Stop! Guys, take a break. And when you get back here, you’d better sing this goddamn song with some actual feeling, or I’m going to throw a brick through this fucking window.” Cooper was running the recording session, and it hadn’t gone well at all. We had come to an agreement with Chad a few days after the meeting – or at least, The UnAmused had. My arrangement with him had been scribbled on a cocktail napkin and reluctantly signed. I hadn’t budged on any of my terms. So here we were, for the third day in a row, trying to nail the same emotional punch for the duet that we had the first two times we’d sung it. We were eating up precious studio time, and Cooper was beyond angry. He had an album’s worth of material he wanted to record, and none of it was getting done unless Jay and I cooperated. It wasn’t like I was doing it on purpose. I felt like the moment had already happened. The magic was there between us for a second, and now it was gone.
