Don’t be foolish. I didn’t kill Charly, this isn’t an elaborate ruse so I can unburden myself and feel safe from the consequences. I’m not a murderer, Chris, I’m just an enabler. I put the gun in her hand but I didn’t pull the trigger.
That doesn’t mean anything. Tell me what happened.
Fine, sit. We’ll finish. He motioned to a spot beside him on the couch, but I sat in the leather desk chair instead. I’d rather you were civil. You don’t have to be so angry at me.
Just talk. About that night. I don’t care for any of your opinions. Let’s try for facts.
Fine. I didn’t take her life, but I didn’t save it either. That night she was upset, I’d told her I wanted to get back into music. That happened occasionally, feeling like I was missing something, going through a phase of regret, like I was turning my back on a gift I’d been given. Those periods never lasted, she knew that, I always came back around.
What do you mean you came back around?
I’d always return to the spot where she wanted me. Charly didn’t like me on the road; she knew what music meant to me and everything it brought into my life, but she thought her and I together could be more than it. Most days I agreed, I was willing to let it all go and grow old with her. But not that night. That night wasn’t one of those times, it was the opposite, a manic evening in which I thought I needed to get back out there and share my talents with my fans. I couldn’t just walk away from it forever. I felt remorse from time to time. Earlier that day I’d gotten an email from Murphy asking if I might want to toss some songs around again. He was finally at a point in his career where he didn’t need to do work he didn’t want to do. Just passion projects, and the first thing he thought of was working with me. I started to consider another album, and I never kept anything from Charly so I mentioned it. It didn’t sit well, she thought it meant I wasn’t satisfied with her. We fought, we talked about it, we even put it away for a while and had dinner, watched a movie. It was almost a normal night, but something about her was off the whole time. I should’ve let it go, she might still be here if I’d just left it, gone to sleep and woken up the next day with a new mindset. But I’d been drinking heavily and I brought it up before bed. She told me that if I lost myself in my work again, the way she knew I used to, we’d drift apart. I would forget her, or she would grow unhappy and then start fighting for my attention and she wouldn’t win over music. I told her those were baseless fears, but she kept going on and on. I yelled, asked her to stop, said I wouldn’t tour and just release music, but that wasn’t good enough. I couldn’t calm her down, and I remember telling her we’d talk about it in the morning. I went to bed that night with her next to me, and I remember trying to stay awake until her breath slowed so I knew she was asleep. Charly was fervent, a hurricane of life; she would work herself up but always peter out at the end, and return to calm. I knew the next day things would be okay. Unfortunately I was too drunk and drifted off before I knew she was safe asleep. In the middle of the night I woke up, I think because I was alone in the bed. Her bottle of sleeping pills was on the table next to her side, I remember noticing the cap was off. I searched all over for her. I checked everywhere, and then finally went outside. Maybe I knew she was out there and avoided it as long as I could. It was the last place I looked, but it’s where I found he. In the pool. I don’t know what she was doing, maybe trying to relax. I called an ambulance, Oscar and I didn’t know CPR. We tried, but she didn’t make it. She was gone when they arrived.
I’m sorry you had to live through that.
That almost sounded genuine.
It doesn’t give you the right to fuck with my life.
What happened with Heather and what happened to Charly aren’t connected. This isn’t an article you’re writing where everything fits together like pieces of a puzzle.
Everything you do comes from something you did before or was done to you. That’s how life works. It’s linear. All the pieces have adjoining edges.
You’re trying too hard.
Charly’s death is why you don’t drink anymore.
Darin nodded and relaxed into the sofa.
Okay, I’ll give you that one. Did you figure that out yourself, or did Heather tell you?
She told me to ask about your sister’s wedding.
We already covered that.
You gave me broad brushstrokes, I want details.
I could tell you, but that I cannot let you publish.
I don’t want to write about it.
So why do you want to know? What makes you have to know everything?
You forced your way into my life when you sent Heather after me. You crossed a line, and I’m curious what makes you so twisted. Was it seeing your father with another woman?
His face grew hard, the pieces falling into place behind his glassy eyes. Leave my parents out of this.
I can’t believe she told you. Naughty girl.
Did you mistrust men forever more?
We’re not to be trusted.
Because one man hurt the first woman you loved.
Freud is back. Good to see you again, Sigmund.
Did you get your sister’s fiancé to cheat as well?
Now you’re on to something.
You set him up? Find a blonde to come on to him, one who would casually lick her lips during conversation and act interested?
A redhead, actually.
Did you have pictures taken? Show them to her the weekend she got married?
That’s all too simple. That’s been done. I took it a step further. I proved to her that no one is ever truly committed. That we all have our faults, whether drugs or drink or rock and roll.
Why?
Because she let that asshole drive a wedge between us. I tried to tell her she shouldn’t turn her back on me, she shouldn’t listen to his lies about my lifestyle because no one person would ever stand by her like her family. I had a point to make, using a lovely girl to entangle her fiancé. One last sendoff before marriage, a secret liaison the night before the big day. She provided compelling reasons and told him where to be and when. My sister was presented with a similar offer, by my bassist. Same hotel room, same time. Two fiancés show up, each expecting to find one thing but find each other. Suddenly there are questions that need answers. Of course Doris says she had no intention of going through with it, to be polite she simply wanted to let Cory know his offer was flattering but unnecessary. It would be nice to believe.
You want everyone to be your father. So you can acquit him of what he did? Would it help you to know that everyone cheats?
It only makes me terribly sad, to be honest.
Why?
I don’t know why people do it. Curiosity? Total lack of respect for another human being? You tell me.
I looked around. Hiding in a cave beneath the ground, surrounded by his toys, Darin Caldwell saw the world through a sad, depressing lens, unable to look at it in any other way.
You’ve already decided how the world is, and you bend it to fit your view.
We all bend the world to fit our view. Mine is well liked. Millions of people sing along to my view.
They wouldn’t if they knew what you were really thinking. It makes me wonder if any of your lyrics are honest.
They’re all honest, Chris. Don’t be a discouraged fan. You’ve seen behind the curtain and now you’re unhappy with the wizard. Stop that. I write honest songs, I just don’t write songs about all the things I honestly feel. Some of it gets held back. We all filter. You wish your girlfriend would let you work instead of needing you to call her while you’re on a very time-sensitive assignment, but you don’t tell her that. You betray your true feelings as much as anyone.
How do you write lyrics? Do you write honest lines and then edit them into something you think people will like?
We don’t have to, I’ll just go.
I s
tood to leave, knowing Darin was too satisfied with himself to let me leave.
No, no, sit down. I’ll answer your question. Between you and me it’s not always easy coming up with lyrics, and it’s getting more difficult as time goes by. I have to search for things to write about now, you know, I’m inventing stories just to fill in a song. The music is now the easy part.
The music used to be the hard part?
It was never hard, but now I have more ideas for what I want to do. I’ve picked up tricks over the years. I understand composition better than I did when I was eighteen, obviously, and they say your creativity dwindles as you get older, but my growing understanding of music is outpacing the rate at which my creativity is receding. There are a hundred things I want to try musically, but now it’s filling in the fucking words that I struggle with. And those used to flow like water, Chris. See, even that’s a cliché. I write in clichés most of the time, I have to do a lot of self-editing.
Were your previous works all autobiographical? You never created stories?
They were all about me. I’m a narcissist, obviously. But the struggle is not finding topics, I’m constantly thinking about my life and trying to interpret it, trying to put meaning behind the little decisions I make each day. Would I be happier if I ate more instead of starving myself to be rockstar-thin? Does my constant hunger affect my mood? Or is that flammable mood nixed by the fact that I feel better about myself and it helps me get laid? Why does being skinny make me feel better about myself? Do I really want to be this way, or am I a poser? If this isn’t how I naturally am, then I’m just playing a role, and I hate people who do that. That’s all from this moment right here, I’ve got loads of stuff to write about. But you can’t lay down your thoughts in melody without some, well, some lyricism. That’s where I struggle now.
So now you make up stories.
They help insofar as I feel it frees me to create turns of phrase, poetry, because it puts distance between me and the narrator. Darin placed one hand a few inches from his chest and the other out at arm’s length. And for whatever reason, that distance now helps me write.
Is this all true?
It is. But you’re going to write that I have notebooks upon notebooks filled with lyrics. Whole stacks of ‘em. Say you found them strewn throughout the house, on random tables and chairs.
I’m not writing that. I haven’t seen any notebooks.
Of course not, I’d never leave lyric ideas sitting around the house. I don’t even want Oscar looking at those thoughts before I’ve vetted them, and there’s little I’ve hidden from him over the years.
The truth is more interesting.
More interesting to you. Because you’re after the truth, you like to find the vulnerability of the artist you’re interviewing. That’s your thing, don’t bother trying to persuade me it’s not. It’s how you got your reputation, it’s the foundation on which you built your career. You take people who are famously famous, cut them open, pin back the skin and let people see the mechanics inside. You don’t just get behind the walls, once there you deliver the goods. Because of those credentials, I’ll come across as all the more genuine and impressive when you write about me. I’m going to be a musician plowing ahead at the top of his game, eager to reemerge at full steam. And coming from you, it will really mean something. Do you understand yet what this is all about?
I don’t seem to know what any of this is about.
Image. Darin stood, excited, and slapped the back of one hand into the palm of the other to emphasize his words. The perception becomes the truth. You tell people I’m a prolific lyricist with an abundance of ideas, in notebooks strewn throughout a mansion, and that’s what I’ll be to tens of millions of people all over the world. It won’t matter that I get three good lyric ideas a week. What matters is that when the final product comes out, the song, people will think they’re hearing the best of hundreds of ideas. And the songs will sound that much better because of it. What would’ve sounded great now sounds like the golden apples plucked from the tree of creativity.
You’re right, you don’t have a way with words anymore.
That’s it. He patted me on the back. Get it out. Good to have you here. You’ve been very reserved this whole time. Can I get you a drink now?
I’d rather get to the airport. I’m done here. I’ll call you from New York to discuss what happens next.
Not necessary, I can tell you right now. We’re going to move ahead like last night never happened. Send me the first couple chapters when you have them, I’d like to see the book out in tandem with my next album. I do believe there will be three in all. If you dissect me in an unfavorable way, I’ll make a call of my own. Do we understand each other?
You’re crazy.
Not crazy, just passionate. Do you know why artists say they’re willing to die for their art?
Because they’re insane?
Because it’s true. To produce something that’s so painstaking to craft, you better be passionate enough about it you’re willing to starve. Otherwise you’ll give up when it gets tough. I care about what I do. If I was broke and living in a shitty flat, ala La bohème, I’d still do this, and I’d do it even if it meant not working and not having money to buy food. I would starve before I stopped.
Goodbye.
You’ll learn from this, Chris. Life is a journey. I find it’s best to travel with an empty suitcase. Darin opened his arms wide for a hug. I held out my hand to shake, and we stood, looking at each other. He tilted his head, raised an eyebrow in expectation and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly. He looked like a puppet, hanging from strings. I shook my head and turned away.
He followed me in silence up the stairs and down the hall to the front door. I searched for something to say, struggling to decide if I should voice the contempt and anger that had been building up since the morning’s revelation, or if that would have no purpose. I remembered hearing someone once say that the person who gets angry and shows it looks foolish to everyone but himself. I exhaled slowly, grabbed the handle on the door and pulled.
Safe trip back.
I checked my temper once more and had a thought. Turning back to him, I steadied my voice so the words came out in an even tone. One thing, just for my own curiosity. What do you have on Oscar? To manipulate him, and retain his silence?
Nothing. He was brought up in the house of the Queen of England. You think he doesn’t know how to keep a secret? He knows the rules of the game.
My phone beeped to indicate a voicemail. I held up a hand to Darin as I began to listen, dreading an automated message telling me my flight had been cancelled. Instead, it was Cliff. For over two and a half minutes he shed light on past events, and when he was done, so was I.
You’re a fool, Darin. A fool with false assumptions. You built a kingdom on sand.
Did I?
Yes. Goodbye.
Travel well.
Click.
Manufacturing the Pearl
48 hours with Darin Caldwell
Christopher Price
Darin Caldwell thinks about money a lot. He doesn’t need to, and he thinks about it differently than, say, the people who purchase tickets to his shows. It’s not that he’s concerned by it, or worried about it, rather, Caldwell thinks about the effect his substantial wealth is having on his life. These thoughts don’t stop him from spending it (on renting out a racetrack for Sunday joyriding, by buying Steinway pianos for those who played a role in his meteoric rise to prominence, by putting up this journalist in the penthouse of one of the most expensive hotels in London). He does these things with little regard to his bank statement, but he still thinks about money a lot. And that’s because, as Caldwell told me on the first of two days we spent talking about his life, “I think about everything a lot.”
It should hardly be surprising that the (arguably) biggest pop star of his generation is contemplative. As much as we all enjoy the idea of the songwriter as a vehicle of spontaneous, divine messa
ging, we should want a heavy dose of craftsmanship from our musicians. We should want the songs to sound like they have been pushed and pulled in multiple directions, experimented with, the lyrics rolled around the mouth until everything is just right. Allen Ginsberg subscribed to the principle of, “First thought, best thought,” which may be fine for Beat poetry, but a pop song needs the fat trimmed away. Caldwell understands this. He ponders it. And while he allows inspiration to provide the outline of a song, his work ethic then makes it a Darin Caldwell track.
He doesn’t do it alone. The first ninety percent is him, all him, from the guitar and bass to the drums, piano and synthesizer. Over the years he’s gone from passable on those instruments to highly proficient, thanks in no small part to his home studio. Built underneath Mainshead Manor, the country estate outside of London Caldwell purchased nearly four years ago, the studio is to Caldwell what an office is to any white collar worker. That is, unsurprisingly, by design. “I needed to feel like I was going someplace else when I worked,” he told me, after we’d descended twenty feet underground by way of a steep, spiral staircase. “People who have day jobs complain about commuting to work every day, having to leave home to go to the office, but I needed to create that for myself.” In the basement studio he has everything he needs to write, record and produce songs. It is always accessible, never an inconvenient drive away, and only his.
The last ten percent of the magic comes by way of his longtime producer and collaborator Murphy O’Neill. O’Neill, who discovered Caldwell at age seventeen in a Grand Rapids bar near the teen’s home, has had a significant impact on the career of the young star. To hear Caldwell speak about O’Neill, one gets the sense it’s almost a father-and-son relationship, though one has to try to look past the fact that the son is a precocious international musician, the father has helped shape nine billboard chart toppers, and the two get drunk together while mastering records. I never met O’Neill during my stay in England – he lives in the United States and communicates with Caldwell via email and file exchange until the songs are far enough along to justify O’Neill’s visit – but his presence, guided and perhaps at times misguided, is strong in Caldwell’s life. Not only is O’Neill the final signoff on all songs, but he’s also played an important role in the trajectory of Caldwell’s career. He signed him, he counsels him on press appearances, he plots future moves. O’Neill, a former Arts & Repertoire man for Warner Music Group, is savvy in the ways the music industry functions. Though Caldwell himself has been responsible for some terrific maneuvers (the 1080 Tour, the three album releases planned over the next year and a half) it is the expertise of the elder O’Neill that prevented Caldwell from disappearing completely from the public conscience during the musician’s three-year hiatus.