Page 80 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

“The first time I met him,” Devin said. “He was like,hey, man, we need to hang out and work on some music, so we went back to his place. It was just a mattress on the floor and all these incense burners, and I was like, dude, you live like a Buddhist monk. We got high and jammed for hours. Then he got all deep and shit, started talking about the meaning of life and all this spiritual stuff. It was cool. I don’t have any guy friends who talk about that shit so openly.”

“He’s big on feeeeelings,” Eddie said.

We all laughed.

When Gabriel finished his set, he walked over to a man in a suit and shook his hand. He’d made his decision. He was going for a major record label. Not the highest bidder but the one that had promised him full creative control.

The following week, Gabriel came home with a big, fat contract in his hand. He looked scared, but excited too.

Three albums. One million dollars.

It sounded like a lot of money until Gabriel explained that the advance was ten percent of that, and it was basically a loan that had to be repaid from future royalties.

When he got the check, he deposited the money in his account and said he wasn’t going to touch it.

Gabriel didn’t care about the money. He wanted to make a perfect album and he wanted to surround himself with people he could trust.

There was only one person he trusted to be his manager. Sean. He knew the music industry and had managed bands in the past, so after some cajoling, Sean agreed.

Then he recruited a backing band. Even though he was signed as a solo artist, he wanted to go into the studio and on tour with a band so he, Devin, and Eddie auditioned bassists and chose Tyler, the calm to their chaos.

Tyler didn’t talk much but Gabriel said he had a strong intuition and was able to adapt quickly to changes. Which was essential. Gabriel was constantly changing up the lyrics and melodies.

When they went into the studio to record the album, Gabriel worked eighteen-hour days and drove everyone nuts with his perfectionism.

But in the end, the album was very nearly perfect.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

April1994

Timing is everything.

Gabriel’s debut album dropped on Friday, April 8th, the very same day Kurt Cobain was found dead in his home in Seattle.

I mourned Kurt Cobain’s death just like everyone else. I spent the evening watching MTV and crying over the replays of his Unplugged performance.

To make matters worse, I had no way to reach Gabriel. He was already on the road, touring the US to promote his album, and I was gripped with this fear that he was never coming back.

As soon as he called me late that night from Chicago, I said, “You’re not allowed to die. Promise me that you won’t. Promise me you’ll live to a hundred and one, Gabriel.”

“No one has control overwhenthey die.”

I argued that Kurt Cobain had total control. He’d taken his own life.

“Yeah, but we don’t know what he was going through,” he said. “And for all I know, I could get hit by a truck tomorrow and it’s lights out.”

“Just stay alive until I see you again,” I snapped. “Can you promise me that, at least?”

“I’m seeing you in two weeks. I’ll do my best not to OD on heroin and blow out my brains.” He thought it was funny.

“I’m hanging up,” I said. He was still laughing.

“No, wait. I need to tell you something.”

I didn’t really want to hang up on Gabriel. I hated going to sleep without hearing his voice, so I stayed on the line.

“I was up on the stage playing a Kurt Cobain song as a tribute, ‘Something in the Way.’ And this wave of sadness washed over me,” he said. “I didn’t even know the guy but I was having a hard time making sense of it all. I wanted to see what he’d do next, which direction he’d take his music. But he was gone. He didn’t want to be here so now he’s not. And I was just thinking, what’s the fucking point of it all?”