long.
Sex with Carter was normally mind-bendingly, stupidly hot—Jeff loved being manhandled, and Carter knew exactly what to say or do or how to touch Jeff to set him on fire with pleasure. But right now Carter was lost in his own pleasure, chasing what felt good to him, and that was hot in a whole new way. The slap of skin against skin filled the room, echoing loudly without any furnishings to soften the noise. Jeff wrapped his legs around Carter’s waist and watched his eyes go dark, and then he was lost too, stroking his cock in fast, tight strokes, desperate for orgasm.
He was almost there when he heard the knock on the front door.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” he hissed when Brady’s voice called out, “Carter? You guys here?”
Carter must have been close too, because he gave a particularly brutal thrust—Jeff’s mouth dropped open and a breathy cry fell out—and his cheeks were flushed and his eyes bright when he yelled, “Go away! We’re fucking!”
Jeff was so startled by the cursing that he laughed out loud, which made Carter groan and fuck in harder.
He vaguely heard Brady’s “Oh my God, gross” filter through the house, but he didn’t care because Carter was coming, dick jerking inside of him. Jeff could feel it dripping out of him, feel the suddenly overslick way Carter moved in his ass, and that as much as anything pushed him over the edge.
He came back to himself with Carter leaning against him, closer now that he didn’t have anything left to prove. “I’m gonna set you down now,” he said. “Okay?”
“Hnng,” Jeff agreed. His legs were a little stiff when he uncurled them from Carter’s waist, and they definitely weren’t happy about supporting his weight. He glanced down at himself and the mess they’d made of each other. “We did leave hand soap in the bathroom, right?”
“And paper towels,” Carter confirmed.
“Good.” Any moment now Jeff was going to trust himself to stand without leaning on the wall. “We need to wash your mouth out.”
“Not the orifice I was going to suggest, but let’s see you try it.” He held out a hand for Jeff to steady himself on… and then they both looked at their hands and grimaced. It was a miracle Carter hadn’t dropped Jeff on his ass after he came. Jeff couldn’t imagine getting a grip on anything with that much lube and come on it.
“Bathroom?” he suggested after a moment.
“Agreed.”
When they’d dressed and come outside, Brady was sitting in his car with the music cranked so loud his fillings were probably rattling right out of his teeth. Carter was blushing furiously, but Jeff refused to be embarrassed. Maybe this would finally teach Carter’s family to call first. He waved cheerfully.
Brady turned off the truck and made a show of looking at his watch and smirking.
“Think very carefully about how Christmas is coming up before you say whatever it is you’re thinking,” Jeff said cheerfully. “I always keep my receipts.”
Carter gave him a sideways look. “It’s the end of September.”
“Which means I have several long months in which not to shop for Christmas presents.” Jeff returned his attention to Brady. “What have we learned?”
Brady raised his hands. “Next time I’ll call first?”
Now Jeff grinned. They could learn. “Good. You’re in charge of teaching Mom.”
“What’re you here for, anyway?” Carter asked when Brady blanched. “Since it was so important you couldn’t call first.”
“Honestly, I just saw the truck was here when I drove by and thought I’d see if you needed an extra set of hands.” He flushed bright red when he said it and covered his face. “I mean, obviously not. But I know campfire night starts at seven, and possession of the house is tomorrow….”
Right—Jeff was still getting reaccustomed to the whole “having family members who actually wanted to help” thing. “We’re all finished here. See you at the park?”
“We’ll be there. For a bit, anyway, until the baby has to go to bed.”
Speaking of, they’d better get a move on. It was almost five and… well, Jeff needed a shower. “Sounds good. Tell Katie I’ll save her a beer.”
They ended up making it to campfire night almost on time, but when they pulled up in the parking lot, Carter made no immediate move to get out. Instead he pensively drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
“Hey.” Jeff covered his hand, trying not to let on. Carter wasn’t supposed to know anything was up yet. This was just another campfire night—his last as Great Bear Lake’s naturalist, but just another campfire night. “Second thoughts about leaving?”
Carter shook his head. “No.” He’d applied for and gotten the job with the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change. But civil service jobs involved a lot of hurry-up-and-wait to start with, and he had things to wrap up at the park too. He didn’t want to leave them without a naturalist in high tourist season.
Jeff would have bet his next royalty check he just didn’t want to give up campfire nights. He was pretty sure they were going to end up attending those anyway.
“I’ll miss it,” he said now, “but… I’m not actually going anywhere. I’ll still have data to track in the park.” That had been one of the things he’d asked about before he accepted the offer. “I don’t even have to move my office. I don’t know how they pulled that off.”
Jeff didn’t pretend to understand the complexities of federal vs. provincial jurisdictions when it came to parks or politics. The very notion of attempting to understand it gave him a headache. But he felt certain Carter was discounting a very plausible scenario. “Maybe they just like you.”
Laughing, Carter finally reached for the door. “Yeah, maybe. Come on. I guess we’d better go.”
He even grabbed Jeff’s guitar out of the back seat for him. He was a gentleman like that.
The campfire had already started by the time they reached the amphitheater. Kids and adults, friends and family and park guests, gathered on the benches, chatting among themselves. A banner that hung between two trees—doubtless made of recycled paper—read Congratulations, Smokey. Someone had taped on a picture of Carter in his park naturalist uniform, doubtless from one of his YouTube clips.
Jeff was kind of hoping they’d let him keep the uniform.
Kara spotted them first and shouted, “There they are! I knew they’d be late!”
Max turned around with an enormous camera—a hobby he’d taken up since his stint in rehab. “Smile, losers!”
With all the kids around, Jeff had to quell the impulse to flip him the bird. He stuck his tongue out instead.
Carter turned to Jeff, half smiling. “Your work, I presume.”
Jeff grinned. “My idea. I delegated the actual work.”
Trix brought them drinks and executed a silly curtsy as she passed them over. “I see the honeymoon period continues.”
Jeff accepted the drink. “I can neither confirm nor deny.” He looked around. “Did Joe and Sarah make it?”
“Yeah, but she had to pee again, and you know how Joe hovers. He’s probably, like, holding her purse.” She smiled. “Have you seen her lately? She looks like someone shoved a basketball up her shirt. It’s adorable.”
Not since they finished recording the final cut of the album the month before. Frankly Jeff was just glad she’d finally been able to keep some weight on. “It’ll be good to catch up with them.”
He’d just spotted them emerging from the restrooms when Kara turned on the mic. “If I can have everyone’s attention,” she said. A smattering of whistles answered. “Thank you. We’re here tonight to say so long to one of the park’s best. He’s not going anywhere; we just like to have parties.”
“Anyway,” she went on—behind her, Joe kissed Sarah’s cheek and Sarah went to sit in the first row of seating, where Carter’s mom had reserved her a spot—“I don’t know if you know this, but Carter’s got this connection to a semi local band. I’ve personally never heard of them—”
“Boo,” Trix said, but she, like Joe and Max, was maneuvering to the side of the amphitheater.
That was Jeff’s cue. He turned to Carter and held out his hands for the guitar case.
“You just can’t resist a captive audience.”
Jeff couldn’t pass up a chance to play for him. “You know me.” He leaned in for a quick kiss. “Go take a seat. Maybe see if Jeri has the s’mores up yet.”
Carter rolled his eyes. “Yes, dear.”
A man Jeff assumed to be one of the park guests must have overheard, because he badly disguised a laugh as a cough.
Half a minute later, Jeff had the Seagull slung over his shoulder, tuned and ready to go.
“Hi, everybody,” Max said. “Thank you all for coming.”
Jeff took a deep breath; it smelled like pine. If he concentrated, he could just hear the crashing waves of the Sound.
Joe took over. “We’re not going to introduce ourselves because tonight isn’t about us.”
“It’s about this guy Jeff knew in high school. He saved our band the same way he’s trying to save the environment.” Trix tapped out a quick rat-tat-tat. “He won’t even pollute the air with swear words.”
“That’s not true!” Brady shouted from somewhere near the back.
Jeff grinned and winked at Ella, who had pulled Carter to sit down on her other side. “Carter loves campfire night,” he said. Carter’s pink cheeks told him he understood the subtext. “So I thought we’d have his favorite band play his favorite song.”
But when he locked eyes with Max and played the iconic opening riff of “The Difference,” Carter stopped him. “Jeff,” he complained. “Come on.”
God, Carter was such a sap. But, fine. It was his party. Jeff muted the strings and glanced at Max, then Joe. “Have it your way,” he said, ignoring the heat in his own cheeks. The second Carter had heard that song, he’d claimed it as his new favorite.
It wasn’t that Jeff didn’t know that. It was just that most of the world hadn’t heard it yet.
Well, never mind. The single would release tomorrow anyway. Jeff leaned into the mic and shook his head at Carter, but he wasn’t upset.
Carter loved this song because it was the first one Jeff had written about himself. “This song is called ‘Little Fish.’”
WILLOW SOUND GAZETTE
Local Artist Sweeps Grammy Awards
By Avery Cho
LAST NIGHT was an exciting night for fans of Canadian music. At the Grammy Awards in Los Angeles, pop-rock phenomenon Howl took home the first Grammy Award of their career.
And their second.
And their third.
Frontman Jeff Pine, thirty-one, accepted the first award for Best Rock Album. “We truly could not have done this without the support from our families and our fans,” he said. “This is for you.”
Last autumn, a local landmark, Rhodes’s Garage, was used as a filming location for one of the album’s music videos.
Pine and his partner, Carter Rhodes, live in Willow Sound.