So there's this great 24 hour restaurant on Fairfax here in L.A. called Canter's,which, by the way, serves the best Reuben you've ever had in your life. It might give you a coronary, but it's totally worth it! Anyways, Jay calls me up and tells me that one of his friends just moved to town to attend to attend MI(Musician's Institute) and that I should hook up and meet him. Any friend of Jay's is an automatic friend of mine, so we headed up to Canter's to meet the kid. Jay had briefed me on him and said that he was a fabulous pianist, but to tell you truth, I didn't think too much of it. I just figured we were gonna meet and greet, and then move along. But this kid was one of those people that are just memorable from the first moment you meet them. You know what I mean? That person that just sticks in your head for no reason, I mean you hardly know them, but you'll never forget them. PJ was that guy. He was sittin' at a back booth with some of his friends when I met him. He had this energy about him that was so distinct; so "hey man, I'll be your friend"; so PJ. You spend 15 minutes with this guy and you're ready to tell him things you wouldn't even tell yourself. So anyways, we small talked for a bit, I think we might've even talked shop a little, you know I'm quite the businessman, so I'm sure I was tryin' to coerce him into joinin' the project. Turned out, about a week later, PJ came down to jam with Willis, Jay, & I. He'd never heard any of the tunes before, but I'm pretty sure he never missed a beat from the get go. He's got ears like a falcon, I mean he never missed a chord change. It's like he knew exactly where we were goin' even before we did! It was a great session, but PJ told us that he was really busy with school and that he couldn't commit to anything at the time, so it was pretty much just one of those "one of a kind, one time" jam sessions. Or so we thought.
You see, since the beginning, Jay, Willis & I had shared the same dream. We saw the big picture and were focused on taking the necessary steps to get us there. One of those important steps was to record a demo, which we needed in order to snag gigs, toss off to industry folk, get girls, etc... So I had this acquaintance who worked as a runner at a studio in North Hollywood called NRG, which was, and still is a world class facility. To make a long story short, he told us he could book us some time there and he would engineer and mix our demo. Huge oppurtunity for us by the way, I mean this studio goes for like $2,000 a day and we were gettin' in there for practically nothin'. Anyways, the night before the studio, Jay calls me up and tells me that PJ wants to come in and lay some tracks down with us. You know so I'm like "Ummmm, do you think he can handle it on such short notice?" Probably one of the dumbest questions I've EVER asked in my entire life. Jay just laughed and told me that PJ would do just fine. I didn't know exacly how good PJ really was at this time, but I would soon find out. So we go into the studio to lay down these tracks, right?, And we're listenin' back in the control room, and I'm just sittin' there, and I'm speechless. Finally hearing our music on tape made all of the hard work that we had put into this group totally worth it. Magic truly happened in the studio that day, and PJ was an irreplaceable part of that magic. But, sadly, we had to face to fact that he was just sittin' in with us that day and it was now a "two of a kind, two time" session", right? Wrong. The good guys win this time! I was thankin' PJ at the end of the day for sittin' in with us, when he said to me, "Am I not a part of this thing?" I believe my jaw hit the floor about this time, but I somehow found the words I was lookin' for and said, "hell yeah you're a part of this thing!" Excuse my French, but this moment called for the emotional release of profanity. So now we had Willis breakin' hearts with his guitar lines, Jay drivin' the bus with his upright, PJ showin' the world what can REALLY be done with a piano, and myself playin' a little guitar and delivering the lyrical message of our music. Yeah, things were really startin' to unfold for us, and we were one link away from completing the chain that would form "Fact & Fiction"...
