It was another late night engineering at Jack Antonoff's studio. He had been pulling double and triple shifts while working on multiple records simultaneously. Jack was usually working on songwriting and production with the artists, and he brought me in the help with overdubs and mix issues, the minor stuff he didn't need to personally attend to.
I kept it professional, but it was hard to not stop and pinch myself sometimes. I was essentially a nobody in the industry, yet I was being given a tremendous opportunity, if only to be able to say I worked with these artists. Jack always had a million things lined up, and new secret projects to work on, so I never knew exactly what I would be doing.
The entire previous week I had been helping out on the Lorde album, but today Taylor Swift had taken over. I don't know how Jack kept all these balls in the air, but good for him, he must have made a killing.
Taylor was in the booth trying to track harmonies to a mostly finished song, and Lorde was in the control room with me, hanging out and trying to finish some of her own lyrics. She preferred to be called Ella, but it was hard for me not to just think of her by her stage name.
Ella was very polite, giving advice and feedback, but not being overbearing. I was glad to have her there, I know my shit, but it can be a little intimidating to direct an artist like Taylor.
We had been at it for hours and hours, with multiple breaks for tea and rest, but I was still getting fatigued. At a certain point your ears get tired, and you start to get sloppy.
Taylor was showing no signs of tiring, both her and Ella are night owls, and I was trying to think of a way to politely bring up the subject when I heard the studio door click open.
"Sup sluts," chirped Annie Clark as she walked in. The mic in the control room wasn't on, so I don't think Taylor heard, but she came in when she saw her through the glass.
I hadn't had the chance to work with Annie yet, Jack had been spending more time with her. I was a little jealous, I bet her record would be much more interesting.
"Are you finished for the day? I wanted to ask Jack a few things," Ella directed at Annie as Taylor walked in.
"He had to bail, doing some preventive maintenance with Lena," explained Annie, as she did the universal hand gesture for sex, sliding her finger in and out.
Taylor laughed, and Ella blushed a little bit. Annie is a confident, magnetic being, it takes something special to walk into a room with two pop stars and just take command.
Taylor had me play back some of the takes for Annie, she wanted her feedback as well. In those moments I feel like a robot, just pushing buttons to play back what they want to hear, but getting insight into how their musical thought processes was definitely worth it. I was beyond tired, but at least now I was mostly just relaxing as they listened and critiqued.
Ella yawned from the couch, and Annie noticed. Without a word, she got up and left the control room. She reappeared moments later with a few beers, and to my surprise she brought me one too. I had no intention of getting drunk, I still had to drive home that night, but I wasn't about to ruin their party.
Without the boss there to tell me to go home, I felt like I was fine to just hang out until the girls got sick of me. They talked about music, production, and Jack, but eventually the conversation strayed to their personal lives.
They had each gone through rough breakups in the recent past, and it seemed like it was influencing their songwriting. I had signed about a million NDAs, so I guess they felt relatively comfortable around me. I was polite and stayed mostly quiet as they sympathized with each other, even after a few beers, when Annie made a joke that woke me up.
"I guess since men only really think with their cocks, that's all we can depend on them for," she turned to me with a grin. I was used to her sense of humor by now, but she seemed to like showing off in front of Taylor and Ella, and I wasn't sure how far I could push back without getting fired.
"My dick is definitely dependable, but I like to think my ears are pretty good too," I deflected, trying to play it safe.
"Dependable? That's how you describe your cock? You're such a nerd," continued Annie, obviously trying to make me uncomfortable.
"Leave him alone," interjected Taylor, "his dependable dick doesn't deserve this treatment."
This got a laugh from all of us, but Ella seemed more quiet than usual.
Annie got up to get more beer, and returned as I finished shutting down the board.
"So what's your love life like, Mr. Dependable?" Annie pressed on.
"If you want to talk to Mr. Dependable, you'll need to get on your knees," I shot back, before taking a light slap from Annie.
"Really though, you heard about our baggage, it's only fair," added Taylor.
"You don't have to tell us, don't worry about them," Ella interjected, but I wasn't too concerned.
"Actually, I haven't had a real relationship in a long time, I haven't even gotten laid in over a month, Jack keeps calling me in for this late night stuff, not that I'm complaining," I put it out there, feeling a little loose from the beer I guess.
"A MONTH? Fuck, dude, I couldn't last a week," Annie set down her beer as she leaned forward in her chair.
"Yeah, it's been pretty tough, but it's great for my resume, haha," Taylor smiled as I again tried to deflect.
"But what about your dick's resume? Pushing buttons for Lorde doesn't add any length to that," Annie pressed, while trying to bring Ella into the conversation.
"I'm confident in my length, thank you very much," I shot right back, now pretty much fully comfortable around them.
"Take it out then, Mr. Confident," she teased.
"Don't be such a slut, Annie," said Ella, laughing, but Annie kept her eyes locked on me.
I started to get hard as we held the gaze, I couldn't help myself.
"I'll be what I want," Annie said without looking at her, "and if you work for Jack, and Jack works for me, you have to do what I say," she continued to me.
Now, I am a pretty confident guy, but in that situation anyone would second guess themselves. I didn't want to end up on the sex offender list, but I wasn't about to shut it down either.
"Following that logic, I'm actually on Taylor's time right now," I replied, trying to keep it as open and ambiguous as possible.
We both turned to her, and she waited a beat before responding.
"Fuck it, let's see it then," decided Taylor. I was a little surprised, but the energy in the room was still playful so I wasn't panicking.
"What the fuck, you guys-" started Ella, but Annie cut her off.
"Don't be such a nerd," she spat, "LORDE," she added with fake malice.
"I want to see if he does it, normally the guys I'm around try to take it out as soon as they can," added Taylor.
