Fast Lane - Kristen Ashley Page 0,46

Lyla as McCade’s and The Clinch had been published. By the time that song was released, Lyla was becoming known and stories about her were circulating relatively widely.

[Interviewer’s Note]

The Clinch is how the photograph is known of McCade and Lyla taken during a Roadmasters sound check at the Salt Lake City gig when they were opening for Bobby Sheridan and the Mustangs.

A reporter from String magazine was there with a photographer ostensibly to do a story on Sheridan, but mostly to get a closer look at what was happening between the Mustangs and the Roadmasters.

This last was never directly shared with the Mustangs or the Roadmasters, and as far as the Roadmasters knew, String was not there with any interest in them at all.

The photo, now so famous as to be synonymous with the pair, depicts McCade and Lyla embracing onstage behind his mic. His guitar is at a slant at his back. Her arms are around his neck. Her body is arched to his. And both of his hands are cupping her buttocks.

The kiss is blatantly sensual, McCade’s head at a slant all but hiding Lyla’s face, but their opened mouths, the placement of his hands, the line of her body and her fingers in his hair paint a stirring picture.

None of the band knew a photographer was at their sound check, the photograph was published without knowledge or consent from McCade or Lyla, and the article it ran with included the first mention of Lyla as muse to McCade and the Roadmasters.

It is common knowledge Preacher McCade flew into a fury when this photograph was published, and as such, to this day, McCade nor any of the Roadmasters have ever allowed an interview with String magazine and that publication is banned from their press conferences.

Not long after its publication, however, both the photographer and reporter were terminated from the magazine and both contend their terminations were the machinations of Tom Mancosa.

Jesse:

Yeah, precisely. That’s what I’m sayin’.

The Clinch came out and that was where the band was at.

We did not make a decision for those albums, discussing if we wanted to try to fake it, go back to where we were and try to feed lies to our fans because we think that’s what they wanna hear.

We did what we’d always done.

We stayed true to ourselves, worked with what was genuinely inspiring us and wrote the best music we knew how.

Which is what any true artist will do.

Okay, so all this is happening, we get it, but straight up, I wanna sleep in the same bed for more than a night and when I do, I don’t wanna have to haul myself out of it to pitch up at the studio.

Preach has got three months that’s nothing but Lyla.

We all want a break.

The label pushes.

We pull.

We get pissed so Tom gets pissed.

We’d only signed with our first label to do one album. We were in negotiations for the second.

This is happening, Tommy shops us around on the sly.

Gets us a deal that blows our goddamn minds.

Problem is, the new label also wants us in the studio, pronto.

Tommy asks for a month, and demands, when we get down to recording, that we work with Daniel and Hans.

He gets all that.

Everything he wants.

Everything he asks for, for the band.

And thank fuck, he gets that for us, and in the end, we delivered.

He then rents us a house on a hill off the 101 down from Pasadena.

It’s got four bedrooms, a pool, a big kitchen, a pool house, which Shawn claims, a mother-in-law apartment over the garage, which Dave got, Lyla’s already in town, but before she showed, she’d mailed two boxes of clothes and shoes.

And there it begins.

The best of times.

Which, you know, always are what happens before you slam right up against the worst of times.

Lyla:

I loved that house.

[Smiles softly]

Preacher made love to me for the first time in that house.

[Interviewer’s note]

At this point, the door that leads to the rest of the cabin that has been closed throughout our session opens and a young man walks in, followed by a gray cat with dense fur and a round face.

The recorder is still on.

“Outta here, Mom,” he says.

Lyla tips her head back as he bends down to kiss her cheek.

“You taking the truck?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he answers.

The cat has jumped up to the daybed and is stalking the many pillows when Lyla orders, “Close the door, honey.”

“Right,” he says.

He walks back to close the door he came through and he