OK, I hadn't planned on making this one public yet (and I wasn't the actual engineer or producer in this story, it just happened here at Compass Point), but there are getting to be some really good ones, so here goes:
[Many names in this story will be left out...]
We had an artist from a European country in here recording for a major label, and they had hired some very famous musicians to play for them. Involved directly were:
•The Producer--a very nice guy, also from Europe; had a lot of experience with "strange sessions" already (one of those is another great story).
•The Engineer--another nice guy, from the US, who had brought his girl friend here with him.
•The A & R guy--a real, tough, no-nonsense kind of person, from the same European country.
•The Keyboard Player--a very well known personage, not from Europe or the US, who had been "in trouble" before.
•Me--in this case, providing our studio space and equipment, and doing some catch-up office work while the session was going on.
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The Artist, Producer, and A&R guy thought that the Drummer for the session was going to actually play the drums. This, they expected, would be at the same time as the Bass player, Keyboard player, and Guitarist were also playing..."jamming," so to speak, the way music is often recorded. But they were all surprised when the Drummer stated that he wasn't going to actually play, but rather program his drum parts, on an MPC-3k. No one was in a position to argue with this, because of his history and reputation, so the programming started. For about three or four days, the drummer sat in our lounge with headphones, demos, and his gear, and got the tracks ready. Of course, this meant that the other musicians had nothing to do for this time period. That was fine, as it relates to the Bass player and Guitarist, but it ended up causing a slight problem as it relates to the Keyboardist......
Unbeknownst to all of the rest of us, this guy had holed up in his apartment up the hill with a big stash of crack cocaine that he had gone out and found somewhere. Also unknown was the fact that he had also brought a girl with him. This girl was an actual princess from the Royal Family of the European country that she was from. In order to prove to her family that she had a mind of her own, she had shacked up with this much older musician, and travelled halfway across the world with him to a recording session....I guess that showed them! These two stayed up in their apartment for the three or four days, and no one else ever saw either of them. What we didn't realise at the time was
A) That she was there at all, and
B) Keyboard guy had gotten very high, and beaten the absolute bloody **** out of her. We didn't know that she was laying on the floor of the apartment, beaten and bloody, and unable to even move.
But, back to the session...
Finally, the drums were ready for everybody else to play to. A call went out to the musicians. The famous Bass player came right down from his apartment, and the Guitarist did the same. But no Keyboard player. Phone calls made to his apartment were met with a gruff, "I can't come now." Well, Mr. A & R guy was not pleased. Producer was not happy, but was ready to give our guy the benefit of the doubt. He went up to see him. Keyboard came to the door, standing in the way of any view inside, and mumbled something about being down when he was good and ready to play. Producer returned with the news, which was not met with much glee on the part of A & R.
So A & R went up...similar results. Anger and resentment were building fast; something had to be done. A & R wasn't about to accept this, so he phoned Keyboard with an ultimatum: "Come to play immediately, or be replaced immediately."
Well, Keyboard did finally come down...but it would have been a better night had he not! The first person he saw when he came in the door was our trusty Engineer, sitting in our smaller TV lounge with his girl friend, talking, and waiting to work. Keyboard immediately started yelling that Engineer had been looking at his (Keyboard's) girl friend in a lascivious way...but of course, nobody even knew Keyboard HAD a girl with him! He was quite out of his mind from drugs by this time; Engineer denied it, of course.
I was just coming down the hall towards the lounge from one direction, while A & R was converging from the opposite direction. A & R heard the commotion, and started yelling at Keyboard that he was going to be fired if he didn't get in the studio and start playing...but he didn't know that Keyboard had grabbed a pair of scissors from our front desk as he had passed it. Keyboard lunged at A & R, trying to stab him in the groin; he just missed, however, and stabbed the aluminium facing of the lounge door instead. Madness ensued...bodies were rolling across the floor, the now-broken scissors were bandied about, the engineer's girlfriend was screaming and trying to get out of the door...what to do? I had no choice but to jump into the situation; I grabbed Key's scissors hand, and restrained it from further stabbing, while A & R tried to hold him down. Key was like a wounded bear, however, and it took all three, then four of us (as Producer entered the fray) to hold him.
A & R was totally furious; I don't think I've ever seen anyone so mad. He insisted on physically throwing Keyboard out the front door, with the admonition tthat he would never work again. This at least calmed the situation inside the building down a bit; we were all upset, but at least Keyboard was gone...or so we thought.
The session was called for the night...no one was now in the mood for music making. After an involved discussion about whom to get in, as quickly as possible, to replace Keyboard, Producer and A & R decided to go back to their hotel. They were staying at The Compass Point Resort, just about a hundred yards from our door, across the street. As they walked, still somewhat shaken, past the hotel's parking lot however, they got another big surprise. It seems that Keyboard had procured a vehicle (we later found out that he had a 29 year old son on the island, begat from a session-related liason years earlier!) from his local son. He came tearing across the parking lot, driving at full speed, and attempted to run over both Procucer and A & R! They were jumping over cars, running behind trees...it looked just like a movie scene! He squaled about the car park for a while, hitting other cars and the trees. When Producer and A & R could make it, they ran across the street and into the hotel; but Keyboard wasn't finished. He jumped from his car, amd ran after them, pushing past security, and into the lobby. Producer dove over the front desk, into a small office behind it; Keyboard dove after him, but instead grabbed the hotel's computer monitor, and threw it across the room, smashing it into a million pieces. He threw papers, brochures, money from the cash register, anything he could get, everywhere. Security finally caught up with the situation however, and were able to restrain the guy. The police were called, but before they arrived, Keyboard had pulled loose, escaped, and he drove away at breakneck speed in his vehicle. We never saw him again.
However, we did find his girlfriend, still passed out on the apartment floor. She was pitiful...hurt, no money, not sure of what to do or where to go. We had to loan her some money, and get her a plane flight out of there, after a short first aid and recovery period, of course.
We did get a replacement player in only a day later, though. This was another very famous name I shouldn't tell...but when we told him the story, he replied, "Of yeah, I replaced him on a session because of a similar incident about ten years ago!"
Terry